I fought with Dell Financial Services for over a year about an extended service contract that I supposedly ordered. I had paid off my account — in fact had overpaid and received a refund check — when a few months later I started getting letters and phone calls about late payments and finance charges for a service contract that I did not order. With each phone call I would get punted back and forth between the sales department, financial services department, and customer service department — each saying my question was not their responsibility and that they could not talk to the other department about my business. DFS told me that as long as their records showed I owed money they would continue to add late penalties and finance charges and report me to the credit bureaus, and that if I am disputing the charges, I (not they) would have to call the sales department to have the charge removed. The sales department said they did not correct any errors in charges unless I had an order # or invoice number, and I kept telling them I had not order # or invoice number because I didn't order anything.
Customer service would be apologetic and say they would file a request to management to check into the matter and get back to me, which they never did. Meanwhile, they would keep adding 20% interest (on a bogus $250 charge) plus $29.50 per month late penalties — So that I had paid $256 and still owed over $300. I had made repeated requests to at least be able to communicate with someone for whom English was their first language, and would receive a response with someone with an obviously Indian name who did not seem to understand my request (I'm not prejudiced against Indians — I'm Asian myself — but when I'm dealing with an English-speaking American business I think I should be able to talk to English-speaking Americans). So finally I wrote to the Texas Better Business Bureau and the Texas (where the DFS handling my account is based) Attorney General's office. I heard from the BBB within a week — they contacted DFS for me had received an apologetic response from Dell who said they were "sorry the customer is not happy with her Dell Services" and promised to respond within 7 days. Well, it was longer than that — and I was getting ready to report them again — when I finally got a check from Dell refunding me in full for the amount I had paid. No apologies, no explanation for exactly what the money was for, but at least a response after all this time. This company has already lost a recent Class Action lawsuit for their shady practices so I think they will respond quickly if you go through the Attorney General and BBB of the state where they are based.
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