Re: Refurbished Dell Computers

[Juey Chong Ong]

On Monday, January 27, 2003, at 08:17 PM, Bob Rapp wrote:

Hi;

Does anyone have any experience with Dell refurbished computers?

Everything

I have heard about Dell in general and their refurbs in particular has

been

positive, but I'd like as much feedback as possible before plunking down

the

bucks.

My last two experiences with Dell were awful, although neither involved refurbished equipment.

Case 1: bought a brand new, top of the line Dell laptop with UXGA video. The video refused to go into UXGA mode. After several hours on the phone with tech support, they decided to send someone out for onsite replacement of the video board. The IBM (no, it's not a typo) technician they sent out could not diagnose the problem so he requested for a replacement video board. One week later, the video board arrived and the IBM tech came back to replace it. Still didn't work, so he ordered a new display. Came back one week later to replace it. Still no UXGA. By now, he had given up and called Dell to replace the laptop.

It happened at a time when we had an urgent need for the laptop to develop a piece of software and in the end it took three weeks for Dell to send us a working laptop.


Case 2: I ordered an Olympus C-5050Z from the Dell store. It was backordered (as was everywhere else). After one month, when all the major retailers were already stocked with C-5050Z's, my order was still backordered.

I cancelled my order. The telephone rep was unable to give me a cancellation confirmation number because the system didn't process cancellations in real time.


Be careful of Dell.

--jc