I am in need of assistance. I am a vocational rehabitation counselor for a state government agency. My job is to assist persons with disabilities in obtaining training and assistive technology that will lead to the person returning to the work force. I am working with a client I will call Jane. She has multiple disabilites that make it difficult for her to walk and stand. SHe wishes to become a grantwriter and I provided tutiion support for Jane to take an online training program in grant writing. The program is scheduled to take 6 months to complete. SHe began during the summer and is using her Dell laptop to access the program courses. In mid-August, her computer experienced a display failure. Jane requested that my agency pay for the repair as she lives on a fixed income. We agreed to look into this. It is SEVEN weeks later and I still am unable to get a solution from Dell.

I was firstplaced in contact with a helpful Dell rep who turned out to handle federal goverment contracts. She gave me the name and e-mail for the rep who handles my state. That person suggested that I purchase an extended warranty for the laptop and have it repaired under the new warranty. She put me in contact with a rep who could, alledgedly, give me a quote for the new warranty. This gentleman told me he would have to speak to his "team" and get me a price on the warranty. Initially, he told me he'd have the number in "48 hours." Nothing. I had to call him. He was puzzled, couldn't understand it, would definitely have the quote in 24 hours. That was TWO WEEKS AGO!!! What is so hard with giving me the price for an extended warranty and an address for me to forward my goverment voucher?

If anyone from Dell is monitoring this board, I have several questions and concerns. The above actions took days and days to accomplish. Don't get the impressiont hat I called about the warranty and somebody got back to me in 15 minutes. Each step took two to three days with me following up. I also spoke to two overseas service reps who quoted me a repair price, but would not e-mail me the quote (documentationis essential when dealing with a government agency like mine) because I am not the owner of the laptop. They offered to mail it to the owner...who has NO VIDEO DISPLAY AND CANNOT PHYSCIALLY GET  TO ANOTHER COMPUTER.

Dell should note that all of this activity is for a person with a disability. It is generated from a goverment agency that buys HUNDREDS of Dell computers every year. At this point, I am tempted to ask if it might not be reasonable to repair or replace the computer for free, given the energy and time that has gone into this, the delay this has caused my consumer in completing her training and the fact that my agency is a fairly huge customer fo  Dell to begin with.

I want to BUY something from you, Dell. Explain why it takes a team to quote me the cost of an extended warranty. And, finally, am I asking too much to suggest, again, that our status as a high-volume customer might result in somebody at Dell looking a little closer and say, "why don't we just fix this pro bono?" At this point, we are looking into Staples or the Geek Squad at Best Buy to fix the thing, but the consumer, Jane, has difficulty getting out of her home and my distance from her makes it impractical for me to go to her to pick up the computer. Dell, I am attempting to assist a motivated person with a disability return to the work force. Please help us.