WORST Customer Service Ever

I really pray for anyone who has to deal with the displeasure of speaking with Dell's customer support team. They continually lie and show ignorance not to mention argue with you over the phone but that's not the point of this post.

Basically I did a promotion for a $25 gift card from Dell back in August but never received the gift card. On October 5th (kept the date in my notes), I called into Dell about the gift card and was then given the gift card number and pin and told that the gift card will never expire (should've taken the guy's name but never thought it'd turn into a whole fiasco with Dell later on).

Yesterday on December 26th I tried using said gift card to purchase a simple game download for $20 on their website due to that honestly being one of the only things on their website under $25. The purchase went through with the gift card balance even showing up after I put in the information in checkout. Thinking everything was fine, I then checked my email to see payment was somehow declined and the order was on hold. I call Dell thinking it was a simple issue I could get resolved pretty quickly to find out just how big of a waste of time Dell's customer no service is.

The first guy I speak to tells me the gift card is expired even with me telling him I only got it in October and the guy who gave it to me said it doesn't expire. I ask for a supervisor or manager and the guy then proceeds to transfer me to another department (wasn't keeping track of department names at the time) who then tells me the online download was somehow out of stock on the website and it needed to be updated. He tells me that's why payment was declined and even though it was that's why the gift card is now balance less and comes up as being expired. The guy then tells me I can just place an order for something of equivalent value with the sales team but he cannot help me any further and hangs up on me. I call Dell back but this time I decided to directly ask for a manager. The guy I got on the phone with proceeds to have me tell him the whole situation again just to tell me he cannot help me. I ask for a supervisor or manager again but he tells me his supervisor declined to speak to me and didn't care to.

The guy then transferred me again to what I believe was credit card services. This results in me being bounced back and forth between gift card services, the sales team, and customer support repeatedly as each said the other department was the one who could help me and didn't understand why I'd get transferred back to them. I finally reach a woman in what I believe was gift card services who puts me on with her manager. The woman finally cleared up everything and told me pretty much everything I was told so far was false, the download was in stock but it was just a problem with the gift card somehow being expired. She then tells me the sales team should be able to just credit the amount if I tried placing the order with them again and transfers me over. This leads in another set of me being transferred back and forth until I just finally gave up and decided to seek other routes besides Dell's inept, completely based in India customer service. The calls alone culminated in me wasting over 4 hours on the phone with Dell.

I got a number from online that I was told was executive complaints or something (1 512 338 4400) but lead back to what I think was the regular customer support line who ended up wasting another hour of my time. This time I ended up taking names though although I'm sure they are probably fake. "Harish Reddy" tried telling me "Deepak Gosian" was the only manager in the entire customer support department in India (which I think is Dell's only customer support department). After arguing a little more with him he then puts "Sri Ram" (some other supposed manager he somehow drug out of nowhere) on the phone who after listening to my issue then my request for an executive team or someone above regular hung up on me after telling me he is the highest person in the entire company I can speak to.

I don't think I'll ever have to deal with customer support as terrible as Dell's...all of this over a simple $25 gift card which I wouldn't even be worried about if it wasn't the fact Dell's customer service team has lied to me, called me a liar, and argued me into the ground for hours on hours of my time. This has all ended with me giving up on any of their phone support although I'm sad I might need them in the future for my laptop although then it just might be time to find another computer manufacturer. I also tried filing a BBB complaint hoping I can get a response and finally a real solution from a real person from their executive team.