# Dude, you're getting ripped off!



## practicallyostensible (Apr 24, 2008)

A former employee of Dell computers said, "When Dell is good it's really good, and when it's bad it's really bad." I got my first Dell laptop 6 years ago, it's what I'm typing on currently, it works great. When I needed a more portable laptop I went back to Dell and bought their top of the line model. 

Four months after purchase, nearly three months ago now, it stopped working. They sent me a new hard drive. When that didn't fix it they sent someone to replace the motherboard. Shortly after the LCD, hard drive, microphone and internal battery needed to be replaced, it was returned to the depot. They didn't have a hard drive in stock so they sent one out to me, which had no OS installed on it and "might be corrupt" (you think they would have checked that). A new one is in the mail....apparently. Over these past few months I have accumulated over 20 hours on the phone with Dell's "technical service". 

Dell has a policy that no computer will be replaced after 21 days. If they deem that it does indeed need replacing, they send a refurbished model. I just need it working for one day so I can turn in the damed thing to the student store to get credit on a Mac. 

Too bad I don't live in NYC. New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo has filed suit against Dell on behalf of the people. I hope they go down. http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/05/ny_dell.html

FOR YOUR OWN SANITY, PLEASE AVOID DELL!


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## Candace (Apr 24, 2008)

I'm sorry to hear you've had such a sucko experience. Did the techical support people have East Indian accents? Many computer companies are farming out tech support to India these days. Cheap labor and fewer jobs for the good old USA.


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## practicallyostensible (Apr 24, 2008)

Yeah, they only have one facility in USA now. 8800 employees in the States were laid off last year, to be followed by more cuts in the next few months.


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## Sirius (Apr 24, 2008)

I had the same exact Dell experience. Our five or six year old Dell was a great machine, and just recently retired to the closet when the Macs got here. I am keeping it as a backup so when we travel, we don't have to worry if it is stolen.

We purchased a new Dell two years ago, and it died about six months back or so. I gave up after dealing with freaking tech support runaround for a few days. I can't imagine what current Dell customers have to deal with because of the Vista nightmare and the crappy new Dell computers.

I will go without a computer if the only option I have is purchasing a Dell. I just hope these Macs hold up for a few years.


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## kentuckiense (Apr 24, 2008)

My Dell laptop is going on 4 years old and it has been a tank thus far. Looks like I should avoid them when I buy my next computer soon, it appears.


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## Heather (Apr 24, 2008)

practicallyostensible said:


> Yeah, they only have one facility in USA now. 8800 employees in the States were laid off last year, to be followed by more cuts in the next few months.



Apple actually replaced my laptop after there was a motherboard problem. It was several years old at the time and they replaced it with the newer generation. I won't ever buy anything else.


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## Hien (Apr 24, 2008)

practicallyostensible said:


> Yeah, they only have one facility in USA now. 8800 employees in the States were laid off last year, to be followed by more cuts in the next few months.


 DON'T YOU EVER WORRY ABOUT OUTSOURCING. CAUSE THE GOVERNMENT WILL RETRAIN ALL OF US TO DO SOMETHING (I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT SOMETHING IS AT THIS MOMENT, AND NEITHER IS THE GOVERNMENT)
DOES ANYBODY ACTUALLY SEE THAT RETRAINING MANUAL?
:sob::sob::sob:
:sob::sob::sob:
:sob::sob::sob:
MAYBE ALL OF THE FACTORY WORKERS COULD BE SENT TO ATTEND MEDICAL SCHOOLS.:clap:


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## Sirius (Apr 24, 2008)

Hien said:


> MAYBE ALL OF THE FACTORY WORKERS COULD BE SENT TO ATTEND MEDICAL SCHOOLS.:clap:



Trust me when I tell you, I bet some of the factory workers could do a better job treating patients than some of the doctors, nurses and therapists I have worked with in my clinical rotations.

It sure would help with the staffing shortage. I don't think many people realize how badly understaffed most hospitals are. The other day, I was talking to a nurse from the Philippines who said she came over with 50 other nurses, just to staff Phoenix hospitals. And she was working that day in the ICU where there was a ratio of one staff nurse to eight agency, traveler and foreign nurse workers.


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## Hien (Apr 24, 2008)

PHRAG said:


> Trust me when I tell you, I bet some of the factory workers could do a better job treating patients than some of the doctors, nurses and therapists I have worked with in my clinical rotations.
> 
> It sure would help with the staffing shortage. I don't think many people realize how badly understaffed most hospitals are. The other day, I was talking to a nurse from the Philippines who said she came over with 50 other nurses, just to staff Phoenix hospitals. And she was working that day in the ICU where there was a ratio of one staff nurse to eight agency, traveler and foreign nurse workers.


 I agree with you, but I see no concrete plan from the government to train the out of job factory workers to work in medical field. 
I just get the feeling in reading your post that we just import already trained peoples from somewhere else to fill in.


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## KyushuCalanthe (Apr 24, 2008)

Heather said:


> Apple actually replaced my laptop after there was a motherboard problem. It was several years old at the time and they replaced it with the newer generation. I won't ever buy anything else.



Ditto. Wouldn't touch any PC ever again.


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## Sirius (Apr 24, 2008)

Hien said:


> ]I just get the feeling in reading your post that we just import already trained peoples from somewhere else to fill in.



I hate to hijack a thread, but since this one is about complaining, I guess it is ok to hijack it with more complaining. 

If by "already trained" you mean barely trained, then yes, they are already trained. My wife is a nurse, and she has been assigned many of the new students and "import" nurses for training when they are hired. She swears that not only do imported nurses know less than new graduates, the nurses from India are almost impossible to teach because they aren't allowed to do as much hands on treatment there, and they are very timid about learning. She hates being assigned a foreign nurse. But that just goes to show you how severe the shortage of good nurses is. My wife is a travel nurse, and the hospital pays her extra money to train their staff nurses, and teach a diabetic course to new nurses once a month. 

I have only had one bad experience with a foreign nurse so far. She had a patient code on her, and during the code she freaked out and left the room. The doctor had her removed from the floor immediately, and as far as I know, she was probably deported because the patient died. Another nurse had to push all the code medications because she panicked and left the room. The doctor was screaming at her to come back and get the meds.

I am sure there are great foreign nurses out there, but there are also really, really bad ones.


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## SlipperFan (Apr 24, 2008)

PHRAG said:


> I am sure there are great foreign nurses out there, but there are also really, really bad ones.



And so we are back to the beginning of this thread: When they are good they are very good, and when they are bad...


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## PaphMadMan (Apr 24, 2008)

4 months and counting on my Dell. So far so good...


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## Heather (Apr 24, 2008)

KyushuCalanthe said:


> Ditto. Wouldn't touch any PC ever again.



Unfortunately, after last week's lightening strike at work, I now have a brand new dell pc sitting on my desk at work. I wish I didn't have to touch it. I was going to work for a dual boot macbook pro but IT was too fast for me. :sob:


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## Roth (Apr 24, 2008)

I can speak about that, just got many problems with my Toshiba, hard drive failure, motherboard out of order, and recently the keyboard out of order. I bought it last year. I have a old 486 Toshiba laptop, that still works perfectly well, more than 10 years old I think... I feel nowadays the quality of everything related to electronics ( and more) dropped dramatically.


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Apr 24, 2008)

I haven't had any recent problems with Dell....for awhile, a few years ago, they seemed to be going downhill...now it seems they have improved a bit. What we do is get everything from dell under "small business". Its much cheaper, and supposedly their tech support is based in Canada, rather than India. Don't know for sure....haven't needed it yet....Take care, Eric


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## Hien (Apr 24, 2008)

Sanderianum said:


> I can speak about that, just got many problems with my Toshiba, hard drive failure, motherboard out of order, and recently the keyboard out of order. I bought it last year. I have a old 486 Toshiba laptop, that still works perfectly well, more than 10 years old I think... I feel nowadays the quality of everything related to electronics ( and more) dropped dramatically.



I heard that the Japaneses are very very proud group of peoples.
I even heard that sometimes their executives would jump out of windows if something tarnishes the company's reputation (Unlikes, our executives who rob the companies & investors before bailing each others out with generous golden parachutes) 
Toshiba sounds japanese, maybe you could write a letter directly to the Toshiba's chairman, they may even replace your bad machine with a golden labtop.


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## Hien (Apr 24, 2008)

PHRAG said:


> I hate to hijack a thread, but since this one is about complaining, I guess it is ok to hijack it with more complaining.
> 
> If by "already trained" you mean barely trained, then yes, they are already trained. My wife is a nurse, and she has been assigned many of the new students and "import" nurses for training when they are hired. She swears that not only do imported nurses know less than new graduates, the nurses from India are almost impossible to teach because they aren't allowed to do as much hands on treatment there, and they are very timid about learning. She hates being assigned a foreign nurse. But that just goes to show you how severe the shortage of good nurses is. My wife is a travel nurse, and the hospital pays her extra money to train their staff nurses, and teach a diabetic course to new nurses once a month.
> 
> ...



What you said scares the .... out of me.
I believe our politicians have no plans. The whole thing about retraining is just that, lip service.


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## goldenrose (Apr 25, 2008)

I got my 3rd Dell in November, none of them have been laptops, none of them have had any problems!


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## Candace (Apr 25, 2008)

Tick tock, tick tock Rose:>


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## goldenrose (Apr 25, 2008)

Candace said:


> Tick tock, tick tock Rose:>


so what happened to ..... when they're good?


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## gotsomerice (Apr 25, 2008)

I've used Mac since 1991. I would NEVER touch anything else.


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