Dell financial services conned me into getting a so called 0$ APR financing deal for 2 years but started leving interest after 1 1/2 years. They helped me setup my online automatic payments over phone, for a period of 2 years so that by the end of the term, the laptop (which incidentally cost only $750) will be completely paid off.in the meanwhile I changed my address and updated my address with them (which they never did - so I stopped getting any more statements from them - see below for their promptness in updating info..)
Suddenly, I think almost after 3 years, I get a call from a collection agency saying that I owe DFS over $200. Only then I found out what had happened to my account, the amount they had told me over phone was falling short of the total value of the laptop by something like 55 or $60. I paid a portion of the remaining amount which was left over for the laptop (the Dell guys do amazing math!
Additionally, the time was not 2 years as they had told me and calculated the monthly payments for — it was 1 1/2 years and so interest and penalities were levied at that time totaling over $200. After calling and spending more than 3 hrs on the phone I got one decent guy from DFS who was willing to look into the problem. Brad gave me his personal extension number and told me he will get back to me after reviewing the old documents since there was clearly an error somewhere. (by this time I had changed my address with DFS 3 times and still Brad told me they were sending the details to my older address - he finally managed to change the address at this time) - unfortunately, when I tried to contact Brad at his extension again after some time had elapsed (and I got no call) - the name in the voice mail went to someone else. I left a message - but no response...
At this point I called some more to try get some info and finally gave up, since I wasnt getting any call back/info from them.
Now I get a call from another collection agency / attorneys saying that I owe them $575 - for breach of contract etc. And willing to settle for $475. I am outraged by their attitude and ethics - this guy from the collection agency/attorney - said it was probably their fault and was willing to reduce 100$ and settle for $475 instead... I have no idea why I should pay fr the collective mistakes of DFS.
1) first their employee - setup a wrong monthly payment for me
2) they never updated my address even after repeatedly calling them so i never got any idea of my account till last Jan
3) they refused to stop escalating charges / get back with any reasonable information about what was going on to resolve the issue — whenever I talked to them - they kept saying that I owe that money and I have to pay it!
I even offered to buy a new laptop from them that will cover the money I owe them (I do like their hardware, unfortunately)
There is nil after service, or customer service after getting the money.
I pay monthly bills larger than the laptop and I find it outrageous that I should pay them for their mistake. I now know how this country is in such deep problems - thanks to unethical business practices aimed at making money through devious means. If someone from dell was/is willing to listen to the customer and do something about it - this could have been avoided and they might not have lost not just one customer but I am going to petition my friends and former corporate (university) employer to stop buying from Dell. (incidentally, I was instrumental in getting them to get computers from Dell for the past 6 years I was with them) for their business ethics are extremely devious and fraudulent.
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