Cheap Dell Laptop Inspiron 1.5 GHz 1300 £299 delivered. (merged) [CLOSED]

Roger_Rampant

Dell do special offers all the time, so you can wait for another one to come along

real1314

They are now "suggesting" you call back tomorrow, if you ask to order today you get put "on hold". If it looks like a con, it probably is.

some might suggest that dell are making money from the phone call? they are certainly ripping people off from this aspect as well as the "false advertising" issue.

oddbod_3

I tried to place an order for one on friday, the salesman in the call centre offered the additional warranty, RAM upgrade and then a case. When I said no he told me they were experiencing problem with their systems and he would me call back in 30 mins. Waited all day no call so I called again and this time the same script but with the added question 'Are you interested in buying' I replied if I wasn't interested in buying why would I be calling them!
Dell's call centre staff really need to get their attitude right.

Its been long time since I bought a Dell, and am now a little dubious of their systems,quality and support. I used to buy them for my work but then we moved to HP/Compaq

I was quoted a delivery of 4-6 days so fingers crossed.

zja10

hi all, ive been keeping tabs on this post, and have tried ordering several times today, but the call centre in India is really a no go. they have the most silliest of tactics to try and sell additional stuff, once you tell them you aren't interested, you are just cut off, i will definitely be lodging a complaint to watchdog and dell once i get try and order tomorrow now. good luck every1 and keep us posted if you have any luck with it.

Mr_Squiddy

Well I managed to order one eventually...

After enduring the 'do you want to upgrade X and Y' we finally came to the price. I ordered the basic package plus the upgrade to 15.4" screen. The total I calculated was £344 - I was quoted £374. During this process I was told that the call centre operative's "software is very slow" and they couldn't process the order, nor get the lower prices (which I based on the Sun newspaper's price of £299 from late last week.) In the end I said I was not happy and would be complaining and I terminated the call.

Two minutes later, the gentleman phoned back (he had taken my number earlier) and lo and behold his software was now working and he could process the order at £344 and all went smoothly from thereon.

I tend not to believe in conspiracy theories so I might be prepared to believe that Dell's problems are caused by a breakdown of internal communications or dodgy software, but nevertheless I think they may well get a good consumer program kicking over this, and they'll deserve it.

Mr S.

Lara

I have got through to them today and was asked if it was for business or home. I said possibly both - brain went into overdrive! He said business section not open today so I replied not to worry it's for home mainly anyway. He then asked if I was calling from the UK - replied yes. He then transferred me & I was away from India in a queue for no-hopers I suppose! Probably end of the story I suppose:wall: :rolleyes:

MarkR_2

PaHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
tried again and eventualy got thru............
Tried selling me one for £500 odd with bigger screen and extra memory which they have 4 in stock, . I said no thanks is the £299 price that attracted me as in the Sun advert yesterday ( had paper in front of me too) ,was told they have none in stock at £299 . Dell cant realy loose on this, they are making a fortune on premium rate 0870 phone number plus they will manage to talk a few people into upgrading to a more expensive machine.

Chuffy

It's a load of cr4p isn't it - remember the Dell adverts, no pc's on shelves going out of date? We build every unit to order - unless of course if we sell them too cheap and then we don't have them in stock... Stock that we don't hold, hmmm, sounds a bit fishy to me...

real1314

Call charges as per BT (pennies per minute)



Daytime Evening Weekend
0845 3.00 1.00 1.00
0870 7.51 3.75 1.50
0870 09 4.95 2.49 2.00
0870 185 4.95 2.49 2.00
0870 187 4.95 2.49 2.00
0870 188 4.95 2.49 2.00


Dell aren't going to make a fortune, but it's pretty obvious that they will NOT sell a £299 system, but will let you have it with a 3 yr warrantly + screen + hard drive upgrade + memory upgrade ALL AT CRAZY PRICES!!

Example: To add 512MB extra memory


Dell:
768MB 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM Memory (1x512MB+1x256MB) [add £182.13 or £4/month1]

Crucial.com:
Details 512MB—CT482958 DDR2 PC2-4200 CL=4 NON-ECC
£39.99 ex. VAT £46.99 inc. VAT*


So it's an extra £135 for Dell to "custom build" a PC with an extra stick of memory that costs £47 !!!

Mr_Squiddy

MarkR wrote:

Tried selling me one for £500 odd with bigger screen and extra memory which they have 4 in stock, . I said no thanks is the £299 price that attracted me as in the Sun advert yesterday ( had paper in front of me too) ,was told they have none in stock at £299 .

That's interesting as the chap I spoke to at Dell talked about 'sending the order to the production line' (not a verbatim quote) which rather contradicts the idea that they are kept in stock.

Isn't the 0870 number charged at national rate? At least, according to Skype my call cost around £2.40 for a 24 minute call, which would indicate 10p per minute. That might make you feel a little better!

Mr S.