Dell have the worst customer service of any company I have ever had the pleasure of dealing with.

Dell's rules:

• Never remember any details from previous correspondence.
• Force customers to reiterate their entire experience on each correspondence
• Place customer on hold for 30min stints repeatedly
• Cease any activity on customers case when call is ended
• Only act on a customer's case while they are present on the phone (hold is ok)
• Ignore the details of conversations and make a half arsed attempt at correcting issues
• Do not respond to customer emails - hope they go away
• Refuse to call customer back (our policies don't allow this)

That list could go on and on... Anyway here is my experience:

Oct 5th 2009 - Ordered two Dell XPS 1645s from dell (Obsidian Black RGBLED Intel i7).

Oct 12 2009 - My order is still at "order received" status - No communication from dell - I call them - Problem with wireless cards.

Oct 26 2009 - Still at "order received" status - Still no communication from dell - call them - Problem with monitors (they going to go through each component like this?) - Dig deeper and I find that they are having problems with the supply of Obsidian Black - still a few weeks wait, but I can change to White and they can build straight away - Except, we'll need to cancel your order and place a new one (yep, back on the end of the line) - They could have told me this 21days ago!!!!!! Since we need one of these laptops ASAP I changed one to white (we'll wait for the other).

Nov 11 2009 - Alright first 1645 has arrived - It looks nice - feels good too... Turn it on and it beeps like crazy and I need to power it down (I'm in the office and this thing is going nuts - everyone's looking at me now :) - brushing my hand over the keyboard a few times got it booting (stuck key) - after using it for a few minutes I found the down key keeps getting stuck (not good) - After few moments the machine hung - totally dead - screen fixed with the last image in place, but even the caps lock key doesn't light up - power button it off. Well we found this was the expected affair for this laptop - not a good start.

Nov 20 2009 - Received the second laptop (first still sick - discussing with Dell - slowly) - Again, looks nice, feels nice - but low and behold, same ol' crashing problem..

Nov 23 2009 - Noticed new issue - both laptops spontaneously awaken from being suspended - the white one does it every night without fail - drains the battery, great! The black one does it less often, but does so. Get on to dell - they offer replacements.

Dec 5 2009 - 1 Replacement arrived - Upon opening I notice some cosmetic damage to the screen hinge area (great), a blob of glue/rubber/stuff stuck in a joint making a bulge and a second bulge on the side of the screen from poor assembly.. But best of all - this replacement also suffers from the random crashing and spurious wake-ups - Contact dell to see what I should do - they'll escalate my issue - the manager will contact me.

Dec 15 2009 - Still no word from dell, still no second replacement machine - still no advice on the return of the first replacement - I call them and email them asking for some updates and to please tell me the 1) the status of the second replacement 2) what should I do about the crashing 3) what should I do about the cosmetic issues with the replacement 4) what should I do about the spurious wake-ups - No-one could help - They escalate my case again. I Inform them that they second replacement machine will need to be delivered to my residential address over the Christmas period as my workplace will be closed until Jan 4)

Dec 16 2009 - A random email from dell with a contract for a replacement 1645 - but no context as to what it is for... Call dell again and speak to a manager - he responds with a half baked response - I emailed him back again with my explicit questions itemized to which I got a better response but still ambiguous, I wrote another reply to clarify - no response.

Dec 22 2009 - Still no reply from dell, no confirmation about the delivery address being unavailable - Email them again asking for confirmation and an update.

Dec 23 2009 - Still no reply from dell (rude - ignoring emails) Call them again - I'm told that my case has been forwarded for a refund (Huh? I never asked for this - oh well better than being stuck with lemons) - I ask, where is my correspondence about this? Anyone going to let me know? Why did you just start ignoring my email? (rude!)

Dec 30 2009 - Still nothing from dell - call back again to ask what the status is - As with every call, I must go back to the beginning and go over it all again - department to department - to find that the second replacement has arrived in Australia and is should be delivered (my workplace is closed - where are you delivering it to Dell?) And the refund details are only being processed for one of the laptops (Grrrr) and I need to go through it all again for the other!!!!

I'll update this as my story goes....

Well, it's time for an update - sorry it's taken so long for the finale of this adventure.

Ok, I have spent too much energy on this transaction and I gave up following the dates and events in great detail - I have dates from email, so I'll piece it back together as much as I can, but anyway I'll summarise how this ended up.

After many phone conversations:

3rd Jan - Still waiting for confirmation details on returning the first replacement laptop - again lots of email sent asking - all ignored - This is handy when they make you agree to a contract stating you will be charged for the replacement laptop if it's not returned by their said date - then they make it hard to return - an uneasy experience! Supposed to be collected on the 5th Jan

4th Jan - Still struggling to get Dell to understand and complete the refund for both laptops and getting them returned.

6th Jan - Finally some concrete correspondence about the return of the first replacement... They'll be picking it up on the 11th

11th Jan - All 4 laptops were collected for refund - Finally, they are gone from my life!

26th Jan - I'm waiting for the refund to come through, I get an email on the 26th Jan:

Obviously, I'm not totally happy with this... As I explained to them -

1) Two laptops purchased in same order
2) Two replacement received for faulty originals
3) All four returned in same shipping for refund
4) Refund for only one received

What's going on?????

3rd Feb - I get an email

Stating that I can get the remainder of my refund via either:

Huh? What the hell are they playing at now?

This email was received at 5pm so contacting them immediately was impossible.. The next morning I get onto the phone and struggle through the usual department to department shuffle demanding to speak to a manager, being refused, persisting and eventually (after literally 2 hours of waiting - so bad that I used a second phone to call up to ask why the hell I have been on hold for over an hour - to which my original call was quickly revived - incredible!).

Anyway, the manager I was speaking to said they can not refund it all directly to my Visa as that is a security risk... (Huh???) I refuse to end the conversion and demand that they refund the money to my Visa, just as the purchase was made and without delay - otherwise I will be seeking legal advice.. Eventually they agree to make the payment. An to my amazement:

04 Feb 2010 - What an amazing day! - The remainder of my refund appears credited back to my Visa!

The End - 05 Oct 2009 to 04 Feb 2010

What an adventure!