Dell tech support rant

Forgive me but I have to rant. (If you’re a child or are sensitive, cover your eyes).

Stupid-goddamn-fucking-MORONIC-idiotic-Dell Tech Support!!!

First, Windows crashes. I nearly lose everything, and just barely manage to back up crucial documents before having to reformat my hard drive and reinstall Windows from scratch. 2 hours on line with tech support and I’m finally told “you have to format”. Duh! Did they give you a prize for that, Einstein?

Flash forward a week, and to one of those horrifying blue screens reading “Hardware Failure: please contact your vendor”. So I call. And I wait. And wait. And wait. Classical music interspersed with those “thank you for holding” pre-programmed messages that we all love so very much.

Finally a woman comes on the line and asks me for my service tag. I dutifully repeat it to her. She asks me to repeat it about 7 or 8 times until she’s finally satisfied that she has it correct. Then she told me I called the wrong section, that I was speaking to home and small business tech support and I should be speaking to major accounts. I started to protest (after all, I’m not a “major account”) but she had already put me back on hold.

Five minutes later, someone answers from major accounts. After putting me through the service tag exercise about another four times, he finally ascertained that I really wanted home and small business after all. Before I could even grumble about being switched back and forth again, I was back on hold.

Person number two at home and small business was more helpful. She suggested I turn my computer on and off and call if the problem recurred.

Yeah, thanks for nothing.

Well, surprise surprise, 48 hours later I’m sitting at my computer and the same blue screen comes up again. So, dutifully, I get on line with Tech Support at 1am. At 2:15, the annoying classical music finally gives way to someone who probably learned how to speak English off the top of a cereal box. I mean, far be it for a Quebec anglophone to be linguistically prejudiced, but sheesh buddy, you’ve been hired on a telephone tech support line and it would probably help if you could get a sentence out without having to repeat yourself 7 times.

Anyway, this tech support guy asks me to remove the side panel of my computer and start nosing around inside. At this point, I should probably explain that to me, a motherboard is something resembling a two-dimensional cutout photo of my mother. I am NOT tech-savvy. So both our patiences were wearing thin by the time I managed to figure out how to unlatch the padlock and actually open the damn computer.

Then, he told me something to the effect of “rotate the power supply and locate the memory chips” but it could just as easily have been Swahili to me for all I understood. Hey, I just use ’em, I don’t build ’em. But he was getting fed up with me as well. I asked him what these pieces looked like. He told me that I should know. His descriptions were less than useless. “Horizontal” and “vertical” are NOT synonyms!!!

I finally got annoyed and said that I am still under warranty for tech support, and could a technician please come and do this diagnostic because I wasn’t qualified to. Seems logical, right?

Wrong!

I found out that “tech support” doesn’t mean having someone actually help to fix the computer. Silly me for thinking that! In fact, I was responsible for doing the diagnostic myself and only once it was determined exactly which part was defective, could a technician be dispatched to repair or replace it.

So what on earth is the use?

After about the twelfth time of biting my tongue and trying to explain to Mr. “How could you not know what the display card looks like?” anti-support-guy that no, I could NOT locate what he was trying to tell me, he snapped at me, “can’t you find a friend or relative who actually knows something about computers to do this for you?”

Well, it was 3am by then and I was livid. I replied, “That’s why I called you! You’re tech support! You’re supposed to know something about the computer!”

Needless to say, this 3am tug-of-words was not how I wanted to be spending my evening. My hopes of a decent night’s sleep were dwindling by the second. In total and utter frustration, I finally asked if there was a supervisor or someone else there who I could speak to.

I think Mr. anti-support guy was happy to get rid of me. I waited for a few minutes listening to the classical music again, until someone else came on the line.

His English was just as bad as the first guy’s… but at least he seemed willing to help and to concede that it’s not necessary to have a computer engineering degree to qualify for some technical support. He patiently talked me through locating the parts inside the computer, and removing the memory cards one at a time to figure out which one was causing the problem. But, not being particularly skilled, I kept replacing them improperly. So by the time I got them back into their original configuration, it was 4:30am. And I knew I had no energy left for diagnostics.

At this point, I asked person number two what exactly he was intending for me to do. He said he wanted me to remove the cards one at a time, to see if I still got the error message. I explained (rather patiently, considering the circumstances) that the error had only happened twice in 3 days, and wouldn’t show up immediately but that it could take days or even weeks to test. And I certainly had no intention of staying on the line to find out. At that point, it was time for bed, so I hung up, after person number two agreed to have someone phone me back the next day. Not show up to help, mind you – after all, what is “next day on-site support” good for if you actually have to send a technician? Nope, just to phone, so he could tell me the same useless crap as everyone else so far.

Gee, thanks a zillion!

So my hopes of actually getting my computer fixed before the warranty expires in February seem to be dwindling by the minute. And don’t tell me that Dell hasn’t thought of that. I may have to bite the bullet and actually pay for the damn repairs. Just as long as I don’t have to spend yet another night staying up till 4:30am on the line with someone who would rather walk over hot coals than be helpful in any way.

Remind me never to get ripped off by taking any kind of extended warranty from Dell ever again. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go throw something at my computer.

Update: Well, I found out why nobody at Dell Tech Support was able to speak English properly. Turns out they’ve outsourced the whole operation to a call centre in India. So I guess I can’t blame the support people for their English… but I can blame Dell for thinking this cost-cutting measure is a good idea. Silly me, I thought they’d discontinued the practice, but apparently only people with Optiplex or Latitude computers get North American support. Those of us with Dimensions are still stuck with the overseas scripted responses.

Update #2: Okay, one hour later and off the phone with yet another friendly Indian support guy. This one had me go through the whole 9 yards again, only to tell me that maybe it’s the sound card that’s causing the problem, so I should disconnect it and if the problem happens again, call back in the next 48 hours.

Er, I don’t pretend to be that tech-savvy, so maybe one of you folks “in the know” can tell me if it’s likely for a memory parity error to be caused by the sound card. Cause it seems a bit counter-intuitive to me. But clearly, Dell won’t replace my memory modules until I rule out the sound card as the cause of the error… so I guess I’m stuck playing along for now.

AAAAAUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!