In a column several weeks ago, I told the tale of my recent and horrible experience with Dell tech support, which repeatedly dropped the ball in responding to my complaints about a defective desktop PC. The hunk of junk refused to boot up, beeped and cried out for a quick resolution.
And although I sent the PC back to Dell's repair depot twice and had three onsite technicians come to my house to try to fix the problem, the computer simply did not work. Dell wanted me to send the PC back again, but I balked and asked for either a replacement or my money back.
Only hours after I contacted my credit card company, hoping it would help me resolve the issue, a Dell customer service representative called and offered to replace the PC and pay for shipping. Two days later, a new PC arrived and, low and behold, it works just fine.
In all, I spent nearly two months fighting with Dell over a PC that was dead-on-arrival. And it's obvious the company's mail-in repair depot never adequately did its job.
That's why in that original column, in which I rated tech support quality for a number of PC manufacturers and makers of electronic devices, I gave Dell a D.
It's only fair that I now raise that to a D-plus.
