104 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
104 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
[[!meta title="List of support fiascos"]]
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## Introduction
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Dealing with a lot of hardware (in the sense of moving/maintaining)
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involves some support from vendors. Sometimes vendors are doing a
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particular bad job. This blog page is dedicated to vendor screwups and
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document real stories.
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## The support for a Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 (2019-11-16 - IN PROGRESS)
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I ordered this particular notebook on 2019-09-19 and it arrived around
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2019-09-27. So far so good. However shortly after starting to use it,
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I managed to get a somewhat-stuck key (the "p key"), which
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more-or-less randomly hangs/does not produce a character. As some of
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my passwords contain a p, this led to very frustrating login failures.
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Having a stuck key like this after less than 2 months of use is really
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not showing good quality, so I reported this issue with Dell on
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2019-11-16. With the device I bought the so called
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"Complete Care Service" and "Premium Support". In theory reachable
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24x7.
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In practice, after opening the support request on 2019-11-16, I did
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not receive a real reply on the following Monday. So I reached out
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again and got a reply on Tuesday, already being late if it was only
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next business day (NBD) support.
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After reporting that issue additionally the rubber below that keeps
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the notebook stable on the table began to detach itself from the
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notebook. Only another minor problem, but clearly nothing to expect
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from a quality device.
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After a long forth-and-back via Twitter DM about the device heat and
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whether the p key still occasionally is stuck (yes!) there was
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eventually a replacement scheduled for the 26th of November.
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However - you can guess it - nobody showed up. The log at Dell says
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that somebody tried to reach me, however there was no missed calls on
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any of my numbers. And no email or no direct message. So even if
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somebody tried to call, they did not bother sending an email.
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Until I reached out again, after I got a message that the phone number
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is forwarded. It continues "funny" like that: on 26th there was no
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further communication from Dell. No message, no call, no email.
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However when logging in to the Dell portal, Dell rescheduled the
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appointment for Thursday, 28th, 0800.
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Independently on how the story evolves from here, the amount of time
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spent into the support, waiting, replanning locations, etc. is already
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exceeding the worth of the product. So I can clearly disrecommend
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buying this device/support combination, if you want to professionally
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work with it.
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And it continued on 2019-11-27 at around 2230 in the evening when the
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Dell technician called me by accident. "I just wanted to save your
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number". Then asking me on the phone where Glarus is in detail. I
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guess Dell doesn't have a navigation software...
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Then eventually telling me that he
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might or might not come tomorrow (the 28th), but he will certainly
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contact me in the morning.
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2019-11-28, around 1400. No call, no message, no nothing. Reaching
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out via Twitter DM. Again. My phone number is confirmed, I get as an
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answer. So yet another day where Dell scheduled the support (not me),
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does not appear, does not reach out nor gives any suitable answer.
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2019-11-29. The technician just wrote an email that he comes Monday
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1200. That is yet another week after Dell originally announced the
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repair and yet another time that Dell unilaterally decides on a new
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repair date without even trying to confirm the date.
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But it gets worse: later in the evening I received a twitter message
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that the case is closed. Without ever having seen a technician,
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without having gotten it repaired. And a bit later it gets confirmed
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on the "service request" page of Dell.
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So in a summary:
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* Waited for nothing to happen for two weeks
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* Multiple support appointments scheduled without ever showing up
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* Claims of trying to reach me by phone without any missed call (and
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other calls that I received the same day)
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* Wasted many hours in communication
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* No support executed at all
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* Support cased closed without doing anything
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The story continues: 2019-12-04. I got a message saying that the
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techincian is coming tomorrow. Again without confirmation from my side
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and with less than 24h to react.
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2019-12-05: because so far nobody ever showed up, I send a message via
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Twitter to @DellHilft, asking about the technician. Answer is that I
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should wait (what a joke). I also check the support center, which
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claims to have called me at 3 am GMT. 3 am. Seriously, which company
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does that?
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[[!img dell-3am-call.png]]
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Besides that, I obviously did not receive a call.
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[[!tag hardware support]]
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