Experience with Dell in India

You all must be wondering where I got lost for so long and why suddenly I am back to my keyboard to write about Dell. That is because, I have kind of worked out on my mind now. I have made my tolerance level very strong and do not let any thing affect me as such. Also, I have learnt to ignore many many things.
But today, dell has forced me to get back blogging. If you have a Dell or are planning to buy one before your R2I, read patiently.

We bought Dell exactly 4 years back. It has been through a regular domestic usage. Nothing harsh.
We bought this one from US. We had even bought a warranty on it a couple of years back but never got a chance to use it.

Now, we noticed that one of the corners of our lappy is popping out and has even incurred a crack at 2 places. also, the laptop base was getting heated up.

We thought of taking it to the Dell Service center in Koramangla and get it fixed.
here is the story:
March 11, 2010: Went to Dell center. Was attended to nicely. The person told me that the top cover needs replacement(obviously) and the heat sink and fan need to be replaced as well. He ran some diagnostics and found that everything was fine.
He informed that they have everything in stock except for the top cover and after checking inventory, told that the cover will positively be there on monday- Mar. 15th.
I committed a mistake. Did not take his direct no.

March 15, 2010, 9:15 am: I wanted to confirm if the cover has arrived so that I do not have to waste time, peace of mind and non-renewable natural fuel called petrol.
Could not find the service center no. anywhere so finally called up the call center. Raj was online. Took 45 minutes trying not to resolve my problem but to sell me the warranty worth Rs. 7400. The replacements were costing Rs. 5164. I refused again and again and just asked for the service center no. He told me that without the warranty the cover will take 2-3 months to come and with warranty it will be fixed within 2 business days. He than told me to talk to his supervisor Ravi Thakur after I bluntly told him that I will not buy the warranty. Ravi also tried his level best for the next 15 mnts to coax me into buying the warranty. I told him I will let him know later and asked for a case no. Over.

10:30: Reached the service center again. This time another guy called Shubu George was there and I explained him the problem. The previous guy was attending to another customer. Mr. George told me the cover will be a special order and is not coming in the next many shipments unless they placed an order. he even showed me the inventory list and the top cover was no where to be seen. I asked him why this other guy told me or rather fooled me by telling this. He shrugged his shoulders and again started selling me warranty and the quote was Rs. 7950 this time. I told him about the quote the call center guy had given me. He told me to go ahead and buy it at my own risk since he did not know of any policy of Rs.7400.
I called up the call center and spent 1:45 hours (not in queue)with agent Ali and with Agent Mandeep only to get convinced that I should rather go for a 2 years warranty as I will save a lot of money. Also, without running any physical or diagnostic test on my laptop, they concluded that my mother board was burnt and I needed a new one which was beyong this warranty. So the warranty which covers MB will be Rs. !4,000!!!
I told him to just give me a simple warranty of Rs.7400. still more convincing and I told him rudely not to try to act smart with me and get to business. He told me some Mr. jalpesh will be calling up to process transaction.
I informed Mr. George in the mean time about the ongoings. he said, "Gine me the INSO no. I will see to it. I can track everyone who gave you this quote. I will make sure that this is taken care of. It is not fair".
My interpretaion of it: My commission is gone. I will F*** up their livelihood.

Jalpesh called me after a few minutes for another 35 minutes just to process my credit card. Please note that the policy description given by all these agents was different from each other.

My daughter's school got over at 12 PM and here I was stuck dealing with not a computer company but a bunch of sales people just trying to suck more money out of you. I reached school very late to find poor 3 yrs old sitting alone in a corner, hungry and tired.

March 16th, 2010: got a call from Pramod from dell to schedule an appointment for today, March 18th for 11 am.

It is 3 now and Mr. pramod or anyone else is not here yet. Jaafer called me at 11:50 to inform me that he has not been able to resolve the previous case and will take another hour. And that he will call me up when he starts from there. The place is hardly 10 minutes distance from our place.
I called him up again at 2 pm. He banged down the phone after saying that he will call me when he starts.

For those of you who own a dell, please get everything fixed before you board your one way flight for our dear motherland.
For those who are planning to buy Dell. Please think again.

But, looking at the bigger picture, it's not dell. It is everycompany in India. Ready to put hand inside your mouth and bank account and pull out as much cash as they can but when it comes to providing for the service or product. ZILCH!! ZERO!! SHOONYA!!

It is going to be airtel next....the target of my wrath.