Escalating a Dell complaint?

Legacy_user

Hi, just looking for some advice where to go next as Dell pretty flatly refused to deal with my complaint in a manner I am happy with.

The essential details:

What did you buy - Dell XPS15Z laptop
When did you buy it - Feb 2012
Where from - Dell online outlet
How did you pay - Debit card
What went wrong - 2 motherboard failures and 1 battery failure within 18 months
What are the vendors telling you - They refuse my request for a refund as they believe it was enough for them to have fixed the 2 motherboard issues (first in March 2012 and second in Oct 2013) and all they are willing to do is offer battery replacement for £110.
What solution or remedy are you looking for - Full refund as I feel the computer is consistently showing itself as being unfit for purpose. Happy to negotiate partial refund due to getting some use out of it but they won't budge.

With that out of the way, some extra info. Bought the computer Feb 2012. It broke within weeks and they sent a repair guy to replace the motherboard. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and accepted the repaired machine rather than pursue a refund as I thought it must be a one off.

Same motherboard issue happened again in October 2013. They offered me a quote of £772 to replace it (more than I paid for the machine initially). After complaining they decided to do it for free. Machine has since come back from repair, worked for a day and now the battery has gone kaput. They wanted £160 to replace that and I was so affronted I wrote a 3 page letter of complaint to their head office.

They rang this afternoon pretty much dismissing my feelings about being sold a machine that's not fit for purpose but were willing to offer me a reduced replacement battery for £110. My expectation was full/partial refund for the machine, which had I the foresight I would have gone for at the first point of failure but they refused to agree with that.

The chap I spoke to also said that there was no point of escalation within Dell, even if I wrote to the CEO the same team would deal with it anyway, so what I want to know is who should I contact next? Trading standards? Ombudsman?

Any help, advice and such would be most appreciated.

Fosterdog

A battery is a consumable item and are rarely/never covered for longer than 12 months.

Two repairs in 18 months is really not that bad and not a consistent problem.

A three page complaint will get you nowhere, a complaint should be short and to the point just giving facts and what you expect to be done, it should never be more than a page and I doubt anyone read more than the first page before getting bored.

From a legal point of view as it is over six months old you have to get an independent report done to prove the fault is inherent, your contact is with the seller is unless you bought direct from dell they don't have to do anything at all for you.

System

Fosterdog wrote: »

...From a legal point of view as it is over six months old you have to get an independent report done to prove the fault is inherent...

The motherboard has had to be replaced twice, seems inherent to me. Also, does the "more than 6 months" thing still apply when some of the parts in the machine are now less than that?

shaun_from_Africa

johncranston wrote: »

Also, does the "more than 6 months" thing still apply when some of the parts in the machine are now less than that?

Yes, it still applies as the Sale of Goods act refers to 6 months from purchase. As you didn't pay for the replacement motherboards, it won't be 6 months from when they were fitted.

Oli.s

Bad publicity via social media seems to focus a companies mind quite quickly.

I've been waiting over three weeks for a multi national to respond to a compliant beyond the initial "thanks for getting in touch well get back to you shorty" email despite emailing them requesting a simple update several times to no avail.

However a polite but to the point post on their facebook page this morning regarding the lack of response and my disappointment and low and behold they are now falling over themselves to resolve my complaint!

wealdroam

johncranston wrote: »

The motherboard has had to be replaced twice, seems inherent to me. Also, does the "more than 6 months" thing still apply when some of the parts in the machine are now less than that?

The battery failure doesn't sound like the same problem that you had with the motherboard.

Can you relate the battery failure to the motherboard problem?
Other than a possible timing coincidence, they appear to be unrelated.

If you want to pursue this, you will need to get an independent report stating that the problem with the battery is inherent.
An inherent fault is one that was present at the time of sale but not necessarily apparent at that time.

As batteries are not expected to last very long (make of that what you will), a discount of around 30% is probably a good offer.

You may well be able to pick up a 'non-Dell' battery cheaper than that.

Fosterdog

johncranston wrote: »

The motherboard has had to be replaced twice, seems inherent to me. Also, does the "more than 6 months" thing still apply when some of the parts in the machine are now less than that?

Seeming inherent to you and actually being inherent are two completely different things, it could easily be something you have done to cause the motherboards to fail. Also while two new boards seems a lot it happened over a span of 18months, which is quite a long time between repairs for an inherent fault. I wouldn't expect a faulty motherboard to last more than a few weeks before becoming unusable.

The point of your complaint now should be the battery, but again they are consumables and a battery needs to be looked after properly to keep it at peak performance.