The smell of Dell

I thought that I would buy a laptop from Dell PC. I have two already, but the experience has been so horrific that I am now looking only to escape.

Yesterday I placed an order through their internet site for a laptop. The first sign of trouble was that the confirmation email didn't list the specification of the laptop that I had chosen -- thus I had no record of my choices. Going back into the system and trying to build the same system so that I could print it off came up with a different price! It seems to change, within an hour or two!

That night Barclaycard decided to throw a wobbly and block the payment (see elsewhere). They told me to ring up Dell and get them to attempt the charge again.

I ring Dell customer service. I get a robot. I follow the options and end up in a dead end. I try again. I get an Indian woman who asks for the details. She tells me that Dell don't send emails when orders fail, only when they work. After telling her the story, she then asks if the laptop has arrived! Obviously she didn't understand anything that I told her. I query this, and she starts demanding aggressively that I tell her if it has arrived. At that point I put the phone down and ring again.

This time I get another Indian, who asks for the details. She then transfers me to another Indian who asks for the details and transfers me to another one who does the same!

By now I am getting rather frustrated, but -- I have played before -- I remain calm and state my queries calmly and clearly.

I'm then put onto someone who clearly isn't an Indian, but tells me that the order will have died and that I will have to reorder the laptop again. At this point my instincts flare -- these people are so disorganised that I could easily end up with two! She passes me to a saleswoman -- another Indian -- who tells me that I want to make an order. Of course I don't, so she passes me back to 'customer service' -- the same gang of Indians as before.

The next one to come up asks once again for all the details of my order. This time I refuse, and say that I want to make a complaint. I am transferred to yet another Indian, who tells me that she is placing a complaint for me, but refuses to allow me to say what my complaint is -- she clearly doesn't understand what the word means! At this I snap and ask, calmly and clearly, for the order to be cancelled. This does seem to be understood, and I am told that I will get an email in 24-48 hours confirming the cancellation.

I wonder if they can manage that...

Barclaycard problems

Barclaycard's fraud prevention team are destroying their business, I think.

In the summer I bought a holiday. I got a call one evening from Barclaycard telling me that they had declined the payment, since it was unusual and made overseas. I had to call up the holiday company and tell them to take the money again. This was a pain, but not unreasonable since the holiday company (for reasons known to themselves) had a payment processing company in Belgium.

Yesterday I tried to buy a laptop from Dell. Last night I got The Call. Barclaycard had decided to decline that payment too. Would I ring up Dell and tell them to take the money again. My experience doing that is detailed in the following post, but of course I couldn't get any cooperation. So I decided to cancel the order, and, since Dell were in such a mess, to make sure that the money was blocked.

I ring up Barclaycard, and have to listen endlessly to their robot system. Eventually I get through to someone who listens and blandly tells me that they can't block any payment from Dell -- why not? they did yesterday! -- and that if one is made I should just raise a claim. Well, that was worth sitting in a queue for!

Barclaycard ARE good for chargebacks. But I don't use a creditcard in order to have to ring up and confirm every purchase.