The Dell debacle

My home server crashed about two months ago. At first, I thought it was a power supply failure. I’ve had more than a few of those and all the symptoms seemed the same. I ordered a replacement power supply from Dell. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I’m not what you’d call a hardware guy. I can swap a component but I don’t “build” my own systems. Not anymore. It just doesn’t seem to be worth it anymore, when you can get a complete waranteed system for the same amount of money.

In the case of the power supply, my brick and mortar options were limited. As I discovered the age of the one stop “computer store” is long passed. After it put it’s competitors out of business, CompUSA went the way of the dodo itself this year. You can buy hard drives and network cards at Radioshack but for something as seemingly exotic as power supply, the only “buy it today and take it home” option are the sketchy looking independent computer repair shops that you can still find in immigrant neighborhoods or a pawn shop gambit. The gambit being buying a similar looking and relatively overpriced tower and cannibalizing for parts, hoping that they will match up.

I wanted some vague assurance that what I would buy would eventually work with my system. There seemed to be no place left in Tampa where I could walk in and expect this gurantee with my immediate take home purchase. I was forced to look online for a solution and in doing so was resigned to the fact that I’d end up paying upwards of 30% of the total cost for shipping, in order to receive my needed component within one business week.

I’ve bought two computers from Dell without a problem. Both of them have far outlasted the warantee. Though I’ve heard the horror stories, you could say I’ve had no reason to be warry. The power supply purchase continued the trend of well met expectations. I bypassed the website and called the sales office. The call probably took about fifteen minutes. Once I was connected to the appropriate rep (a very helpful South Asian), she quickly guided me to the appropriate part and set up my order. The order arrived promptly two days later. Unfortunately, delivery of the power supply lead me to discover that it was not what I needed. Further diagnosis and research lead me to discover that the motherboard and or processor had failed. I don’t blame Dell at all, in this regard. They gave me exactly what I asked for, even though it turned out to be not what I needed.

This, of course, led to the realization that instead of having a $50 fix on my hands, I was looking at a minimum of $100 for a replacement motherboard from a third party vendor of unknown reputation. Or, I could buy a “new” refurbished tower with a one year warantee from Dell Outlet, that would fill my LAMP server needs at a price of about $300, shipping included. Thus far, my experience with Dell led me to believe that the $300 option was the best course.

The Inspiron 531 mini-tower desktop had an AMD 2.3 ghz processor, 2 gigabytes of RAM, a DVD-R/W drive and a 160 GB hard drive; more power than I would ever fully utilize. Total cost with tax was about $245. I paid $59 for two-day shipping. Now, just because you pay for two-day or even about $100 for next-day shipping, Dell has no obligation as to when they will actually ship the order. Needless to say, my experience told me that Dell would ship within 2-3 business days and that it would arrive within 1 week of order. The extra $30 over ground service can save you up to a week of waiting and I’ve usually found it worth the money. Sure enough, I received the shipping confirmation that following Monday, meaning by system would arrive, at latest, exactly one week from the time I had placed the order. Par for the course, I thought.

As it turns out, the order was actually delivered one day after being shipped from the Dell distribution center. Here’s the punchline; instead of being delivered to my home in Tampa, it was delivered to a business address, previously unknown to me, in Hunt Valley, Maryland!

I first became suspicious after receiving the shipping confirmation from Dell. Two days later, the tracking information was still not appearing on my order page. I called Dell customer service and spoke to a rep, I’ll call him Jim, who informed me that the order had been delivered by DHL the day previous. He dictated the tracking information to me, 10:14AM, signed for by receptionist, name I didn’t recognize, etc. Jim confirmed for me the shipping address, the correct address, my home in Tampa, where there is no receptionist at 10:00Am or at any hour. I questioned the validity of the delivery, citing the lack of a receptionist. Jim seemed unphased by this turn. He did, however, offer me an option, that I assume was meant to placate me.

Jim said that he could file a “claim” for a lost order and if the “claim” was found to be valid, I could receive a replacement for my order within…2 weeks! Needless to say, I was beside myself. In less than five minutes, I had been transformed from a paying customer into some sort of claimant in a quasi legal hell. I told Jim to proceed with finding me a replacement and before I got off the phone with him, I persuaded him to give me the DHL tracking number that had been so conspicuously missing from my order page.

I called DHL customer service and was able to get a rep to transcribe the details of my computer’s travelogue. The computer had shipped without delay from the Dell distribution center to it’s intended destination in Hunt Valley. I say intended, because as far as DHL was concerned the Maryland address was were it was supposed to go. It was the only address that they were given by Dell.

Armed with this new information, I called Dell again. “You see, my computer isn’t lost. There’s no need to “replace” the order. Just contact DHL and have them retrieve it in Maryland and send it to me.” In the bizarro world of Dell support, that’s apparently not an option. As far as my new rep, Chuck [sic] was concerned, I had filed a claim for a replacement. Within 5-10 business days, read two weeks, Dell would find a new computer for me and send it to me with a “free” next day shipping upgrade. “But I paid $59 to have my computer delivered in TWO DAYS. It wasn’t delivered in two-days. Now, you want me to wait up to two additional weeks. What about the $59? You’re going to refund that right?” Chuck said no.

“Okay Chuck, my expectations are not being met here, let’s just call the whole thing off, shall we? I want to cancel my order!” In a way, I was bluffing. Two extra weeks or not and despite all the disservice up to this point, I didn’t think I would be able to get a better deal anywhere else. Although no one had presented it as option till now, it was my prerogative to walk away and I wanted to put it on the table. In phone support terms, the bluff did have the desired effect. Chuck upgraded me to the next level of support and transfered me to his supervisor. I’ll call her Mary.

Mary took the news of our impending termination with stride. She took the few details she needed to process the transaction and then asked me, very rote indifference, if “there was anything else she could do for me”. “Yeah,” I said, “you can ship my computer to me immediately, or at least on a more rigid time line than what your normal replacement procedure dictates and you can refund the $59 that I’ve paid for shipping, since I clearly did not get what I paid for there.” Mary informed me that this wasn’t possible. As far as she was concerned, I had two options, wait for the replacement system to arrive in 1-2 weeks or wait for my refund to be processed within 3-5 business days. I opted not give Dell another dollar of my money and I hope not to ever do business with them again.

Two blocks from my house, in a strip mall storefront that at different times housed a comic book store and an ice cream shop, there is an independently owned and operated computer sales and repair shop. I’ve probably walked past it a thousand times without giving it another thought except to ponder when it would go out of business. Compumania is owned and operated by Ricardo, a guy from Colombia who makes his living catering to the personal computer needs of my increasingly immigrant community. I stopped in to see Ricardo a couple of times last week, on my way home from work. I eventually agreed to have him build me a custom tower with a Duo Core processor and all of the same specs as the Inspiron tower I was going to buy from Dell. We made sure that the processor architecture was compatible with my build of Ubuntu and I was able to boot my existing server with only a minor modification to the network adapter installation. He personally delivered the whole thing to my door, two days after I paid him. The total price tag came to, you guessed it, just under $300. The only downside is, that although the processor and motherboard are waranteed for a year or more, the system itself has no warantee or service contract. Even Ricardo doesn’t know if he’ll be around next year. But chances are, the new server will last over a year. For $300, what more can you ask for.

The whole debacle has got me reflecting on the state of retail computing. Dell and Gateway have effectively put the one stop computer stores out of business. Consumers can buy individual components from any number of online sellers, whose prices are usually inversely proportional to their reputation. But when a small business or individual needs support or upgrades for their existing enterprise hardware, where do they turn. As I see it, the current landscape offers two distinct options that I will be bound to explore in the future. First, theirs the boutique route offered by Apple, it seems like a good way to go, if you’ve got the cash. Second, Best Buy and Circuit City, respectfully, have been developing their Geek Squad and Fire Dog tech support services for a couple of years now. Their competing directly with Dell in the area of add-on service contracts for new hardware purchases. They also offer their services a la carte. This seems like a good way to go. The next time I need some support, I’m going to check them out.