I bought a new laptop recently, from Dell.  Had it less than a month. Realized something was very wrong with it…..tried to return it.

This was yesterday, as I started my 2.5 hour drive to pick up my daughter from college, I also dialed the phone. It took the entire ride……

I spoke with about 6 people, in various departments and countries. I learned that tech support lives in India, but the returns department might be in Brazil.

They also don’t speak to each other. Maybe they are not allowed to interact, on penalty of death.

There is also a man, in the return department, who is under the impression that he is The Master Of Returns… and he takes that role very seriously. He told me my computer had to be returned by the day before, since that was the 30th day from the invoice date. I scoffed initially, one day??! Give me a break, you guys weren’t working at 10pm when I realized finally the problem was you, and not me…. and I actually DID try to return it online and print out the label, but since the computer itself is doing weird things, it doesn’t let me fill in things like my zip code and so I couldn’t complete the return online.

He thought that was very unfortunate for me.

I spent 35 minutes alone with just him on the phone. It was like banging my head into a wall. He could not, would not escalate my complaint. It is NOT POSSIBLE…. because he is the master, and no one else in the world of Dell will speak to me, a mere customer. There is no headquarters, there is no corporate office, there is NO one to make a policy exception, or even consider it. There is just…..him.

I tried to explain I want buy something BETTER….from them. Give them more money!!  I just don’t want THIS particular, defective from the start computer. I begged him to check my account, my years of loyal history with Dell, including the last laptop I bought, also defective, that they finally did replace with the wrong computer, twice…. and I still came back.

I have never been reduced to tears of frustration, but at the end of my call with him I was crying. I hated him. Before we hung up, because he threatened to disconnect me anyway…. I came very close to saying something personal to him. Like, I hate you. You are a horrible horrible man. I think you must be compensating for something……..

But I didn’t….

I kept trying… calling after I got home, and I think my grand total of Dell employees spoken to was about 14 by the end of the day.

2 people in the “complaint department” told me that the computer was actually shipped to me on the day AFTER the invoice date, so I actually COULD return the computer….but all they did was reconnect me to the department under the reign of the Bastard of Returns, and all employees there were quick to tell me to stop calling, they weren’t helping.

I spent a good 30 minutes being transferred back and forth from them, back to customer service/complaints… only to be told “oh hey, no I’ll talk to them and they’ll return it…” and switched back to be told “NO!”

Finally I talked to tech support, who I was avoiding…. because I had been through that in the past and I didn’t want to fix it, I just wanted a computer that worked. From the start. For once.

Well, the guy was nice. He read the miles of notes on my account. He did some stuff, maybe it worked, I don’t know yet… because the problems weren’t something you could reproduce…. you just have to wait and see if it happens….

4.5 hours of my day.

some off those hours crying.

I am a broken person.

Dell… you have no soul.