Dell shipped my all-in-one computer with a smaller hard drive than what I ordered Internet, Internet

I am happy to say that after another unscheduled appt set by Dell, I made arrangements with the service tech to leave the new HD in a secure area at my house and I would pay someone to install it. It turns out that he called me as I was driving home from work and I gave him directions to my home.

He arrived, installed the HD and left. My computer is up and running again.

As for taking my computer to work? One of the IT guys offered to install the HD for me if I brought the computer in. They do it all the time for employees.

Thank you everyone who commented on my post.

That is a good option depending on the employer. The reason I say that is no matter the size of the computer the employer may not want her to bring it in for a couple of reasons.

1. Employer may not approve of people conducting personal business at work.
2. If the technician needs to download additional drivers the network may be set up to allow only certain computers access to the network or may have policies about hooking up personal computers to the network.


Janice I am just throwing this out her for you to consider. Try doing the following:

1. Call Dell to reschedule a visit.
2. When scheduling the appointment stress the fact that you originally had an appointment that was not kept and you would like an explanation from the tech or his/her supervisor why that appointment was not kept (don't demand one just ask for one).
3. Obtain from the supervisor of the tech a commitment that it will not happen this time. This way you are shifting the commitment from the tech to the supervisor.
4. Obtain the supervisors cell phone or work number as well as the field technician that will be doing the work.
5. Depending on how far of a drive it is to work have the supervisor or the tech call you 30-45 minutes ahead of time (or how ever long it will take you to get home) and make arrangements with your manager to take off when the time comes. You may want to consider working with the tech to narrow down the time so you can maybe leave an hour early or something.

I agree that the tech should not have left you hanging to begin with. Something you need to consider though is that the same tech that is being sent to your home is also responsible for going to businesses to resolve those problems as well. Those companies have SLA's (Service Level Agreements) with Dell for Dell to repair their problems within a certain amount of time or Dell loses money. Those companies will have priority for the tech and if something comes up then you get bumped down the list. That is why I suggested you get the supervisors contact info as well to make sure that he can have someone else come to take care of your problem.

If Dell doesn't want to provide you with the info requested then escalate the problem through the service desk until you get someone that will take personal responsibility for seeing to it that you are contacted and this is taken care of.

I meant for her to have the Dell guy come to her office instead of having to wait for him/her at home.  And I suggested going to the top because that's usually - not always, but usually - worked for me. But I do agree the customer messed up here to. But I stick to the bottom line, which is Dell still got paid for something they didn't deliver and they ought to make it right, be it 21 days after the delivery or 21 months. They're a big enough company that they ought to make it right. Nothing else to say. To say otherwise is to say the customer has no right to screw up, but they have carte blanche to.

Let's see. Where do we begin. First off I do not work for Dell I have yet to see any response from Dell but common sense tells me this is a case of buyers regret or just plain neglect on the part of the poster.

"Dell had this guy's phone and address too.
Simply sending a blasted email 5 days later is not sufficient
notification in my view, precisely because of the risk it won't be
seen. They knew they screwed up, and not taking care of the issue,
no matter how much time goes by, makes them thieves. This wasn't
a defect that manifested itself after the return period
(forget the screen issue. Talking strictly the drive issue).
This was sending someone less than they paid for. That's called
thievery to me."

If the OP (a woman by the way) had checked that she wanted only email notifications then why should they call her? I think if you check any website that is used for ordering anything online you have the option to be contacted by phone or email (or both). If you select email only than that is the only way they will get hold of you because that is the ONLY way you wanted to be contacted.
Yep, they screwed up and they tried to take care of it. The OP simply ignored the email or failed to act on if for other reasons.

"To the OP, don't deal anymore with customer service.
Go to the corporate executive offices and demand one of the
CEOs staffers deal with this.And bring the issue up with your
card issuer. Show them the email that you bypassed, figuring it
was junk. Emphasize that the issue was hidden! You had no way
of knowing the drive was 1/2 what it was supposed to be,
unless you knew to look for such a thing.And involve the BBB.
What more have you got to lose.And the ICC. Dell may be breaking
federal law by not fixing this."

This is partially a good idea. Don't deal with customer service. The CEO staffer part is kind of funny since it is not likely to happen.

If anyone with reasoning skills sits back and reads this they will wonder just how she bypassed the email. Think about if for a minute. The OP says she thought the email was a sales solicitation email but if you read who it is from you would know it was not. Funny that she didn't kind of blank out her name and put the full email (who it was from or at least the email address) and all.
How often do you KEEP a junk email voiceofreason? I tend to delete mine they second I look at it and determine it is a junk or sales email. I certainly wouldn't keep it for 2 months and I find it hard to beleive anyone does. Don't you??

As far as not having a way of knowing whether or not the hard drive was smaller? Look at the info I gave her before. Anyone can figure out how big their hard drive is by looking that way (or even other ways I am sure). Dell has attempted to fix this but this is clearly a case of I want something to whine about or I do not like my computer and want to get rid of it.

"BTW, if the desktop unit is light enough to bring to work,
couldn't you also arrange for their tech to service it at your job?
I understand for some desktops, that's not a practical option,
but just in case."

So now we are going to throw fraud into the mix? Company PC techs are not paid to fix personal PC's. This is not a practical option from the start and can actually get the OP in trouble depending on the company. She should check first and see if that is an option. If she has a friend that is a PC tech (or maybe a friend of a friend). Maybe she can pay that person to come over in their spare (or off time) to put in the hard drive but to take it into work and have it paid for by her company? Well lets say she should start freshening up her resume and looking for another job.

Dell had this guy's phone and address too. Simply sending a blasted email 5 days later is not sufficient notification in my view, precisely because of the risk it won't be seen. They knew they screwed up, and not taking care of the issue, no matter how much time goes by, makes them thieves. This wasn't a defect that manifested itself after the return period (forget the screen issue. Talking strictly the drive issue). This was sending someone less than they paid for. That's called thievery to me.
Dell, if you don't accommodate this man, then we can now consider your firm to be thieves and crooks, got it?

To the OP, don't deal anymore with customer service. Go to the corporate executive offices and demand one of the CEOs staffers deal with this.And bring the issue up with your card issuer. Show them the email that you bypassed, figuring it was junk. Emphasize that the issue was hidden! You had no way of knowing the drive was 1/2 what it was supposed to be, unless you knew to look for such a thing.And involve the BBB. What more have you got to lose.And the ICC. Dell may be breaking federal law by not fixing this.

BTW, if the desktop unit is light enough to bring to work, couldn't you also arrange for their tech to service it at your job? I understand for some desktops, that's not a practical option, but just in case...

Janice,

"As I said in my complaint, I didn't see the email until July 22nd
when looking for a phone # for Dell. I tend to ignore the "once a
day" emails from Dell trying to sell me something else."

Maybe, you should at least read an email before deciding to ignore it in the future. I did read your posting (and if you READ mine) you will see that I saw they sent you the wrong hard drive. They acknowledged that and if you would have bothered to read the email when you got it you could have shipped the PC back to them in the orginal box with a return label they sent you (or would have sent you) and resolved this situation back in May.

"It went from a working PC to one that now has the hard drive
erased because Dell was replacing the 500GB hard drive to a
1TB hard that I ordered. They told me to erase the 500GB
hard drive before returning it to Dell. If you read my complete
complaint that states Dell admitted they shipped the wrong hard
drive you wouldn't have had to ask that question."

You did not mention that you erased your hard drive. To say the least I would have waited until the tech arrived at my house with the new HD in his hands ready to swap them out.
Also, in case you did not know you DO NOT have to take your computer apart to see what size your HD drive is. All you have to do is the followng:
1. Double click on "MY COMPUTER"
2. Select one of the "local disks"
3. Right click you mouse and go down to properties and open it up. You will see how much space is on each one. You may have more so do this with all of them.

Simple as that. I would wager that you would have never known they sent you a smaller HD in your computer if they had not sent you an email and at least tried to work with you.

If you are not happy with Dells service then just have them send you the new HD and have someone that is computer literate install it for you.

As I said in my complaint, I didn't see the email until July 22nd when looking for a phone # for Dell. I tend to ignore the "once a day" emails from Dell trying to sell me something else.

My work schedule is 8 to 4, Monday thru Friday. The appts are scheduled as 4 hour windows and the service techs stop working at 5:30. The one appt I did schedule was a 1:30 to 5:30 window with a morning confirmation that the tech would call before arriving. I had to take a half day from work, and the tech never showed up nor did I receive a call. 

They will not take the computer back nor will they reimburse me. I can probably call the credit card company and see what can be done, but I bought this system in April.

I spoke to a Dell CSR about the black screen issue. He took control of my computer and found the errors that said the system shut down at least once a day for no reason. He found a link on one error and checked Microsoft. It turns out that it is a Window problem that Microsoft is aware of.

It went from a working PC to one that now has the hard drive erased because Dell was replacing the 500GB hard drive to a 1TB hard that I ordered. They told me to erase the 500GB hard drive before returning it to Dell. If you read my complete complaint that states Dell admitted they shipped the wrong hard drive you wouldn't have had to ask that question.

I set up my computer when I received it. I did not open up the back of the computer to see if it had the hard drive I ordered. Why in the world would I??

doesn't always work, I tried it.  If they can prove delivery which they always do and they can use your emails as proof, you won't get the chargeback.

Soon after Dell shipped you the system and you received it (within about a week) they sent you a notice saying "hey we screwed up" and somehow you did not read it until July 22nd. Why did you not read it back in May?? How could you have missed it?

What is your work schedule? If you work at a later time why didn't you say "No, I need to schedule an earlier appointment?"

Why didn't you notice they sent you a smaller hard drive? How long was it sitting in its box before you set it up.

Just tell them you want the difference in cash (or check) or if you have it on your credit card just contest the charge as Mr. Rik suggested and wait for them to credit you back the difference.

How long after you had the computer did you start having these other problems?  Did you check the power settings to see how long the computer is not being used before it goes into "sleep mode"

How did this go from a working PC to one that now has the hard drive erased and no programs?

You should seriously consider having someone that knows what they are doing come look at your computer even if it means taking a week off work.

you paid with credit card, that way you can call them to dispute the charges and tell dell to goto h**l.