To Heck With Dell

 To Heck with Dell

I had to call tech support this week regarding my Dell laptop that has been acting strange. Some lady came on the line and told me I had to press One to speak to someone in English. I quickly checked my phone number to be sure I was calling from America, but finally pressed One because my Spanish and Pakistani skills are less than adequate. I had to fight the urge to press 8.


After 25 minutes of going through a series of recorded directions and options, I finally reached a live person, a lady who obviously did not press One for English. After 10 more minutes of a catastrophic language barrier disaster, she finally put someone else on the line whose minimum level of English could almost be understood through her heavy accent.


Before I explained my problem, she advised me that my call was being recorded for quality assurance purposes.


I advised her that I had been recording the call from the moment I first spoke to the lady who spoke no English and would continue to record the call with her for my own quality assurance purposes.


She told me that I was not authorized to record the call. I asked her who authorized her to record my call, since I certainly did not authorize it. She raised her voice to a new level of authority and demanded that I stop recording the call.


I asked to speak to her supervisor, She responded that she WAS the supervisor and the call would be immediately terminated unless I stopped recording it.


I paused for a moment, trying to decide if I wanted to fight to the death with this woman or get the problem resolved. I figured getting the thing fixed was a higher priority than driving this lady nuts. “OK,” I sighed, “I stopped recording the call. Now Can we get to the problem?”


After taking all my basic information, she then asked for my Password.


“What password,” I asked?


“Your Technical support Password,” she said.


“I don’t have one, never had one, don’t want one,” I snarled. “I just want to you to help me with a simple technical problem, now, today, here, while I am on the phone, not recording you.”


She was now in full control. “Sir, I cannot help you unless you have a technical support password.”


“Will you please give me one,” I begged, feeling a sob working its way up my throat.


“I am not authorized, sir. You have to go on-line to our website and get it there. Thank you for choosing Dell Computer for all your friendly computer needs”   Dial Tone!


I took a short break, banged my head on the Dell laptop several times and then logged on to the Dell website. Well, I tried to log on. It seems I needed a Password to log in, [that I did not have] so that I could get a technical support password for use with that group and another password to pay my bill on line and another to register a complaint.


I turned off the computer and went in to watch Bill O’Reilly. Surely, that would calm me down.


Tomorrow I will drive to Costco and buy a non-Dell laptop.


What I really find frustrating, is that I have to dial One to talk in fractured English to someone in Pakistan about a product I bought in Palm Desert, California, USA that was manufactured in China.