I contacted Dell on March 20 about a intermittent problem with the display for my Dell computer. Rojanie replied to me (rep ID 01195768)
I told them her the monitor display was going in and out on my computer and that my husband thought it was the video card. My warranty was still active but expiring in a few days.
After hours upon hours of running self diagnostics over the phone, I wondered what good an in-house warranty was anyway. I am not a computer tech. That is why I paid for a warranty that would bring someone to my home to fix things.
I really resented having to open my own computer with customer service on the line and get talked through the repair work that I had paid for with the warranty. Besides being disrespectful of my time, it’s dangerous for both me and the poor computer. Just hoisting it up from under my desk was an ordeal.
Eventually I was told that I would have to reformat my hard drive in order to fix the problem. You can imagine the problems that that caused. Even though I had proper data back ups, restoring all the programs, email addresses, bookmarks, and all of the other MS service packs etc. Etc. Took countless hours and expense with a non-warranty service tech.
But that did not fix the problem. Dell eventually decided that rather then send a tech to my home they would just send a new monitor. I installed the new monitor and still no luck. Back to calling customer service.
Keep in mind that every time you call customer service you have to go through a veritable gauntlet of phone transfers to get to someone that can help you, each time describing everything from the beginning. Whenever you hear that "someone will call you back"... Forget it. It will never happen. The email system seems to work better. At least they get back to you.
I am now working with a new service tech, Andrew (rep ID 0144130) and am hopeful that finally they will send someone out to fix my computer. It has been nearly 4 months since my problem began. Without a constant video display, it is hard to do much self diagnostics. The private tech that helped me restore the operating system and hard drive data tends to agrees with my husband that it is the video card or graphics card (while scolding me for allowing anyone to reformat my hard drive).
My final hurdle is that in a mind boggling case of catch 22, in the months that have transpired since I reported this case, my warrant has expired. Dell is saying that I did not complaint often enough or as persistently as they require for the problem to be considered a single related and still-open case covered by the original complaint. I feel that if Dell sent a new monitor they obviously had some idea that this was related to my video display... Be it the monitor or the graphics card or whatever. The problem has always been that Dell is so loath to just send out a tech to actually diagnose the problem and fix it.
I am crossing my fingers that now that I have gotten to a supervisor for unresolved cases, Andrew will help me solve this the way it should have been back in March.
I will keep you posted!
Gregg and Anna
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