AW3418DW, Hardware Defect

I recently saw this post by Jack K. and felt the need to elaborate a little on it, since the pictures in that post are actually of my monitor.  Specifically to explain a few things to forum mod Chris M because frankly the way Dell customer support has handled my case so far has been unacceptable.

I purchased my AW3418DW in person at a Microcenter store close to where I live on December 29th, 2017 as part of a larger purchase.  I can supply my receipt from this transaction should I need to.  

On Saturday, August 18th, 2018 I woke up to find my monitor flat on my desk, the brackets that hold the screen to the stand had broken, causing the screen to fall and crack.  This happened sometime in the middle of the night.  There are pictures I previously uploaded to a different site as a buyer beware on both the quality of the hardware and the quality of Dell's customer support in Jack K's post, but I will post them here as well, along with some of the damage done to the screen itself as a result of the short fall onto my desk.

The first photo is the monitor exactly how I found it, with the second being a close up of the brackets on the screen and how they looked, the third is a shot of the brackets on the stand itself, and the last picture is what the left side of the screen looked like once powered on.  One of the points that Chris M makes in Jack K's post is that "It would take constant tipping pressure at the back/top of the panel to break it from the stand. Based on your picture, the top/back of the panel was pushed up on the bottom of that shelf, which caused the break."  Well here is a picture of the monitor on my desk shortly after I set it up.  The screen is nowhere near the cabinets above it.

Chris M also calls Jack K's comment about a defect in materials "pure conjecture on your part"  I feel like it's important to note that there is another post on Dell's forums by user alonbl expressing concern about this exact same issue after finding a similar thread on reddit of another AW3418DW that had the exact same hardware failure.  The brackets holding the screen cracked/sheared in the same way as mine did.  

After seeing what had happened to my monitor I called Dell support multiple times that Saturday, with each representative I spoke to basically telling me the same thing: "it's not covered under warranty, there's nothing we can do, just buy another one"  This monitor is less than a year old, and costs up to $1500 depending on when and where you buy it.  I didn't know whether I should feel insulted or laugh at the representative when told to "just buy another one"  The last representative I spoke to that day, Miller H, told me the same story the previous rep's did, but he offered to start an email chain so that I can upload pictures of the damage, and he would escalate the case to his manager.  He told me his manager does not work on weekends but would take a look at my case and let me know her decision the following Monday, August 19th, when she was back in the office.  After not hearing anything for a week, I sent a follow-up email on Monday, August 27th, asking for the update I was promised.  The next day I received an email from Indermeet B saying "Please note that as informed to you earlier, you may consider purchase a new monitor or you may also contact  technical support team on  1800 624 9896."  I had already spoken to the technical support team where they also informed me this was not covered under warranty, so this was another dead end.  

At this point I filed a complaint with an agency, and on Wednesday, September 5th, received a call from Rajeev A regarding my complaint.  At first he tried to tell me the same thing every other representative has said, the damage to my monitor is not covered under warranty.  However I called Rajeev A back a few hours later to once again inquire about the damage to my monitor and Dell's warranty, this time with a copy of the warranty in front of me.  The first line of the warranty is "What is covered by this limited hardware warranty?  This limited hardware warranty covers defects in materials and workmanship in your Dell-branded hardware products, including Dell-branded peripheral products."  Rajeev A proceeded to tell me that my product was not defective, and what happened to my monitor "does not happen."  So not only did all the previous representatives lie to me about the damage done to my monitor not being covered under warranty, now I was being called a liar to my face.

Rajeev A was able to offer me something no other representative had however, a form of compensation.  He told me that if I were to buy another monitor within the next 30 days and send him the purchase order, I would get 10% off that order.  Not only is this offer laughable as is, reading the fine print shows that the 10% discount is only for a purchase under $1000.  Anything over $1000 would only receive a 5% discount.  The AW3418DW is currently listed on Dell's website for $1149.99, so the initial offer wouldn't even apply should I decide to buy a replacement.  *Spoiler alert* I won't.