Is £57 for 5 minutes advice fair value from Dell

Happychappy

Hi

I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 530 desktop computer. I have had it for four weeks and swapped over my old files from an XP machine onto the Vista machine

I havent changed any settings or altered anything for the past week and everything was running fine. I alwys shut down by start, shut down, and likewise switch on by the button.

On Monday evening I switched it off and went to restart on the Tuesday evening. The screen almost immediately went to an error page stating the boot settings had been altered and the machine was unable to start, reinstall the instalation disc.

I put the disc in the cd and restarted but it coudnt get past the boot error page.

I then rang Dell and spoke to a person reading a script who then said in order to fix the fault I would be put to a premium helpline and the cost would be £57. The computer is under gaurantee and the windows Vista came preloaded, I have not altered or added anything to it. Despite pointing this ot I was told no payment, no advice, therefore I had to pay up.

I was then put through to the helpline after givving my credit card, the advice was put in your reinstallation disc and restart pressing F12, this then bought me to another screen where I pressed enter, and then scrolled to Repair and reinstall, I clicked this and the computer started.

Is £57 good value for the four or five minutes advice plus the £1 plus per minute to repair a glitch on a computer under gaurantee, interested in your views.

AndysDad

Sounds a bit of a Rip-off especially as it was only 4 weeks old....Why didn't you post on here before they sorted you out, as I'm sure we would have told you to do the same and not charged you £57.Seriously I would challege why they charged you so much.

wallbash

If it was me, 4 weeks old, demand of £57
Would think about returning it and getting my money back .

Hope more people read this and NOT buy a Dell!

DatabaseError

You were warned of the cost and the instructions would have been in the manual supplied with the machine, so, if the question is "is it worth £57 to you to have someone read the manual for you" then no, it isn't...but....apparently it is to you.
2 pieces of free advice for the future,
1. RTFM
2. Google is your friend

Blacksheep1979

Have you tried emailing CS and saying this is a little ott for a 4 week old machine? They may give you the money back as a 'gesture of goodwill'

aliEnRIK

Clearly its a complete ripoff
However, as database has already said. YOU decided that it was ok to pay that. They told you in advance what it would cost and you decided to pay that cost
I cant see what else you can do really

Marty_J

Happychappy wrote: »

Is £57 good value for the four or five minutes advice plus the £1 plus per minute to repair a glitch on a computer under gaurantee, interested in your views.

I would have told you what to do for only £25.

Happychappy

DatabaseError wrote: »

You were warned of the cost and the instructions would have been in the manual supplied with the machine, so, if the question is "is it worth £57 to you to have someone read the manual for you" then no, it isn't...but....apparently it is to you.
2 pieces of free advice for the future,
1. RTFM
2. Google is your friend

Thanks for your free advice, although slightly flawed, No it isnt in the manual and I did read it, although it says about reinstalling and wiping the hard drive, all it says is to insert the installation disc and click restart and repair? this does not overcome the fail to boot up screen, you need to know to also press the F12 and then three other sequences. I am sure some people like yourself clearly know to press one of the F keys, but others do not.

Google it would be fine ? but how does one do that without a computer :rolleyes:

But thanks for your advice, I shall file it and flush accordingly...

peter_the_piper

I;ve found the Dell forum a great place to start if you have access to another comp. When I had problems with this laptop I used the forums, did all they asked and then as it did not solve the problem I emailed Dell CS and got it sorted under guarantee.

Happychappy

Marty_J wrote: »

I would have told you what to do for only £25.

Can you post for future reference ? oh, or possibly leave your number in the paper which I can then access when the computer packs up, but thanks for your offer

Marty_J

Happychappy wrote: »

Can you post for future reference ? oh, or possibly leave your number in the paper which I can then access when the computer packs up, but thanks for your offer

It's a Nigerian number, so it might be quite expensive to call.

Oh, and I'll be needing your bank account details too.

Seriously though, I would write a nice letter to them if you're unhappy with what happened. There have been a few posts over the last several days with people unhappy with Dell.