Dell Computer Customer
Service—Deceptive & Fraudulent Rebate Offers
The following outlines my frustrating experience in dealing with
Dell Computer Inc. after purchasing a Dell Dimension 5100c Computer. I thought that I qualified for a rebate. Dell has denied my request and makes it
virtually impossible to appeal the decision because the entire customer service
department is apparently located in
Here is a brief history of this debacle:
1. On August 31, 2005
I purchased a Dell Dimension 5100c Computer System, thinking that I qualified
for the $250 rebate that was advertised on the Dell 5100c website.
2. A few days
later I went to my customer account on the Dell Website to examine how to get
the $250 mail-in rebate, and it said that I was not qualified for any rebate.
3. I, then, called
Dell on Sept. 14 or 15 to find out what was the problem. Sam in the Dell Care Department (at
1-800-624-9897 X7266966) said that I was not qualified for any rebate. When I said that I had proof of the rebate
offer he said that I should FAX a copy of the “proof of rebate
offer” along with a copy of the printout of the “Order
Confirmation” to him. He said that
I should send the FAX to: FAX
Number: 512-283-6161; Attention:
Sam—Batch ID# 461359; RE: Case # 112025542. This FAX was sent on September 15, 2005 at
5:16 p.m. PDT.
4. After waiting for nearly two weeks, neither Sam or anyone else at
Dell ever replied to me. I talked with a
woman who said that she had no knowledge and could find no evidence of my
conversation with Sam. All that she
could say was that I was not qualified for a rebate. I asked to talk to someone else, and she said
I could talk with a supervisor. I was
placed on “hold” and waited for an hour until the line went dead.
4. On October 4,
2005, I finally tried calling the
5. In early November 2005 I received a computer generated
message, saying that Dell was “unable to honor your request”
because the information on the packing slip/invoice did not allow it. It also said to call 1-800-842-3616 if there
were any questions. [The major problem
is that Dell does NOT tell you at the time of “on-line checkout”
that “You do not qualify for a rebate unless your invoice and packing
slip specifically say that you do.” What they tell the customer, if you click on
the website “rebate icon” is that the customer is required to send
in a copy of the packing slip in order to get the rebate. They should specifically tell a customer,
BEFORE ORDERING, that the rebate MUST be listed on the order summary that they
are looking at prior to submitting the order!]
6. I called the 800
number on November 17, 2005, and Ely in the Rebate Department said that I had
to call Customer Service (in
7. As you can see from the above, Dell Computer has a strategy
of bouncing the customer back and forth from one department to another, without
ever actually providing someone who can answer some simple questions. (I’m sure they hope that customers will
just give up, as I am sure most of them do.)
The only answer I ever received from the Customer Service and
No one at
Dell has ever answered my main question which is: Why was the
$250 Rebate not listed on my packing slip and invoice, when it was clearly
advertised on the website when I placed my order, and when I met all the
requirements that were listed in order for a customer to qualify for the rebate?
_____________________________________________________
Here is the letter written to the Dell
Computer Mail-In Rebate Center on October 7, 2005:
October 7, 2005
Dell Home Systems Mail-In Rebate
Dear Rebate Supervisor:
I was told by Chris in your Rebate Department to send you this e-mail to explain my problem. So, here goes…
I wanted to purchase a Dell computer on-line before the end of August because of the offers that were currently in effect at the time.
On the night of Aug. 29/30 I spent a large part of the night exploring your deals and selecting various components. The primary system I was interested in was a Dimension 5100C with:
Pentium 4 Proc. 630
Photo 942 Printer
Memory: 1 GB
Hard Drive: 160 GB
Software: MyDVD Plus
Floppy Drive/Media Reader: 9in 1 Media Card and external 1.44MB floppy
Monitor: 19”
Speakers: flat panel attached
The “extra” offers being advertised when I entered the Dell Dimension Configuration site were:
1) $150 off instantly
2) free shipping
3) free 19” flat
panel monitor upgrade
4) $250 mail-in rebate
(All of these offers were good until Aug 31 or later.)
Also, when I entered the “Select Components” section of the 5100C Web site I found that it offered a “FREE Dell Color Printer 720” or, alternatively, had other offers such as “SAVE $90! Dell Photo All-in-One Printer 942 [add $49 …]. I happened to print this out at the time and have attached file “Dell 8-30-05” to show you the offer I was looking at.
Here is the “printer offer” that I attached
with this letter and an enlargement of the printer offer:
This sounded like a great deal! In addition, I had a post card from you saying I could take $400 off select systems over $1199! The offer expired Sept. 8, 2005, and it gave me the code number BMBG?S7X85Q1FK.
I was in my office all night and raced home at 5 a.m. to catch my wife before she left for work. As I pulled into the driveway she was on her way out, so I gave her some printouts of what I had printed out from “Print Cart” on your website so she could review them, show them to her “tech advisor” at work, and call me later.
Later that evening after much discussion/arguing (she said buy whatever you want and I said, “Its your computer, so tell me what you want!”), we decided on a basic system with few frills—costing about $1,350 before discounts and taxes.
The next evening Aug. 30/31, I again stayed in my office late so that I could configure the system on-line that we had decided upon. Sometime around 2 or 3 a.m., I entered the “Select Components” section of the Dell website for purchase of the 5100C, and found that it still listed the same offers on the first page of that section that it had offered the day before. I.e.:
1) $150 off instantly
2) free shipping
3) free 19” flat
panel monitor upgrade
4) $250 mail-in rebate
However, when I looked at the “Dell Printers” section of “Select Components” I discovered to my amazement that the “FREE Dell Color Printer 720” offer no longer was listed. Instead, the choices included, among others:
None
Dell Photo All-in-One Printer 942 [add $139…]
Dell Color Printer 720 [add $49…]
I printed out the “Select Components” pages 95 pages) at that time. From those pages, the above items.—the $250 rebate offer and the new printer information—are shown in the attached file “Dell 8-31-050” and “Dell 8-31-051” to show you the offer I was looking at.
Here is the first page of these “offers” that
Dell listed for the Dimension 5100c on their website. Note in the enlargement that it clearly
states: “Get back $250! With mail-in rebate.”
This new information meant that I would now have to pay $90 more for my system than I found on the Dell website just hours before. So, what I decided to do (about 4:30 a.m. PDT was to contact someone at Dell to find out if there was some kind of mistake (that I made or that Dell had made).
After a half hour of attempts to contact someone on-line and by phone, I discovered that no one was available until 6 a.m. PDT. So, I waited in my office until 6 a.m. to call the Dell Service number. (I now think that that was a huge mistake, because by talking to someone at Dell it seems that I have somehow lost my ability to cash in on the $250 rebate offer!)
About 6:10 a.m. I got through to someone at Dell, and after explaining my problem, I was told that I would have to talk with someone in Sales to answer my question about why the printer was now going to cost me $90 more if I purchased on-line. I was transferred to Mario Saade who started asking me all kinds of questions about what kind of system and components I wanted to buy. I told him that I wanted to buy the system on-line and not from a sales person because I had already configured a system and did not need his help. He said that in order to answer my question about the printer that he had to know everything possible about the system I wanted to order. After he extracted all the information from me including my customer number, he at first said that no such “free printer” offer had existed the day before; but after a while (after being put on “hold” for 5 or 10 minutes) he came back and said that he found a way that I could get the Dell 920 printer for $49. He said that he would send me an email showing the “deal” that he found for me if I wanted to purchase the 5100C in the configuration that I had told him I wanted. I thanked him, hung up, and went home at 7:15 a.m. to get some sleep.
Later that afternoon/evening of August 31, 2005, I returned to my office to complete my order, knowing that I had to complete order by 9 p.m. PDT. I decided that I wanted a more powerful system than what I had thought about earlier that day, and did not like the pricing that Mario had given me that morning. So, about 7 p.m., I went on-line to the Dell website to place my order myself.
I entered the “Select Components” section of the Dell website for purchase of the 5100C, and found that it still listed the same offers on the first page of that section that it had offered earlier that day. I.e.:
1) $150 off instantly
2) free shipping
3) free 19” flat
panel monitor upgrade
4) $250 mail-in rebate
But when I got to the actual pricing it was giving an instant $200 of, not $150. However, the list price may have been changed (I can’t remember).
Anyway, I configured the system I now wanted, entered my
“$400 off” coupon code, and printed out the “Print
Cart.” This is shown in the
attached flies “Dell 8-31-05 Print
Cart0,” “Dell 8-31-05 Print Cart1,” and “Dell 8-31-05 Print Cart2.” It stated the following: (I am not showing these attachments on this website)
Dimension 5100C……………………$1856.00
- Dell Home Customers $400 off -400.00
Creating DVD’s book 25.00
- Dell Home Customers 10% off - 2.50
Dell AIO Inkjet 942 49.00
Total (Sub-total) $1527.50
Shipping & Handling 118.50
Shipping & Handling Discount - 94.00
Tax 128.84
Total Price $1680.84
I thought to myself that that was a bit higher than I originally planned, but that with the $250 rebate, the actual cost to me would be only $1430.84, and that was within my planned budget.
So, I went ahead and purchased the computer system!
Now for the shock to me of this fiasco…
A few days later I went to my customer account on the Dell Website to examine how to get the $250 mail-in rebate (that was so clearly advertised on the “Select Components” page for the 5100C computer—see the attached file “Dell 8-31-050”).
When I queried my account it said that I was not qualified for
any rebate. So I waited until I received
my computer, thinking that it may not be entered in your system until my system
was actually shipped. The system was
shipped on 9-7-05, and I received it one day after it was scheduled to
arrive—because of a delay in
So, I decided that I would have to call Dell to find out what was the problem. I called Dell on Sept. 14 or 15. After being shuffled from one department to another—including the Service Dept., on-line sales (with Alex—915-3355), and one of two other places—I was finally given to Sam (with a strong Indian accent) in the Dell Care Department (at 1-800-624-9897 X7266966). He said that I was not qualified for any rebate and further that Dell did not offer any kind of rebate at the time I purchased my computer. Further, he said that I had clicked on the “green button” in the e-mail from Mario Saade to purchase my computer. I told him that I did not purchase my computer from Mario and that I had not clicked on any “green button.” I, further, told him that I had proof that Dell was offering a rebate of $250 when I purchased my computer. He then said that he could offer to me a $90 coupon that could be used any time in the next 30 days (or 60 days, I can’t remember) at the Dell store Website to purchase whatever I wished. I told him that his offer was not satisfactory , and that I thought that I should receive the $250 rebate, as promised on the Dell Website. He then said that I should FAX a copy of the “proof of rebate offer” along with a copy of the printout of the “Order Confirmation” to him. He said that I should send the FAX to:
FAX Number: 512-283-6161
Attention: Sam—Batch ID# 461359
RE: Case # 112025542
This FAX was sent on September 15, 2005 at 5:16 p.m. PDT. The total number of pages sent was five (5).
I waited for nearly two weeks. Neither Sam or anyone else at Dell ever replied to me, even though I had given Sam my e-mail address and telephone number.!!!
I finally called the Dell Care Department (1-800-624-9897 X7266966) on the morning of September 27, 2005 to find out if I could get the rebate and to find out why I had not been contacted by Sam or someone else.
This time I talked with a woman (with a strong Indian accent). She had no knowledge and could find no evidence of my conversation with Sam. All that she could say was that I was not qualified for a rebate. I asked to talk to someone else and she said I could talk with a supervisor. She then said, “Please hold for 1 to 3 minutes for a supervisor.” I was placed on hold and waited for an hour or more (listening to some horrible classical violin music that cut in and out!), and no one ever came on the phone line to talk with me. The phone finally clicked off to a recorded message from the phone company.
On October 4, 2005, I finally tried calling the
Enclosed are the attachments referred to above:
Dell 8-30-05
Dell 8-31-050 and Dell 8-31-051
Dell 8-31-05 Print
Cart0, Dell 8-31-05 Print Cart1, and
Dell 8-31-05 Print Cart2
Dell
Packing Slip0 and Dell Packing Slip1.
And, in addition, I have filled out the rebate form and attached it as file:
Dell
Rebate Form0. (I am not showing these attachments on this website)
I will also, send a copy of all of this by regular mail (requesting delivery confirmation).
I was, also, told by Chris in the
In particular, I would like to know why Dell does not think I am qualified for a rebate.
When I entered the Dell Website to configure the Dimension 5100C, it clearly stated that Dell was offering a $250 rebate. Did the fact that I talked to Mario Saade about the printer offer cause me to not get the rebate? I did not want his help to configure my system and at no time did he help me. All that I wanted to know was why the offer of a free printer that existed on Aug. 30 was no longer available on Aug. 31. It seems that he may have entered something into my customer information data base that made it look like I went through him for advice on how to configure my system, when I did not ask him for any advice at all.
At no time during my on-line purchase of the Dimension 5100C did your Website tell me that I no longer qualified for your $250 rebate. When I looked at the “Print Cart” information on Aug.31 I thought that I was qualified for the rebate. That is why I purchased the computer. I had no clue that the “promised” $250 rebate on the “Select Components” page was somehow no longer in force by the time I clicked on the “Purchase” button.
It is now after 4:30 a.m. on the morning of October 7, 2005. I have now spent another long night dealing with this computer purchase. You could surely make things easier for your customers. This is the third Dell system that I have purchased in the past 6 years, and very well may be my last after this experience.
Very sincerely (and very frustrated),
(name omitted)
12/16/05, edb