Help with Dell Outlet Monitor Warranty

Here is the deal. I have a client that wanted a new desktop and monitor with a 5 year warranty. I’ve had great luck with products from the dell outlet so I planned to make my purchase there. Now I have always avoided purchasing monitors from the outlet due to the fact that they are limited to a 90 day warranty. However, when purchased with a computer the monitor will share the same warranty as the computer has. Great… off to make my purchase at the outlet.

I added an OptiPlex 9020 and gave it a 5 year warranty. Now further down the page you can add a monitor and other accessories. Under the monitor section it shows the following in bold red letters:

Please Note - Monitor not included with system purchase. A refurbished monitor purchased with a computer will have the same warranty as the computer purchased.

Great so I want to add a monitor and I select the U3014. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page and add the whole thing to my shopping cart. There was a coupon for 25% off monitors so I apply that to the cart then checked out like normal.

I received a single purchase ID for my order. The monitor shipped out of GROVE CITY, OH and the OptiPlex out of NASHVILLE, TN. Now according to the dell website they define a Dell Order Number as a unique 9 digit number representing a shipment associated with your purchase. So since this order shipped separately out of 2 different warehouses my purchase id has 2 order numbers assigned to it (one for the monitor and one for the computer).

Both shipments arrived and the computer/monitor are setup and working great. Before, I deliver the system I always verify that dell shows the correct warranty for the related service IDs. The computer shows the warranty just fine yet the monitor just says “Not Available” for anything related to the warranty. Maybe the monitor shows up under the computer service tag… check and no luck nothing about the monitor.

I am not comfortable with delivering this system without dell properly showing the warranty that my client requested and paid for. Ok, so I’ll just have to give dell support a call and get this figured out… shouldn’t be THAT hard I figured. This began the worst customer support experience in my 20+ years as an IT Professional. I was transferred over 15 times between departments and support personnel, got disconnected/hung up on 4 times, and spent well over 4 hours on the phone. There is a complete lack of accountability in the Dell Support System. If your problem is too hard to solve they will simply transfer you without warning or just hang up. There is also clearly no trouble ticketing system in place since you have to start completely over with your story with each new person that you talk with. I have never experienced incompetence like this before. It is unconscionable for Dell to allow such a lack of customer service.

Now I got countless difference stories but here is the most common theme. The outlet monitor does not have a warranty tied with the computer because they do not have the same order number. They are under the same purchase id but because they do don’t have the same order number then sorry you don’t get the same warranty for the monitor as you got for the computer. Just for review… in BIG BOLD RED LETTERS: “A refurbished monitor purchased with a computer will have the same warranty as the computer purchased”.

I made a single purchase with one computer and one monitor! This is not rocket science here. Now I suppose that you could add a computer then instead of adding the monitor as an accessory to the computer system (LIKE I DID) you could the go in and separately add a monitor to your cart and check out that way. Now in my view even if you did check out this way you are still purchasing a monitor WITH a computer and SHOULD be covered under the same warranty. This is just a common sense thing. Purchasing a monitor separately (yet in the same order/cart) doesn’t save you any money or anything it’s just semantics. ONE COMPUTER, ONE MONTOR, ONE ORDER! The only reason someone would order that way would be to screw themselves out of a better warranty for their monitor. It shouldn’t matter which way you do it!

Now, off that rant, I DID purchase my monitor as an accessory to the computer and the whole “added separately” doesn’t apply to my order (even if it did it shouldn’t matter!). Ok fine, I’m still ranting. In the end I finally spoke with the “floor manager” and his solution was that I need to return both the computer and monitor and order them again. WHAT?!?!?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!?!?! That is the manager’s solution! Box up and ship back 2 perfectly working dell products and order them again! I ordered the first system exactly the way I was supposed to do it… how is doing the SAME thing again going to solve anything. It would just put me in the same boat as I’m in now with 2 different items. In fact, this reminds of Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

Any reasonable company would have looked up the purchase. Ok, yes we see that you made a single purchase of a computer and monitor. Our policy is that “A refurbished monitor purchased with a computer will have the same warranty as the computer purchased” so your order qualifies. Not sure why the monitor doesn’t show up with a warranty. So we will just apply a 5 year warranty to your monitor since it should already have one anyway. Sorry for the inconvenient. Now was THAT so hard??? NO, that is too easy! Let’s have you ship everything back and you can try again with likely the same result.

Here is some additional info that applies to this nightmare. Some of them said that since the monitor was purchased with the computer that I would have to use the computers service tag number for support on the monitor and that all should be fine. Well my client isn’t going to accept that their monitor is under warranty because I tell them that I was told by dell that it should be covered. Not going to happen. When I got transferred to the warranty department they couldn’t verify any warranty on the monitor via service tags, order numbers, monitor serial number, or the purchase id.

Another oddity is a couple support people said that the monitor service tag was “red flagged” with a note saying “Product is at dell”. This is supported by the fact that under “My Dell” the monitor still shows as shipped instead of delivered like the computer system, even though both of them arrived on 4/15. If you click on the tracking number sure enough it shows as delivered. So is this really just a system glitch combined with a policy of not activating product warranties until AFTER they are delivered and in the hands of the customer? I asked this question multiple times with no answer.

I run a business and time is money I can’t really be dealing with something like this. Ok, fine I’ll call the Extended Warranty department and just find out how much it would cost to BUY the 5 year warranty that I should ALREADY HAVE on this monitor so I can be sure my client is taken care of (kind of like dell should be doing with me, right?). Sure enough the warranty guy can’t even access the info on this monitor to give me the extended warranty price. He took my work and cell numbers and told me he would call back in 30 minutes to an hour. No big surprise that didn’t happen.

One other note… I downloaded both of the invoices for the 2 order numbers under my purchase id. The computer listed a service tag at the end of the invoice “REF/SVT#  {SERVICETAG}” this matched with the service tag on the back of the OptiPlex computer. Now the invoice for the monitor had the exact same thing at the end of the invoice however the service tag was that of the computer system as well… NOT the service tag that is on the back of the monitor. This would seem to support that the monitor should share the same warranty as the computer system. Yet, if there is no way to verify that then it is worthless. Again, related to the fact that the dell system doesn’t believe that I have even taken delivery of the monitor yet?

I have purchased many computers from dell and this whole experience has shattered any faith I had in Dell as a company and has left me nothing short of disgusted. Does anyone have any recommendations for how I might go about getting this resolved in a reasonable manner?

Plus if you actually read this far then I bestow upon you 100 karma points and my heartfelt thanks for at least hearing my story.