During LAPTOP’s annual Tech Support Showdown, we made three calls to Dell’s tech support line and got more than we bargained for. During the calls, Dell pushed premium warranties on us, saying we had won a daily drawing that would allow us to buy a $500 four-year extended warranty for just $317. Lucky us — we were chosen to spend even more money on something we didn’t need! When we resisted, the representative rushed us through the call, barely attempting to answer our question, but routinely haranguing us to buy the warranty, because otherwise the next caller would get our "prize."
According to Dell, using "drawings" as a sales tactic is against company policy. However, aggressively pushing extended warranties and hardware purchases is not, as we experienced on two other calls where support reps seemed more interested in making a commission than solving our problems.
More: Tech Support Showdown 2012
December 11th, 2012 at 3:55 pm
I think the Asus thing is hilarious. The shared data plan is criminal. And Blackberry is in serious trouble.
December 13th, 2012 at 4:22 am
LOL, an orb for the Google Nexus Q. That should have been stopped as soon as someone said “orb.” Poor Blackberry can’t really do anything right, what happened to them, really do like the phones & hope that 2013 will be better for them. Why in the world would Asus put USB ports in the back of the laptop, good concept just bad execution. The shared plans are ridiculous, thank goodness they still have single plans. Dell is one of the worst computer makes ever and their support is not any better. Never did get any help with my Dell computer when I was trying to back-up the system. Never did figure out what the problem was and just gave up, will never purchase another Dell computer again.