A very, very long story made short is as follows.
I purchased an m9700 laptop (~$4200) along with a 3-year warranty (and later a couple of video cards worth ~$500) and after a couple years the laptop fries out; it wouldn't even post to BIOS. I spent countless time trying to remotely diagnose and then send to and from the repair facility. The repair process was absolutely horrible and often they didn't even know where my laptop was! Did they receive it? Who knows. Did they ship it out? Don't know (I'm serious, they've told me it will ship "soon" when it had already shipped). What parts were replaced? Here's a list that won't match the written copy received with the laptop and every single tech will give you a different answer.
So that's usual bad Dell tech support but that's the beginning. About two months ago they shipped the laptop back to the wrong address 1100 miles away.in fact, they had two addresses on the box (and FedEx was very confused). I had recently moved and I specifically told them on at least 5 occasions to send it to the correct address. What's more, this was the second repair attempt; the first attempt shipped to the right address. So luckily I had someone overnight the laptop to me. I'm a software developer and it was the equivalent to taking all of a mechanics tools and shop from him for months.
Luckily, the tech assured me this was Alienware's mistake (you don't say?) and they would reimburse me for the overnight shipping. I was happy, but If only I knew he was lying...
So finally I shipped the laptop back for the fourth time in a row.By "in a row" I mean I was able to fry the laptop within hours of receiving it merely by turning it on. Great repair facility. At this point in time I demanded a full refund and nothing less. This was about two months ago.
I was assigned several different "critical issue agents" through-out the process. They would each say something different, never fully answer all my questions, and then promise to call me back and never do so. Again the only thing to discuss was a refund.
They have had the laptop, along with the two extra video cards and ~$4500 of my cash, for a month now. If I call them consistently to get someone on the phone they email me and tell me absolutely nothing. Here's where I'm at a month after I ship everything back:
First, I shipped the AC adapter back much, much earlier because the A/C adapters they sell to m9700 owners (the m9750 adapter) are KNOWN to FRY the laptop. Great, and I don't even get an email and I wasted months trying to fix their screw-up. It's worth mentioning they credit the refund in an account that wasn't even used to purchase the A/C adapter; scary thought.
So I'm supposedly getting a refund for the laptop and video cards. The laptop amount comes to about $200 less than retail value because of opened software (their backup discs, not games or movies). Not acceptable. Of course when I told them this I was ignored. This doesn't matter because I haven't gotten the amount I was told either. Oh, they gave me a timeline to receive it and I should have gotten it over a week ago. To this date I haven't gotten a dime.
I have no idea on the amount of the refund for the video cards. They received the video cards along with the laptop weeks ago. I have been told several times I'm getting a refund for them though (maybe when I retire?).
Oh, and they're working on approving the reimbursement for the overnight shipping incident. Yes, if you've followed this story it was already approved; twice actually. I'll let you know when they decline it. Ha.
Again, this is the short version. If you think that's all I've endured during this 4 month nightmare you'd be far from right. They can't even give me my money back, and believe me I was in a complete rush to send their laptop back to them.
I will update as things unfold; fighting for my consumer rights is nothing new to me.
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