Anger Burger

Quickly, and just to get it out of my system: last year my dad bought me a Dell Studio 14z laptop, a laptop marketed as a “student” model due to budget and lack of an optical drive¹.  Part of the deal with the laptop was that they’d throw in an upgrade to Windows 7 for free when it came out. Let me rephrase that, because that makes it sound too generous on their part.  What is actually the case is that the purchase for the laptop included the Windows 7 OS, but since it was not released yet, existed as a voucher.  Very important difference considering that I was waiting to get a new laptop in an effort to avoid using Vista.

Very long story short: I have been trying for two straight months to get that upgrade, and Dell just won’t send it.  It’s apparently a thing (I refuse to wade through message boards, but my dad did, bless him) where you log in, register your computer and then it’ll never let you back online to order your upgrade.  And you can’t re-register because, well, someone² has already registered that laptop.  I’ve exchanged probably a dozen emails now with Dell trying to get it sorted out, and each of them (even living people!) have answered: just log on to your account… At which point I start screaming I CANNOT LOG INTO THE FUCKING ACCOUNT, THAT IS THE ENTIRE POINT.

Then, this last Monday, I received a phone call at 8am from an unknown number, so I ignored it.  I get a lot of mistake calls, I think because I have a Los Angeles phone number.  15 seconds later the phone rang again, same number, and I briefly thought: perhaps I should answer it.  And then I remembered, no, if someone wants to talk to me they can leave a message like a regular human being.  Also, I was in the middle of dropping my in-laws off at the airport.  I get home and find an email telling me that Dell has made the outrageous effort of trying to call me, but since I didn’t answer our issue is now over.

Oh, fuck it.

All of this is now exacerbated this morning by an additional email warning me that I have until January 31st to get my Windows 7 upgrade and then the free offer will expire.

So, this boring lame post is all me just venting:

Dell, I like this laptop a lot.  It was a good purchase, for the price.  But this thing where you have to complete a mystical quest in order to get a piece of software that was promised?  Insulting.  And I am reporting you to the Attorney General for fraud.

Love,
Sunday

¹ This is supposed to be marketed as portability (which is true, it’s pretty light) but in reality just keeps the costs down.  Which is fine by me.
² You.

***UPDATE  1.27.10***
Well!  I don’t know if it is coincidence (probably), the Attorney General (probably not) or this blog (definitely not), but I received another phone call from Dell at a more reasonable hour, and had a long talk with a gentleman who deleted my previous registration account and sat with me through another registration.  It was successful, and the account shows the software is set to ship on February 10th.  The phone call itself was a positive experience with only a little of that call-center crap (you know: hard to hear, obviously scripted lines).  It doesn’t make up for the stupid experience up until then (anyone with a regular 9-5 job would have never been able to write the emails and make the phone calls I did), but I should technically amend this entire post to say: my problem been, I believe, resolved.  Sort of.  20% resolved.  The other 80% is waiting for the software to actually arrive.