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Post by Aravis on Feb 20, 2005 0:42:03 GMT -5
So it was just a strange convergence of busyness then? Good. Glad to see people mucking about here again. *G*
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Post by demgoddess on Feb 20, 2005 13:59:13 GMT -5
Aravis, I have no excuse for not posting, except that one day I realized I hadn't posted in quite a while and then felt as if I was far behind and jumping in mid-conversation. You lured me back in though with your recent post about hunting journalists. We need more people like you...People with solutions.
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Post by Aravis on Feb 20, 2005 14:57:32 GMT -5
And you know I am always glad to be of service! People should never hesitate to jump right in here. We're not only used to it, we welcome it. We get tired of listening to ourselves talk. Or at least, I get tired of listening to these guys talk. ;D You know I'm just kidding guys...
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Post by john on Feb 20, 2005 15:06:18 GMT -5
Hello. I am new here and slogging through all the posts so I won't be an intentional idiot. Accidents might happen though. If there's a 'getting to know you' folder, I'll try to find it. In the meantime,
Hello Arvis.
Robert said: 'BTW I was banned from scripture classes and had to sit with the Principal by the time I was 10'
lol..
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Post by Aravis on Feb 20, 2005 15:14:56 GMT -5
Hi John, welcome! Allow me to help you in you quest for the Introductions page.You know how to get in touch with me if you have any questions or problems. Enjoy!
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Post by Aravis on Feb 25, 2005 19:49:17 GMT -5
Hi all, and most of all Tenarke-
I'm in the process of switching hosts for my web site. The domain transfer and upgrade is taking place now, so my site is down. Tenarke, that's why your avatar isn't showing up at the moment. When the transition is complete, your avatar should reappear. For those of you who read my blog, it will be back soon.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled grousing. Er, discussions. *G*
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Post by Tenarke on Feb 26, 2005 17:22:32 GMT -5
I wasn't on at the time, so I missed it completely.
Thanks for the heads up anyway, Aravis.
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Post by Aravis on Feb 26, 2005 18:55:48 GMT -5
Unfortunately for me, you haven't missed anything Tenarke. Viewpoints isn't located on my website. If it was, then none of us would be able to access it right now. My website is still down, but should be back within the next 24 hours. At which time your avatar and our little Gagged Viewpoints Man (in the header) should reappear. In the meantime, these things are lost in transit between one server and another. Which frankly is annoying the crap out of me, but patience is a virtue. Or something.
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Post by Aravis on Feb 28, 2005 5:32:43 GMT -5
As you can see, my site is finally up and running again, which means that Tenarke's avatar and the image in the header above have safely returned to us. Perhaps they are a little wiser for their journey, but we'll never know. One is gagged, and the other is a photo. *G*
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Post by Aravis on May 1, 2005 0:26:05 GMT -5
This has nothing to do with major workings of the world. I just have to share the following:
Dell sucks. I could probably sum up this entry with those two words. But on the off chance that some of you may wonder why I have come to this conclusion, I shall elucidate.
A friend of mine (Ellen) helped her college- aged daughter (Amanda) with her purchase of a Dell computer in December. From the first they had problems with the sales staff and getting them to process the order correctly. Ellen dealt with them mostly. Amanda saved her earnings to buy the computer she wanted and then gave the money to Ellen so Ellen could put it on her credit card. The computer they ordered listed software as coming standard, including anti-virus. From day one Amanda has had problems with the computer and has called to report them and get help. Dell's return policy is that there are no returns after 21 days. However it turned out that the software they loaded in Amanda's computer were all demos, which she only found out after they expired a couple of weeks ago! On top of that, she didn't know her anti-virus wasn't protecting her computer anymore initially. She wound up with a virus that wiped out her computer. When she called tech support, they refused to help her until she paid them $39! They had her on the phone the other night from 8pm to 2:30 am, sometimes on hold for 1.5 hours at a time! Finally she fell asleep and, incidentally, failed an exam the following morning because she was so exhausted from being up half the night. They never resolved her problem and left her pretty upset.
So my friend Ellen stepped in and took over. She asked me to come over today to help her while she spoke to them because Ellen doesn't know as much about computers. First we got "Loretta." She's the one who explained to us that they would not take the computer back (which, remember, never worked properly in the first place and was reported as such. Conveniently, they can't find the records of those calls) because of the 21 day return policy, even though Amanda never received the software she bought and paid for. Loretta kept us on the line arguing for 2 hours, during which time we repeatedly requested to speak with her supervisor. She refused to put him/her on the phone. I talked Ellen and Loretta into some concessions. Ellen agreed to accept a replacement computer, though she really didn't want to have anything more to do with Dell. Loretta for her part gave us a coupon so Amanda could get the software she wanted. It was a done deal. Loretta said she would transfer us to the dept. that handles the exchanges. Almost an hour later "Anthony" gets on the phone. He makes us tell the whole story all over again, then refuses to give us the replacement. Then he basically called us liars by telling us that he's looking at the info Loretta sent to him and she made no mention of a replacement. He insisted that the only thing he would do for us was talk Amanda through fixing her computer, which is what Amanda just spent 6 hours doing with his crew the other night. They couldn't fix the problem then, what makes them think they can now? He absolutely refused to honor the deal between Loretta and ourselves. Angrily we demanded to be put back in touch with Loretta. He sent us back to customer service, but not Loretta. We got bounced 3 more times, each time having to explain from the beginning, only to get transferred again to someone else. Mind you, each time they put us on hold it lasted 30-60 minutes! At last "Gabby" came on the line. We told her the entire story again. She said that she would honor the agreement that Loretta made and set up a replacement. She just needed to wait to receive approval. Ellen took her dog for a walk, came back and made a cheese platter for us while we were on hold that time. Gabby finally came back and told us that they weren't going to replace the computer after all and the best thing they could do for us was to connect us with tech support, at which point we would have to pay $39 to receive help fixing the computer!!!!! Now, you have to understand that at this point I have been on the phone with Dell for 5 solid hours and the phone is beeping at me because the battery is about to die.
I snapped, and when I was done with her she agreed that Dell will give Amanda free tech support when she calls for help. Furthermore, they will still honor the $90 coupon promised by Loretta. I had had enough of their crap. Then I told Amanda that if she ever buys anything from Dell again I will personally kill her. Slowly and painfully.
The punchline of all this is that while Ellen and I were talking to Dell today, Amanda went to a new friend's house. Said friend's husband is in the IT tech field and promised to fix her computer for free! *LOL*
Oh well, I was spoiling for a fight and Amanda is taken care of. That's all Ellen and I wanted really. Once we calmed down Ellen and I laughed pretty hard about the whole day and its conclusion. It's was a day we'll never forget. :0)
But I will never, ever buy so much as a pen from Dell. The ink chamber would probably be only half full, but I wouldn't find that out until it was too late...
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pinkozcat
Full Member
Remember - pillage first, THEN burn.
Posts: 233
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Post by pinkozcat on May 1, 2005 0:37:03 GMT -5
When I retired a few years ago the hospital where I worked was just setting up a computer system but I never got to use it.
However, a friend from work and I went looking at computers a couple of years ago because I wanted a new laptop. I was looking at the Dell laptops because they seemed a good buy but my friend said that the system at work was Dell and they had nothing but problems with it.
Instead I had a laptop specially built to my requirements and it is great so it looks as though was I probably saved a heap of trouble.
Don't you have consumer advocates in USA?? I thought that Ralph Nader did that for America and the world. It looks as though Dell is in serious need of investigation into its policies and practises.
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Post by Aravis on May 1, 2005 2:00:16 GMT -5
I recommended to Ellen that she report them. However as a former government employee, she felt that the exercise would be futile and frustrating. So other than asking me to blast them online (which I did, here and on my blog) she probably won't do anything more. She's about to have heart surgery and can't be bothered with a prolonged battle with Dell just now. Personally, today's experience makes me glad that I have never purchased anything from them. And now I never will!
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Post by RobertGraves on May 1, 2005 2:19:23 GMT -5
We just received $10 000 from an Australian utility that screwed us around. We threatened legal action and when we sent them them a very detailed timeline -revealing how poorly treated we were - the company guy said he wished I worked for him.
Put together a timeline and send it with a covering letter to the head office honchos. You never know your luck.
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Post by Aravis on May 1, 2005 15:03:40 GMT -5
Thanks Robert, I'll pass that along to Ellen. She keeps very detailed records. She wrote down everyone's names and got their customer service ID#. This just comes at a bad time for her, so I'm not sure she'll follow through. But it's an excellent idea. Thanks again.
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wordswordswords
Full Member
"There's no harm in hoping." - Voltaire
Posts: 178
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Post by wordswordswords on May 1, 2005 16:22:27 GMT -5
Aravis, your story about Dell and your friend sounds like an example of patience for all of us who lack it. I'd probably have been banging my head against the wall after one hour with these people. You folks stuck it out, even including a break for cheese sandwiches!
I'd say you've already had some experience with this kind of runaround!
I've noticed an increasing tendency on the part of large organizations (like Dell) to have a vast network of people answering phones (always someone different) who must be trained to pass callers along to someone else, who then passes the callers along to someone different, and so on, until finally--woops! the phone connection gets cut, and you have to start all over, by which time you're very tired and irate.
--Which is just what was intended by the large organization. I'm convinced that they want to wear people down so we'll give up on our questions or complaints. And they can walk off with the store.
As for Ralph Nader, I'm not sure that his improvements in consumer action potential extend to the computer industry. They seem to get away with a lot, taking advantage of the average person's total helplessness when facing the "blue screen of death" or one of those cryptic error messages like "fatal exception error."
Telling the customer she'd be getting all standard software, and then it turns out to be a bunch of demo versions that expire--that is really a new low.
I've been getting angrier and angrier at downloadable "free" games that turn out to be demo versions that expire after 20 minutes or so, but at least I'm not out any dollars, even if I don't really find out what the game was like. Nowadays I avoid any downloadable games. I've given up on them as a bad deal.
Now I'll know better than to be tempted by those Dell ads I'm always seeing.
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