Dell Support Caught Using Shady Sweepstakes to Hawk Warranties
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Thinking of calling Dell tech support? You may already be a “winner.” In three separate calls during our undercover testing for LAPTOP’s annual Tech Support Showdown, Dell persistently pushed premium warranties. At one point a rep claimed we had won a daily drawing that allowed us to buy a four-year extended warranty for the discounted price of $317. All we wanted to know was how to improve our battery life.
We wish we were making this up – and so does Dell. When confronted with our findings, the company told us that our observations give the company “important lessons to learn from.”
You think? Here’s a blow-by-blow of our experiences and Dell’s responses to our follow-up questions.
Computer type PC/Desktop System Manufacturer/Model Number Golden Mk. I.3 OS Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 (x64) CPU Intel i7 860 @ 2.80 GHz Motherboard Gigabyte P55A-UD3R Rev.1. Award BIOS F13 Memory 16GB Corsair Vengance DDR3 @ 661 MHz Dual Channel (9-9-9-24) Graphics Card EVGA NVidia GTX 560 1024MB Sound Card Realtek Integrated Monitor(s) Displays Dual Samsung SyncMaster 2494HS Screen Resolution 1920*1080 and 1920*1080
Keyboard Logitech G110 Mouse Logitech MX518 PSU Thermaltake ToughPower QFan 750W Case Thermaltake Element S VK60001W2Z Cooling Corsair H60 Water Cooling, 2*230mm and 2*80mm case fans Hard Drives 1*OCZ Vertex 2 60GB SSD;
2*Samsung F3 SpinPoint 1TB in RAID0;
3*Samsung F1 SpinPoint 1TB in RAID5;
1*Western Digital 500GB External USB 3.0
1*Seagate 500GB External USB 2.0 Internet Speed Not fast enough!!! Antivirus MSE and Malwarebytes Pro Browser Chrome Version 25 Other Info Laptop: ASUS X54C, Intel Core i3-2330M @ 2.0Ghz, 4GB RAM, Intel HD on-board graphics, Windows 7 Professional SP1 (x64), LinuxMint 14 (x64), PepperMint 3 (x86)
System Manufacturer/Model Number HP HPE400Z OS Windows Home Premium 7 X64 CPU 2.93ghz Motherboard Foxconn 2A92 Memory 6 gig Graphics Card ati radeon HD 5450 Sound Card Realtec on board ALC888 Monitor(s) Displays HP widescreen 20"
PSU AC Line 300 Watt Hard Drives Seagate ST3750528AS, 698 GB
Wow... in 2003 I worked with Dell when installng a server witha lot of workstations to update medical departments in an hospital... and the server had lot's of issues regarding BIOS, they were really reluctant of giving support via warranty, until we mennaced to go to courts... then they answered and had no othr option that replace the goddamn server XD...
I thought this was a common practie in Mexico, but now I see they are very tricky elsewere...
Computer type PC/Desktop System Manufacturer/Model Number Assembled Desktop PC OS Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit Build 7600 / Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP3 CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Dual Core CPU @ 2.7 Ghz (Brisbane) Motherboard PCChips A13G+ v3.0 Memory 2x2 GB DDR2 PC-5300 (667 Mhz) Kingston ValueRAM Graphics Card XFX ATI Radeon HD 4350 GPU (512 MB + 512 MB HM) Sound Card Realtek High Definition Audio Driver ALC660 @ MCP61S Monitor(s) Displays HP S2031 20" LED HD Widescreen Display Monitor Screen Resolution 1600 x 900 px
Keyboard Microsoft Wired Keyboard Silent Key Feature Mouse Microsoft USB Lasser Pointing Device PSU Pixxo Transformer 850W 80+ Certification PSU Case Compaq 5BW353 Case Cooling Many solutions, see other info... Hard Drives Maxtor Diamond Max 10 (160 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II Hard Disk)
Western Digital Scorpion Blue (250 GB, 5400 RPM, SATA-II External Hard Disk) Internet Speed 2 MB Other Info Windows Experience Index Result: 3.8 of 7.9.
Cooling solutions:
- AVC @ 2000/5000 RPM Copper Heatpipes (For Athlon 64 X2 6000+ CPU used in an Athlon 64 X2 5200+)
- Rear Fan 80 mm @ 2700 RPM for heat extraction
- Manhatan Chipset Cooler @ 4700/7200 RPM (For nVidia Chipset in MoBo)
- Foxconn @ 2500 RPM (Old Pentium III heatsink fan) in XFX ATI Radeon HD 4350
Computer type PC/Desktop System Manufacturer/Model Number Home Built OS Win 7 Pro 64 bit CPU Intel i5 2500K@3.3GHz Motherboard MSI P67A-GD55 (MS7681) Memory Corsair 16G Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce GT520 1GHz Sound Card Onboard Monitor(s) Displays Haans G 241 Screen Resolution 1600X1024
Keyboard Keytronic KT800P2 Mouse Logitech Wireless PSU OCZ ModXStream Modular High Performance 500 Watt Case Rosewill Challenger-U3 Hard Drives OCZ-Agility3 120GB Internet Speed 1500/384 (best I can get) Antivirus avast! Internet Security 8.0.1483 Browser Firefox 19.0.2
Dell Support Caught Using Shady Sweepstakes to Hawk Warranties problems?