The Dell website has SERIOUS ISSUES.

You may be infected with malware.  What you describe is not typical of a visit to the "real" Dell.com.  I have also spent the better part of 3 days on Dell.com assembling a large quote for a business and have not experienced what you describe.  The only "pop-up" I have seen is the occasional "do you want to chat with someone for assistance" window (no more than once per browsing session) and maybe one or two "do you want to fill out a survey about your visit" offers.  Definitely nothing like you describe. 

There is a virus/malware forum for this type of discussion, IF you need assistance sorting it out.

My wife also attempted to complete the order from her desktop at the second location, with the same results, but she wasn't as persistent as I was.  Thank you for responding, it makes me feel a lot better knowing someone is listening.

Thanks TheFlash1932.  One of the laptops used in the attempts to place the order was indeed infected with a parasitic program called SearchSnacks, that keeps reinstalling itself after being uninstalled.  Eventually I was able to block it with Kaspersky.  The ad banners that appeared on the Dell website were a product of that program, and that was the laptop I was on when establishing a Dell Community account.  The initial order however, was placed on a different laptop that is not infected.  The links to other sites for tech assistance, the links to complete a survey about my experience with Dell.com, the bad URLs that I was directed to when trying to chat with a CSA, & pay for my order, were all issues on that laptop, as well as a desktop at a different location.  Raising the pop up blocker settings seemed to help reduce the direction to 3rd party sites, but it didn't help with broken internal links of Dell.com for tech assistance or chat, and is not due to a virus or malware on my end.  The repeated attempts to pay for my order, in which there were errors with the web page, and I was asked to "try again later," was also not due to a virus or malware on one of my PCs.  The fact that I used 3 different PCs at 2 different locations with the same results, indicates issues with the Dell.com website itself.

Again, there should be no redirection to third-party sites or ads for third-party support.

Chat seems to work just fine for me right now and did all of last week when I used it ...  perhaps you caught the site during a temporary outage or maybe you are using an outdated browser or plugin (if something like Flash is required).

Thank you for responding, it makes me feel a lot better knowing someone is listening.

I'm not a Dell employee - I am a user like you (this is primarily a user forum) - but a major site like Dell.com engaging in the type of practices you describe (popups, third-party redirection, third-party support ads) is ridiculous.  I'm not calling you ridiculous or doubting what you said happened, just that Dell.com doesn't work that way, and while it definitely is not the most stable or easy-to-navigate platform in the universe, it is certainly not a malware portal.

Good luck!

We got pretty heated too.  It's funny, there's actually a Facebook profile devoted to complaints about Dell called Dell Computers.  So we're obviously not alone.  I do, however, live extremely close to Dell Headquarters.  So spare parts, and fast (in person) tech assistance is easily available to me.  I expect there to be problems with such a large company, everything can't be perfect all the time.  I was just really surprised to have that much trouble ordering almost $3k worth of Dell products.  We shouldn't have to struggle that much to spend our money on their products.  Hopefully, someone in a place to make a difference, notices the glitches & fixes them.  I played airsoft with Michael Dell's personal chef, maybe I should talk to him.  :-)

Thanks. Now i don't even have to ask the question :)