Dell Online Sales: EPIC FAIL

Yippee.. I got some extra money and wanted to get me a new tower to and upgrade my old Dell 8250 which has been great for all these years, never a glitch. As was my experience with my first machine from Dell, an Dimension 350. Still have it in fact, collecting dust.

Jumped online to order a generic, run of the mill box, Inspirion 846 mini tower.

Nothing special, no crazy upgrades to vid card, or any such thing. They should have a million of these laying around. The date of order, was Dec.24, X-Mas Eve. Estimated delivery date of Jan 20. Thought that was a while, but figured, wtf, I can wait, it won't kill me. I was gonna be out of town for 5 days or so anyway in that near month.

My delivery date approached and I was contacted via email saying there was a delay. The first person I spoke to said there was an issue with a component. New delivery date, Jan 27 or 29. Bummer, ok. I can wait.

Became close to that date, so I went online to check my status...huh? "Estimated delivery date...Feb 5??

But I didn't get an email this time. On the phone with order support, they tell me they 'under estimated demand for the tower'. Underestimated a generic, run of the mill, bread and butter tower?

Wow, I'm annoyed now, especially since I got no notice. But I did see they had changed my shipping to 'Next day', so that showed a little encouragement.

But that makes 2 delays and is not a good sign. Now I'm wondering if I made a mistake. Goodness knows I can walk into any mom and pop shop and walk out with a tower equivilent to that, in 15 minutes. How's a company like Dell not have these in abundance and how, when this was realized they didn't have enough, did they not order an emergency batch?

So as Feb 5 approaches, I get anxious. It's been long enough, honestly, I'm surprised I hadn't lost my cool already after speaking to several call center people who can just barely manage clear English, but I won't go there...for now. Last nite @ 8PM MST, I jump online, status is the same, 'not shipped' but the date is still the same. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, knowing full well, if it has not shipped by then, it's highly unlikely I'll get it on Feb 5.

I try to call, oops, too late, closed.

Just before getting to sleep(1AM), I try the site again to check and what to my amazement do I see?? Estimated ship date: Feb 12!!!

30 seconds later...'blip'...email from Dell prompting me to take action before they cancel they order! I hit the sack pissed, spitting nails.

Call this morning again and get to an order support person who tells me, yes, it's been yet again delayed for......yes, high demand and no supply. WTF? I cancel order and try to get to some type of manager to handle upset\irate\pissed off customers. Which by now, I most certainly am. Instead I get the order support manager who essentially tells me he's sorry for the problem and they'll try harder, but will not give me any email, telephone number of anyone to bitch to.

I try to call sales to get some type of manager who can listen to me and assure me in any way that my complaints will be listened to and forwarded.

I get the same schtick from this support person. I insist to speak to someone who can hear me out and can handle my complaint with some type of authority, so they pass me off to yet another manager.

And finally, after 3 supposed 'managers', this person is able to tell me that they will indeed pass this along and ask for a phone number, which I gladly give.

She even tried to get me to take another tower in place of the one I was trying to get. I told her no way she can get me to take anything under any circumstances from them. I had originally told the first agent if they sent it free I'd take it. No way now.

She tells me more than once that she's sorry this happened and would escalate the issue.So, there we stand, I never got my new box from Dell and will be heading out to COSTCO or BestBuy this weekend and will in all likelihood, have a new machine in the office.

I will NEVER buy again from Dell online. I may wind up with a Dell machine because I really love their products and I've never had a hiccup with a single one, but as far as online purchases, never.

Dell just gained a person who will tell everyone he knows about his experience with their online sales.