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

Mr_Squiddy

Nesima wrote:

Reading some of the moaning and whingeing in this thread, you would think that Dell
had broken into peoples home's and murdered their children. Also some of the written contributions appear to me to be bordering on racist. If you are stuggling with the English of some of the Customer Service staff, try your own Urdu

I don't think your last comment is quite fair. If I respond to an advert in an English newspaper, phoning an English phone number for a company which has a UK website, I expect to be able to understand and be understood by the people I talk to. This was not the experience of some people in this forum, although I must say that the gentleman I dealt with spoke perfect English and was very helpful (in the end.)

Pointing out language difficulties is not racist. At least it is no more racist than presuming that all the Dell call centre staff speak Urdu.

As for your first quoted comment, what Dell did was advertise a product at a particular price, then make it quite difficult for callers to actually purchase that product. If you read my first post in this forum you will see I had to threaten to make a complaint, and then I actually terminated the call before the item advertised was made available to me at the price advertised. Other people had other problems - disconnections, being told that the item was no longer in stock etc. This is pretty shoddy for a company whose whole advertising presence is apparently built around the fact that you cannot buy their products "in the shops." After this episode it would also seem that (a) you can't buy them online, and (b) you can only order by them by phone by threatening and cajoling. Do you think that that Dell's behaviour in this matter has been acceptable? I do not.

Best,
Pete

dovermire

Good old Dell, they do not disappoint.

Seventeen minutes after placing my posting on the forum I received a phone call from Dell telling me that I needed to place a company name with my personal details. I informed them I wasn't involved with a company and was informed they were cancelling the order, I replied That's fine by me, I told the lady how disgusted I was re my previous attempts (3) to order and would buy a Compaq instead - then hung up.

Saga continues - no doubt !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hillfly

Nesima wrote:

Ordered 2 of these at the original £349 price, first one ordered Tuesday 14th (evening) delivered Saturday 18th (2nd attempt), had tried to deliver Friday lunch time while I was at work. Second one ordered evening Wednesday 15th (last day of original sale), currently in Germany after being shipped from Ireland according to UPS.

First impression is that it is a 'value for money' item, build quality is good, keyboard has a nice firm and positive action, screen image (14") is excellant, especially after turning up brightness when running off the battery. Sound is reasonable for the tiny speaker(s).

The Dell 'Cineplayer' displays an error message after a few minutes playing a DVD advising it wants to close, but I have found that if you move the message 'off the botttom' of the screen it carries on working fine. The only issue I have with it is that the image only uses a small portion (25%) of the screen and there appears to be no way of making it bigger.

I have installed Open Office 2 and VLC Media Player (an excellant DVD player that you can alter the screen aspect/size in) from a 'free' DVD that came with Computer Buyer (03/2006 edition) - And I am now operational.

OK, I have paid approximately £50 more than the £299 'offer' or £10 more than the current £339 Web Price, but I believed I was getting a bargain at £349 and after receiving the Laptop I am very happy with the value of my purchase.

Therefore if you want a good quality budget Laptop, get on and order it off the Website for £339, you will not be disappointed.

OK your not getting it for a hoped for £299, but you will still get a bargain !!
Reading some of the moaning and whingeing in this thread, you would think that Dell
had broken into peoples home's and murdered their children. Also some of the written contributions appear to me to be bordering on racist. If you are stuggling with the English of some of the Customer Service staff, try your own Urdu

I think you may have been referring to my story about the "tilda".
As stated no offence meant to any Indian MSE'ers.
However the point still stands that by outsourcing you're call centre to India you always risk a compromise to your customer service. Even though many Indian's speak excellent English it is sometime hard for the caller or call centre operative to make themselves fully understood.

Cripes i've had trouble calling Sky's call centre in Scotland! :rotfl:

Och no, I've opened a can of worms here........sorry all!

EdCov

As well as complaining to Dell and Watchdog another place it would be great if as many people as possible complain to is the Advertising Standards Authority, since they are not honouring what they are advertising in the national newspapers.

The link for the form to complain to is below.

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complaints_form/

If you yourself have not seen a paper copy of the advertisement but still want to complain, it was in the Daily Mail Page 60 on Saturday, if you saw it somewhere else though it is good to put that reference.

Dell need to be hauled up over the coals on this one, and hopefully made to properly honour the advert at a future date.

I have complained it would be great if more people do!

milgo

Ozymandias wrote:

Says "EMPLOYEE PURCHASE PROGRAM" at the top of the page on the Dell site ????

Where exactly? I've called the whole family in to have a look an none of us have spotted it!

tightus_wad

Ordered off the website - a couple of upgrades (battery and bigger screen)- and now have my PDF order.
Gonna ring tomorrow and ask why I have been charged more than they are advertising it at (Telegraph on Sat.) and wish to cancel this and order the cheaper one. See what happens!
Maybe save £40? Worth a call! Keep you all posted!

Ozymandias

milgo wrote:

Where exactly? I've called the whole family in to have a look an none of us have spotted it!

If you use the shortcut (or code) to get it to £315 online via the Dell site it has "EMPLOYEE PURCHASE PROGRAM" next to "DELL" at the top of the screen.

Dell will 'phone or email you you to cancel your order (they have with other orders) if you purchase and are not a member of a valid EPP (Employee Purchase Plan).

Chuffy

It was also advertised in todays Sunday People (I think - father in law's paper, so can't quite remember).

Chuffy

It's the N02153a

djblamire

Ozymandias wrote:

Dell will 'phone or email you you to cancel your order (they have with other orders) if you purchase and are not a member of a valid EPP (Employee Purchase Plan).

Does anyone know - If you work for a company that purchase Dell machines, are you automatically entitled to this discount ??

Thanks