testWhat do Dell and Big Bird have in common?
I don’t know either, but I know what they have in common with a crappy corporate setup.
I used to have a Preferred account with Dell and when I had to make some tough decisions I had some financial troubles and they closed it. Well now that things are back on track I wanted to use the account to try to reestablish credit with Dell and when I logged into my account I noticed it wasn’t closed, but that I had $1500 in credit. So I planned on putting the 22″ widescreen on the account until my check comes this week and then I would make 2 payments to get it paid off.
The online system said I could not order, so I called sales and she said she needed to speak with finance, so I waited. When she returned she said there was a block on my account and that we could place the order and then when I resolved the issue they would unblock the account and ship the order. I get transferred to finance, but instead of getting a person I was on an automated system, and it went over the details of my account. When I got someone on the phone they told me my account was closed and no orders could be processed until I reapplied and was approved. Am I stupid or does that sound like a little more than just a block. The first person I spoke with, who was in sales I assume is American, not that it matters, but the other person could hardly understand what I was telling her, I had to repeat myself over and over and each time I just got a “oh I am very sorry Mr. Manis”. She said nothing else but that my account was closed. I said goodbye and called back to get someone who knew what they were doing on the phone and this time I did not get finance I go in touch with general support, and they told me that in general if no order is placed within a year you must reapply, which makes sense, but nobody else told me that. I asked to speak with someone so I could reapply and I was transferred to billing, which did me no good, so they transferred me to someone that could help and I was sent to the main menu AGAIN. When I got back to the same person in billing I explained what happened and she repeatedly apologized and transferred me which ended in a dropped call.
This seems to be standard events in every call I ever make to Dell. This time it was only 1.5 hours instead of the 2.5 the last time. I emailed Dell Finance and explained everything and told them they need to fix the problem, and instead of getting a response to my email I get a response saying they cannot place orders on a closed account. Well no crap, but that isn’t what I emailed you about. I sent the email because the website said nothing about a block or closed account, the automated system said nothing about a block or closed account and then sales rep that spoke directly to finance about the issue said nothing about a closed account.
I have a credit card that has the worst financial website I have ever seen in my entire life, and in that time of troubles it told me that I had no ability to use the card at that time, and as soon as I was it told me I could. So a horrible website can do what a multi-billion dollar company cannot? doubtful.
This has pretty much made up my mind about selling my Dell laptop for something else. I really like their monitors though so I will probably just pay cash in the future and only purchase monitors from them. If I find something better though I will drop Dell all together because I am just tired of spending hours on the phone hearing repeated apologies and speaking with people who can’t understand what I am saying.
