Refund Never Comes from Dell

Hi Schamil1,

Thanks for posting.

Without knowing all the details around your particular refund, I can only give a general answer.  Refunds happen in 3 stages, usually 10 days per stage.  Normally if it's an authorized return, for the items to return to Dell takes about 10 days (Returns are brought back by the cheapest method which takes longer).  Once at the return facility, the units are taken apart, and the parts are scanned back into our system that takes about 10 days (remember, there are thousands of returns per day so it takes them awhile) then it goes to financial for credit back to the original form of payment, this takes another 10 days (again, lots of them to process).  Once the credit memo is processed it can take time for the bank to credit the customer's account (I've seen this take as long as a billing cycle).  If it's a DPA (Dell Preferred Account), it can take another 15 days (45 total). 

If it's an unauthorized return, like a refusal of shipment or a customer just sends it back, it takes another 30 days.

I hope this helps with understanding the process.

Regards,
Robert

To protect yourself I suggest that you contact consumer protection agencies to share with them your Experience with Dell.  There is a popular company that has been around for decades that is dedicated to making business behave better but I am not allowed to state their name per Forum rules so you will have to figure that out.  Also there are government consumer protection agencies at both the State level and the Federal level.  All allow you to submit a report via their websites so it will not even cost you a stamp.  Of course, if you paid by credit card you should also contact your credit card company to discuss your options with them.  Good luck.

Can you check on the status of my $250 Dell eGift Card refund? Dell received my returned (Garmin Watch) on Oct 16 and still no refund. Dell sent me a UPS shipping label, after I spoke to customer service to authorize the return. UPS Tracking shows Dell received my watch on Oct 16, 2015, UPS Tracking #  . It has been 7 WEEKS since Dell received my authorized return, can someone at Dell fix this? Already filed charges with the Fraud Division of the FTC...holding off on refunds for nearly 2 months so eGift Cards expires.

You think that is bad? I have been waiting for 5 months --- five months -- to get  refund worth around $6000 from Dell. I have been emailing and calling them consistently, and every time they either hang up on me, do not follow up on their promises to communicate with me, etc. My case representative Jessy will not respond to any emails I send her. 

Besides the fact that they have not refunded me yet, the even worse problem is the fact that they have refused to follow their own refund policy. I paid for my dell XPS 15 with bitcoin, something they advertise and which I really appreciate. They also told me that if I wanted to return the item, I would receive a refund in my original form of payment. I chekced with a representative that this was bitcoin (coinbase.com), and they confirmed that they would return my coins to coinbase. 

However, it wthout asking me first or responding to any of my follow up emails about the form of payment, they sequently attempted to send me a check to the wrong address. I had told them on the phone during my return request that the correct address was not in fact the billing addrss on file and gave them the correct one, but for some reason they still sent it to my billing address, which I no longer have access t since I just moved. 

My guess is that they didn't want to refund me in bitcoin because the market price had gone up slightly since I placed the orde, by about 10%. They claim the reason they didn't do bitcoins is that they simply cannot make bitcoin payments to customers. Again, this not only directly contradicts their "original form of payment" policy, but is also technically innaccurate. When I originally made the payment, I sent a slightly wrong amount of bitcoin, and they had to refund my account in bitcoin in order to re-send the correct amount to complete the order. Well, if they thought losing 10% was bad then, they are going to have to face the music when they see that during these 5 months of ineptitude the bitcoin prices have risen almost 100% -- making my order now worth an additional $3000 for the same 3.34 bitcoins. Not my problem.

There are a total of >30 emails I have had with them over the past 5 months in about 15 different threads, and almost every single one ends with me asking "just to confirm, I am receiving my refund in bitcoins, yes?" to no response, and then a follow up of "hello, anyone there??", also with no response. This has happened over 10 times. I have communicated with 7 different representatives, and that is not including over the phone. I will not say their names here out of politeness, even though I technically don't have to protect their names since they represent the company. Two days ago I spoke with someone for 40 minutes and they told me they would escalate the issue, but then once they realized how toxic this case was for them, they hung up and I never received a callback. I had to track down my case representative Jessy, and when I finally contacted her she said she would get back to me within 24-48 hours. Of course, I still have not heard back. 

I realize this is partly because of very poor customer service, but it is also because of an inconsistent policy by Dell. If you are going to accept bitcoins as a form of payment, then you need to update your policy regarding the original form of payment. And now all of your representatives are scrambling to avoid his toxic mess you have created through lazy policies, and they are trying to get me to foot the bill. I am telling you right now that I will not let that happen.

Thank you or reminding me about the consumer protection bureaus -- probably a much cheaper option than pursuing formal legal action through a ***, which is what I have been preparing to do.