Sounds very familiar:  Here's my story (copied and pasted from a customer support message I sent)

I already cancelled my order, but wanted to write and give some feedback regarding what I experienced; I don't know which avenue is best to address this, so if this is not the best way to do this, please forward it to a more appropriate person.

I placed an order on Black Friday (11/23), and the estimated shipping date was 12/7.  On 12/6 I was notified that the order was delayed and contacted by a salesperson who explained that the memory did not match the processor, and therefore, a different kind was required (one with a lower MHz).  Ok, no big deal--I even got 1 day shipping out of it.  The order was delayed until an estimated arrival date of 12/17.  No problem, I thought--still before Christmas.  

Ok, today (12/17) I get an email indicating that it's been delayed until January 2... That's over a week after Christmas for an order placed on Black Friday.  That is pretty ridiculous.  To make matters worse, when I called in to find out what was going on, they checked out the reason that it was delayed for me.  It turns out that they did not have all the parts available.  And what were they missing?
(1) the case... Ok what?
(2) the DVD reader/writer.   Seriously?
(3) the memory (unless I'm forgetting) which was the part that they delayed it over 2 weeks ago.

So I'm extremely disappointed in how this all came together.  I am shocked that an order placed on black friday could not be processed and delivered by Christmas over a month later, especially after having a screw up and another 2 weeks from the original planned arrival date to sort it out.  Wow.

Christmas won't be quite as much fun as I had hoped it would be this year.  Needless to say I doubt if I'll ever consider purchasing from Dell in the future.  

Yes,this is ridiculous,very frustrated.Must have been the same computer I was after as well.Customer service is terrible and from what I read online it always has been with Dell.I guess it doesnt really matter with us as we are just two customers and I am sure Dell has thousands of customers so 2 less wont hurt them.I work for a company who deals strictly with customer service,we strive to make our customers very satisfied,from what I experienced here this is the worst I have ever seen.

If they did not have these ready to ship they should have said so on the order form for the delivery date so the decision could then be made to cancel and not have to wait 1 week before christmas.I believe I was lied told at first the memory was incompatible then now the computer is on back order,who knows what the truth is as all I have got is the run around and several apologies.

I think the best thing to do would have been to keep track of how many of these computers were available then from there sell them with the expected delivery date until they are out of stock then let any future purchasers know the expected delay after the stock was depleted,not sell them and say they will be deilvered in time when there is none to be sold.Kind of like buying an air line ticket,sell,sell,sell then we can deal with the unhappy customers we cant get on the plane because it is over booked later on.

I should have listened to all of my friends and what I read online about Dell but I guess I learned the hard way on this here.Thanks Dell.

Indeed... one of the craziest parts about the whole situation is that it was the standard configuration--I didn't order anything special here... yet it still had all these missing parts issues?

I decided to go ahead and build my own after buying similar parts online.  We'll see how it turns out--it's always a little risky, but after a couple hours of looking around, I think I have compatible parts (it's not that hard, Dell) .  I'm pretty sure that newegg will be delivering the parts on time.

Yeah mine was standard as well didnt change anything on my order,they should have known this was an issue before selling it makes me believe it was just a story as they probably ran out of the 1600mhz and needed to put in what they had which was the 1333mhz ram.Funny thing is I have also looked at New egg as well to build one as I have built severa; before but unfortunately for me the alienware desktop was the computer my kinds really wanted for christmas and this is all they can talk about getting for christmas.So in hopes for some weird reason i get it before chirstmas i left the order to be processed still,praying it will be here in time.If it were mine I would have cancelled and built my own but this is what my kids want.This will be my last order with dell unless they can get it to me before christmas.

It's going to take a lot of faith (in God--faith in Dell does not appear well-founded) for that Christmas miracle :emotion-4:... But I really do hope it works out for you guys! (It will be a major bummer to open up a shoebox on christmas with a note saying "A brand new computer!  Estimated arrival date January 3, 2013--assuming Dell gets their act together and doesn't delay again for the 3rd time.")

Too bad they don't sell Alienware cases--you might be able to build a comparable computer and they wouldn't be the wiser ;)

Dell... for Pete's sake, get this man his computer before Christmas! :emotion-2:

O.k.,thanks for your input on this here.I just feel I was given the run around with two different stories on why I havent received it and why it was delayed.First it was the wrong memory and now it is on back order.So here my biggest thing is if it was the wrong memory then obviously they had the computer,so all they had to do is put in the correct memory,so somehow they lost my computer when trying to install the memory,maybe they pushed on the memory to hard and pushed the computer into the trash compactor or something so then they had to order me a new one and now wouldnt you know,its on back order.I hope this can be resolved with ease,its one thing when its another time of year but at Christmas,Ive never been late on a gift as I am into giving fairly heavily as my wife always tells me and so I dont want to start being late now.What a terrible system.

Thanks!I hope I do receive it for christmas to give to my boys,if not it will be a picture of it and also letting them know it is on its way as well as what had happened.They will have christmas break without it and if Dell is RIGHT this time on the delivery date they wont get it until right after they go back to school.

Based on my browsing of the 14Z laptop fiasco, it sounds like Dell will contact you to attempt to resolve the complaint.  Not sure if they actually do anything different though (in the 14Z laptop thread, it sounds like Dell just offered them the same "alternative" that was offered to everybody else--understandable, yes, but kind of smells like they were just trying to make contact so they could report to the BBB that they "responded" to the customer).  Might be worth doing though, I suppose the more of a stink you make, the more likely somebody who can actually make something happen gets involved to fix the mess up (and this situation is pretty messed up).  BBB complaints also give the business 14 days to respond so...

Who knows?

I was actually pleased right after I had placed my order--seemed like their in-house "tracking" system was pretty streamlined.  It's all just a facade, though.  I remember after the first delay, I actually contacted Dell (before they told me the memory problem).  After passing me around a bit, they just said they were "missing a part".  About a day later I got that email about the memory issue (which I'm not sure I even believe)... and now 2 weeks later they are missing 3 parts.  

It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

I will give them until tomorrow before I file,one last chance.They have had long enough (since November 23rd) to get this computer to me.

As my Name says:  My first order through Dell (actually, Alienware) went great.  I ordered the Aurora with all the bells and whistles, and they got it shipped to me about a week and a half earlier than expected.  So now, I'm ordering a Latitude 10 tablet...I ordered it on November 11th and got a December 11th estimate on when I'd get it.  On the morning of the 10th, the status was still "Pre-Production", so I asked for an update, and the next morning, the day it was supposed to arrive, they changed the status, adding another week, so now December 18th, TOMORROW...and you guessed it, the status as of right now (5:40 pm, 12/17/2012) is still "Pre-Production", so I'm guessing they will give me another week of waiting for Christmas.  And their update was rediculous!  It just said it was delayed...didn't give a reason (like out of stock, or missing a part, or something I can't relate to).  And their customer service people give you a line like:  "I understand the apprehension you may have to have this order completed. However currently we cannot confirm any confirmed information as we follow the mail order rule guide line."  Just what is a mail order rule guide line?  How is it they can make a huge, massively more complex desktop in much less time than it takes to make a tablet?  Didn't they make enough?  Couldn't they tell me that in the status update?

Still no recent update on my order being shipped.If these are hard to get to send out then why is it my local Best Buy can get me one and have it here overnight gauranteed,I spoke with a rep from Best Buy and said it wouldnt be an issue to get it in time.I just dont understand what is going on here.Why is it other places have some in stock or can get one in time for christmas but Dell cannot?I think the truth to this is still unknown.I'm going to call Dell again today,right now and see what the status is and see if I can get a real answer to why they cannot get this to me.

Oh, and after looking into the i3 processors I really don't buy the "16MHz memory didn't jive with the processor, we gotta give you 13.3MHz memory" line they fed us.  I think that's a load of balogna.

My Newegg order came already... I'm impressed--it only took 1 day!  Glad to see at least one tech company has things figured out.

I'm going to try to throw it together tonight and/or tomorrow.  I'll let you know how it goes.  If you'd like to "friend" me on these forums, I can send you a list of what I ended up getting (and whether it worked out or not).  I believe it's going to be a similar build, and it's looking like after rebates the price difference is -$150 ($100 before rebates).