When I bought my Dell M1530 XPS laptop three years ago (yes, only three years ago), I thought I was getting a product that was going to last me at least this long, if not longer – without having to mess with it.
Two replacement batteries of over $100 each, one complete motherboard swap-out, and a crashed hard-drive later, I’ve had enough.
Earlier today (actually, just a few minutes ago), I found out that the warranty that I thought lasted until 2013 actually does not apply to my system. Then, the tech rep with whom I was online chatting told me that he should be charging me for all the diagnostic work I had already done!
Here’s our conversation:
04/06/2011 01:22:37PM Session Started with Agent (###)
04/06/2011 01:22:42PM Agent (###): “Thank you for contacting Dell XPS Premium Support. My name is ### and my rep ID number is ###. How may I help you today?”
04/06/2011 01:24:52PM Agent (###): “This is not to rush you, but to ensure we are connected. Please respond if you are”
04/06/2011 01:24:53PM James Hoeft: “Hi, Pravith. My laptop fails to start / connect to the operating system. It does not get past the “Microsoft Corporation” with the scrolling yellow bar window. I have run system diagnostics and found the following error: HardDrive – DST Short Test. Error code 0142. Also Error code 0F00:065D.
04/06/2011 01:26:31PM James Hoeft: “The first error code was “Hard Drive 1 – Self Test unsuccessful. Status 70″ and the second one was Disk_0- the self test failed to read a portion of the test.”
04/06/2011 01:26:45PM Agent (###): “I will be glad to assist you James.”
04/06/2011 01:26:50PM Agent (###): “Give me two to three minutes while I pull up the account information.”
04/06/2011 01:26:56PM Agent (###): “In the mean time what would be the best time and number to reach you incase of a follow up.”
04/06/2011 01:27:02PM James Hoeft: “OK. Thanks.”
04/06/2011 01:27:12PM James Hoeft: “###.”
04/06/2011 01:27:38PM Agent (###): “Thank you for staying connected, Appreciate your time and patience.”
04/06/2011 01:28:17PM James Hoeft: “No problem. I’ve been fighting with this all day. At one point I thought everything was fixed, but then the computer crashed.”
04/06/2011 01:28:18PM Agent (###): “To confirm, the system you are using is xps m 1530 with vista as the Operating system. Is that correct?”
04/06/2011 01:28:26PM James Hoeft: “Correct.”
04/06/2011 01:28:59PM Agent (###): “Thank you and I have checked with the account details and the hardware warranty on the system is expired.”
04/06/2011 01:29:20PM James Hoeft: “I thought my warranty was good until 2013?”
04/06/2011 01:31:46PM Agent (###): “That is the north American tech support which would be active only when you have the basic hardware warranty active on the system.”
04/06/2011 01:32:51PM Agent (###): “The error is related to the hard drive and it seems that the hard drive here is crashed and Ideally I should be charging you with expired warranty fees.”
04/06/2011 01:34:12PM Agent (###): “The basic hardware warranty on the system is expired.”
04/06/2011 01:34:17PM James Hoeft: “You should be charging me? I’m the one who did all the work and you guys screwed me on fine print with the warranty! Have a nice day. I’m glad you have confirmed to me I will never buy a dell again.”
Perhaps I’m over-reacting, but, quite frankly, I’m tired of this nonsense.
Why would I get an additional warranty if it doesn’t apply? Thanks for the fine print, guys.
If you hadn’t noticed, I have been doing limited blogging the last three weeks because I have been out of the country working. So, this is a fine thing to come home to and spend all of a vacation day on.
Thanks, Dell.
