Customers who purchase a Dell computer system from any Best Buy location will not recieve warranty service from Dell. This is because of a service agreement between Dell and Best Buy that requires that Dell direct all service requests to Best Buy's Geek Squad for any and all repairs.
However, Best Buy does not (at least in my case) inform their customers of this agreement. It is also not stated on their service policy on their website.in fact, it wasn't until my month-old computer quit working did I learn of this policy. I contacted Dell to get my computer serviced and they told me this (straight from the chat log)
"I understand your concerns, we have an agreement with best buy that all computers sold through best buy will be serviced by the best buy technical support called the geek squad. Any other systems purchased directly from dell or any other retailer the support will be provided by us."
I then took my computer to the Best Buy I purchased it from, and was told that they would have to ship the system to their Chicago serivce facility. The service rep also informed me that it would be at least 3 to 6 weeks before it would be fixed and returned to me because the backlog they are experiencing (from other people's experiences online and elsewhere, this time frame may even be up to three or four months). Dell, on the other hand, would have my system repair within a week. Or would have allowed me to perform the repair myself (which I am more than capable of doing) with a only two day service window.
This is utterly unacceptable for both Dell and Best Buy. Best Buy should not forget to inform their customers of this important policy. Dell should not have agreed to this service policy just so they could ship more systems through retail channels. This is not the way to build a statisfied return-customer base.
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