Dell proposes settlement with SEC

An honest, customer service driven maker of top quality hardware steeped in integrity

An honest, customer service driven manufacturer of top quality hardware, steeped in integrity. A statement that has never been used to describe Dell, either the person or the company.

I've always steered well clear of Dell, their products have always been stinky piles of proprietary crap in my eye. but so many people are brainwashed into thinking Dell is something magnificent.

One of my clients has been completely brainwashed for years, and i've spent endless hours trying to convince him otherwise, to the point of nearly ruining our business relationship. Recently this client needed a server and some workstations, and decided to call Dell directly, without consulting with me first. He let the Dell reps spec his systems for him, and holy shit did they see him coming,

my client runs a small business out of his home with 4 full time employees, 2 in the office and 2 in the field, he uses a proprietary line of business application that could run on a netbook, and your typical business software ie quickbooks and office.

Dell specs him out a server, single CPU Xeon 2.53ghz, 2GB (yes 2GB) of RAM, 3x147GB 15K SAS drives in raid 5 running server 2008 enterprise and charges him almost $10k for it, of course with their 4 year gold support plan.

The workstations weren't any better, they sell him precision mobile workstations, with QX9300 quad core CPU with nVidia Quattro graphics, 4GB RAM single DIMM running windows XP, complete with docking station for $5000.00 ea. these things run so hot its unreal, from day one they would overheat within an hour of use and shut off. propping them up with a fan in front of them put too much of a strain on the docking station, so i had a handyman build a 10in fan in to the surface of the desks blowing up in to the laptop to keep them cool.

When I saw the specs of the server, which was after it had been delivered of course, i came unglued. I called Dell's enterprise customer service to ask WTF? at first they had the attitude of tough shit the customer should have known what he was ordering, but offered to take the server back less 20% because it was a custom ordered server. I raised holy hell with them and after 6 phone calls over a 2 week period, i was eventually connected with their executive customer service team, the lady i spoke with there was very responsive, i explained exactly what they had sold my client and why it was retarded and nearly non-functional yet extremely expensive, i also went over the treatment we received from the previous customer service reps and explained that as a result of that treatment we had contacted my clients attorney and were reviewing our legal options. The executive customer service rep took all of the information and said she would research the situation and call us back. My first thought was yeah right, and the devil's selling snow cones in Manhattan. I was wrong, she called back in less than 2 hours and offered to refund $3000 (the cost of the server 2008 ent license) and send out an additional 6GB of RAM for the server. which we agreed to. she stated the RAM would ship next day and the refund, which she first tried to slide by as a credit on my clients dell account, but later agreed to refund to his credit card, would be processed immediately.

The following month my client called me and said the RAM never showed up and he just got his card statement and no credit had been processed. I contacted Dell's executive customer service team and got a different person this time, when i asked to speak with the person i dealt with the previous time i was told that she wasnt available, she was helping other customers and my only option was to deal with the person i was speaking with, so i did, i explained the situation and we never received the RAM or the credit, he put me on hold for a really long time, then came back and said there was no record of me ever speaking to the other executive rep, no record of the promised refund or RAM to be sent out and that basically i was making the whole thing up, he also explained that Dell's return period had expired therefore we were stuck with what we had, end of story and he hung up. I called back several times, each time being told the first rep was not available. finally after about 7 or 8 calls, she answered the phone, I told her what had just happened, she was in disbelief, she pulled the records right up using his account number. after apologizing for nearly 15 minutes, she told me she would stay on the phone with me until she had a visa reference number for the refund and a fedex tracking number for the RAM. 30 minutes later she gave me the numbers. My client had visa on the phone and we verified the reference number for the credit on the spot.

Unreal... My clients new favorite saying is "Dude! Dont buy a Dell!"