Just received my dell mini today.  It was dead on arrival and I got exactly the same treatment you described.

Hate to break it to you guys but all PC manufacturers have outsourced to India due to customer demands for low costs at ALL COST.

The Dell computer we purchased 20 days ago is still not working properly and the last tech we spoke to and his floor manager, were less than helpful. In fact, they were rude and uncooperative. After he had my husband take the computer apart and left him sitting in the floor with parts surrounding him told us that we needed to purchase an upgrade. We have had the computer less than a month so buying an upgrade seemed a little unreasonable. We have talked to 5 other techs during the last few days and they seemed helpful and never mentioned having to purchase anything. When my husband asked to speak to a supervisor refused and kept telling him about the upgrades. My husband and I had to ask numerous times before we were allowed to speak to the floor manager, Derek. When Derek finally came on the line he appeared upset over having to talk to us and told me that he had been directing in his comments to us and did not understand why we needed to talk to him. I explained that my husband was sitting in the floor surrounded by computer parts and that we still didn't know what was wrong with our "recently" purchased computer.  would not stop talking long enough for us to explain to him what was going on. He just kept talking over us telling us that he had been telling Chris what to say. He also said that the first 5 techs should have had us take apart the computer. I explained to him that while my husband and I are professionals in our chosen fields we are NOT computer techs and that I did not think we should have to dismantle and reassemble our "recently" purchased Dell computer to make it work correctly. I thought that when we sent them our money they would send us a fully functioning computer. Nowhere in the description of the computer did it state that this computer was a work in progress and that it was a "do it yourself" model. If we had known that then we would have looked into another company that sold "working" computers or at least asked for a discount since we were going to have to do most of the work. Anyway, the computer is still not working and the floor manager, terminated the call. So here we sit with our "recently" purchased Dell computer in pieces on our floor because were able to tell us how to disassemble it but could not or would not instruct us on how to reassemble it and make it work. We have talked to at least 5 different techs, most of whom attempted to be helpful (and we have their names if Dell is interested) and none of them suggested that we take our computer apart. So, we started out with a computer that would not work properly and after talking to Tech Support we now have a computer that still doesn't work properly and is in parts scattered across the floor. And told us that if we were going to get so frustrated then we didn't need to call back. Support????? Really????? I am now on my work (IBM)laptop and I will be posting this message to every site I can think of because I really am frustrated over the amount of time and energy that we have obviously wasted. If Dell is interested in trying to resolve this issue they can reference the following service tag from the computer: Service tag removed per privacy policy >

Thanks for that knowledge. 

Is there computer company that gives good customer service?
I do not care where they are located or from as long as they have manners and put  the customer and their needs first
This is the main reason that I have a problem with Dell.  
It is the treatment and actions of ignorance that is not acceptable.

I welcome any suggestions.

FYI:  My Dell post of complaint was taken down the next day, so be aware of the "community rules" and know that they are monitored by those at Dell that do not want all that kind of information posted.  So, if you can let me know where you find places to post that are not monitored by the watch dogs, please feel free to email me. 

<Email id removed per privacy policy>

I feel your pain. 

It !  Yes, I said, IT . 

My post will officially be gone soon. 

Thanks, jusafew.

Best computer customer service hands-down is Apple - you do pay for it though with a higher  up-front cost and after 90 days, a pay-per-incident support cost for software problems.

WIth any of the Windows vendors. the support is as good as you're willing to pay for.  No manufacturer offers anything more than rudimentary support - almost entirely offshore - with any system.  You'll pay somewhere upward of $350 a year if you want decent, comprehensive support with any Windows system (which will narrow the price gap between PC and Mac somewhat, of course).

As with everything else, support is "you get what you pay for" just as it is with your choice of airline seats, car, and everything else you buy.

I see I am not alone in the poor customer service from Dell. Looks like they excel at not solving your problems. Guess it is a product of our wonderful disposible society, where your name and honoring/standing behind what you sold no longer exist. Dell customer support is rude and unhelpful. I had the same problems, "let me have a contact number in case we get disconnected" weird, got disconnected after being on hold for 40 min and no call back. Then I called back and had to start all over again, including "let me have a contact number in case we get disconnected", the problem was never solved and I was told that "thats to bad". Dell you will continue to lose market share if this type of service continues, it will solve itself naturally, whether or not you remove our posts. If someone gets bad service they tell roughly 10 people, if they get good service they typically tell 1 or 2. And that was before the internet. You do the math based on your sales. How long before you have a real bad rep?

I see I am not alone in the poor customer service from Dell. Looks like they excel at not solving your problems. Guess it is a product of our wonderful disposible society, where your name and honoring/standing behind what you sold no longer exist. Dell customer support is rude and unhelpful. I had the same problems, "let me have a contact number in case we get disconnected" weird, got disconnected after being on hold for 40 min and no call back. Then I called back and had to start all over again, including "let me have a contact number in case we get disconnected", the problem was never solved and I was told that "thats to bad". Dell you will continue to lose market share if this type of service continues, it will solve itself naturally, whether or not you remove our posts. If someone gets bad service they tell roughly 10 people, if they get good service they typically tell 1 or 2. And that was before the internet. You do the math based on your sales. How long before you have a real bad rep?

You have TUNNEL VISION.

Go read the forums for HP, Lenovo, Toshiba etc.

http://forums.lenovo.com

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/psg/

http://forums.toshiba.com/t5/Laptops/ct-p/c_laptops

and if you think Apple is problem-free, read their forums.  http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa  ( there's one about Macbook Pro won't wake from sleep; sound familiar???? )

all of them have problems.

I volunteer at one of the tech support forums on the web and have found most users problems with Windows months after initial use are self inflicted. You shouldn't try to hold Dell accountable for fixing your computer under these circumstances. If free tech support can't help solve the problem, you can restore your computer to the original condition by using the restore disks or recovery partition.

ieee488 -- FYI, software can be covered by a warranty but I don't have one. Believe me, one thing DELL did do was make this quite clear to me. Perhaps Windows 7 was properly installed originally but when I called DELL about a virus and they walked me through "wiping my hard drive" after purchasing a warranty for the hardware. So, I don't have a virus anymore but I also don't have Windows 7. Look, I understand what you are saying but all of this doesn't make it okay for them to hang up on me, talk over me and speak to me in a condescending tone. That's never okay, even if I am in the wrong here. Can you understand that I've paid for something that I don't have? I'm not a computer genius obviously but I still deserve respect when calling a customer service department.

And it did manifest itself early on, that's why I started this whole battle months and months ago.

I just want Windows 7 set up properly without having to pay any more money. I don't think that's unreasonable.

Software is not covered by warranty. If Windows 7 truly wasn't "installed properly" as you allege, it would have manifested itself very very very early on - not a year later.

You should do a Factory Restore which will wipe your hard drive, so back up you files.

Thank you for the feedback. The ranting and raving didn't come about first, it was only after exhausting other resources and spending almost an entire day on the phone with DELL that I finally snapped so I apologize.

You causing a virus to infect your PC is NOT covered by warranty. Hardware warranty comes with the laptop. You can purchase additional warranty to extend the original warranty.

All of this is besides the point.

Instead of ranting and raving, you really should try to do something constructive.

Did you try a Factory Restore? If not, I highly suggest trying that.

If you are unable to do a Factory Restore, request the back-up CD/DVD for Windows 7 from Dell, and do a re-install of Windows 7.

You can either do this and try to get your laptop into working condition, or you can choose to do nothing. Your choice.

You can request the backup discs http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dellcare/en/backupcd_form

install procedure   http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/document?c=us&l=en&s=gen&docid=1A0C0937D62A8739E0401E0A55174744