Dude! You're gettin' a Dud!

Ever wonder where the "Dell Dude" went? I suspect he's on the factory assembly line as evidenced by my sister & brother-in-law's recent experience with Dell.

Flashback to March of this year. My nephew orders a new Dell laptop for his mom and dad, knowing the convenience that a laptop and wireless connection can afford. I happened to be there when it arrived and so, being the family "tech" guy, offered to help get things up and running. One small problem though - it was dead as a doornail right out of the box.

Should'a taken that as a bad sign right there. But being the optimists and having a reasonably good experience in contacting them (not a lot of waiting or run around) the decision was made to ship it back for a replacement.

Fast-forward to October. The Dell goes dead again, refusing to boot up. Calls ensue and a local technician comes by to render a verdict that it's a goner - the motherboard is kaput. At this point my brother-in-law contacts Dell looking for a replacement - as in a new laptop. And considering it didn't quite go six months I think he's got a pretty strong argument - after all he's now faced with the aggravation of having lost whatever content was on the laptop plus being without one again for a period of time. However, Dell felt that things would be just fine with a refurbished laptop and proceeded to quote chapter and verse from their fine print.

You know, if you're thinking of buying a Dell as a holiday gift I'd suggest that instead of contacting the company simply go online to one of the "dented and scratched" retailers and pick one up there. At least that way you'll end up with a refurbished computer that you didn't pay full retail price for...