First of all, I think Dell is in Austin, TX. I could not find their address on their website (I think they're hiding), but I seem to remember this.
I homeschool, and I get my kids' classes in blockfeeds (one week's worth of a given subject in one chunk) via satellite to my computer. I then make dvd's and the kids watch them a class at a time. I use a Dell E510 with Media Center. I have used Media Center for three years, but all of a sudden, it is acting squirrelly. One to four times a week, it will stop recording a blockfeed, usually a minute into it, due to "lack of audio/video data." When I look at what little it recorded, the class looks fine. A/V are both good. Then the recording just stops.
So I called Dell tonight. First of all, their voice recognition software is the worst I've ever experienced. I speak standard English with only a very slight Southern accent, but the software cannot even understand my simple "yes" or "no" response. It took me forever to get through that roadblock (I called them once before with the same results).
I finally got through and was on hold for about 20 minutes. The telephone connection was not real good (again, a repeat problem), and it was difficult for me to understand the tech. I think she was in India, but her accent was good; I think the problem was in the phone line. I did not have this problem with my HP computer, and their tech support was also in India.
After I explained the problem, she transferred my to another office, where I was on hold again for a long time. He told me that it was a software problem and he could not help me unless I paid for it. He did not know how much it cost. He said I could get the same support free over the internet, chatting with a techie. I went to the website he said, but the site told me that I could only chat about hardware problems. For software, I had to call a toll-free number and pay for it.
So I called their toll-free number and—you guessed it! —was on hold again, this time for about 1/2 hour. All I wanted was to know how much it would cost me to get my problem fixed. I talked to the techie for probably 15 minutes while he asked me all sort of questions and finally confirmed that, yes, I had to pay for an answer. Finally, I got a price: $239 for one year, four issues, or $99 for one incident. I declined. Hey, they broadcast each blockfeed twice, so I can frequently catch the 2nd bf.
Altogether, it took me 2 hours to find out I could not afford their help. BTW, my computer is less than a year old.
My next computer will NOT be a Dell!
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