Dumb as Dell – Part 1

I picked up a Dell laptop for my Dad during a weekend trip to Dubai recently. I had no intention of buying a laptop but I couldn’t resist the “deal” that was being offered. ((I think the MacBook is excellent value for money, atleast at the US price, but my Dad would never boot into OS X, as his work involves using Windows only software. I know about Parallels and everything else, but buying an Apple machine and never or rarely booting into what makes the Mac experience what it is, would be dumb to say the least.)) I don’t think I have been this non-fussed over the purchase of any “gizmo” ever – I didn’t open the box for full 7 days until after the purchase and the only thing I did then was to see the box had a real machine which powered up. I logged onto the BIOS to verify the configuration was what I paid for and back it went into the box until it was time to come back to Delhi.

I come back to Delhi and realized that the charger plug is UAE/ Muscat type and not India type – as one would expect. I thought I would call Dell and buy a replacement cable – just the part with the plug, that goes from the socket to the adaptor (power brick) and can be detached. Mind you, I knew I could have just bought a cheap converter (which would have cost me around 40 bucks) but it’s an additional thing to carry, which you can very easily forget somewhere, rendering the laptop unusable (atleast when the battery runs out). Hence I thought let’s spend the 1000 bucks or whatever it costs, and buy a replacement cable.

So I called Dell. First I was asked how I knew the problem was in that cable. Who said anything about a problem? I just want to buy a new one, I said. I quoted the serial number (Dell has a fancier name for that, which I can’t recall) of the laptop and was told I couldn’t buy a cable from them, because that number was not showing up in their database. When I told the customer representative I had bought the laptop in Dubai, I was told that Dell couldn’t verify I was the rightful owner of this laptop and hence cannot sell anything to me! I should get the ownership of this laptop transferred to my name, she said, by sending a couple of emails and only then could I buy anything from them. I asked her in as many words – “are you telling me I can’t buy any Dell accessories, unless I quote a right number?” (aka I am throwing money at you and you are saying no?!!). She told me she couldn’t help me and went on to say how this was somehow supposed to make genuine customers safer – am I the only one reminded of WGA? ((I’m sure studies have statistically proven that Dell notebooks are stolen less than Apple ones, and I’m sure it’s down to this practice of Dell.))

Exasperated, I asked, you expect me to wait 2-3 days, while I wait for the “formalities” to get completed, with a non-functional laptop, because your database doesn’t have my laptop number, when her helpful best came out and she said, no Sir, you can go out and buy a convertor. For once, I took her advice and did just that – I bought the darn convertor.

[tags]dell, wtf, microsoft, india[/tags]