How frustrating!
I have never liked dell, I just dont like their products - they are not good value, and I can build PCs for about half the price of a dell computer of the same standard.
I dont bother with customer support, I search online a bit, but if that doesnt help, I dont call the help centers - there just a waste of time.
Infact, someone asked me to fix their computer, as it was not connecting to the internet. They had called customer support, and quoted the error code, the error code had come from MS outlook, so the guy I was talking to was very helpful, and told me there was a problem between the router, and the computer, so he issues a new password, and I make change the passwords on the PC - No luck.
I then had a look at the connection settings. Oh look, somones changed the settings - 30 secconds and, voila, the problem is solved.
I dont mean to say that the people who work at the help centers dont know about solving computer related problems, or that they are un-helpful. The person who told me what to do, had most likely just told me what their manual said solves that error code.
Infact today I was solving a problem with an MSN live application. So I looked up the error code to find out what causes it. Microsoft s knowledge base said it was because the computer wasnt accepting the security certificates, or the application was not registered in the windows configuration. So I try all of the online solutions, as I dont know what else to do. No luck. But then, on eof those things that really annoys me. The person who owns the laptop, has set the clock wrong!! So I immediately set the clock using a good time server. I then, just to see if time could have possibly have solved the problem, atempted to use the software that was causing the problem and - IT WORKS!
Microsofts documentation said that it was a horribly conplex problem that needed files to be re-registered, and a load of configuration files to be deleted and renamed. But no - the clock was wrong!
I think both of those examples prove that its not the people who try to help from the call centers - its the companies. They have sold the product, they have made the money.
You may say, that they want your money in the future, but, in the case of microsoft, if they dont buy their next OS, recent software wont work. If people buy from someone else they may need a new computer, or the software they own may not work. With dell, they are quite cheap compared to other computer vendors, so if you dont know how to build a computer, they are quite a good place to buy from, even if you have had some bad experiences.
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