| Dell Dimension 8100 Series--Dimension® 8100 Series,Pentium® 4 Processor at 1.4Ghz | |
| Memory: | 256MB RDRAM |
| Keyboard: | New Dell® Enhanced Quiet Key Keyboard |
| Monitor: | 19 In (18.0 In viewable, .26dp)M991 Monitor |
| Video Card: | 32MB NVIDIA TNT2 M64 4X AGP GRAPHICS |
| Hard Drive: | 80GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive (5400RPM) |
| Floppy Drive: | 3.5 in Floppy Drive |
| Operating System: | Microsoft® Windows® Millennium Edition (Windows Me) |
| Mouse: | MS Intellimouse® |
| Modem: | V.90/56K Telephony Modem for Windows |
| DVD-ROM or CD-ROM Drive: | 48x Max Variable CD-ROM Drive |
| Sound Card: | SB LIVE! Value Digital |
| Speakers: | harman/kardon Speakers |
| Bundled Software: | MS Works Suite 2001 with Free!EducateU Online Training Pack |
| Zip Drives: | 100MB Zip Drive with One Disk |
| Limited Warranty and Support: | 3 YRS Parts Delivery & 1 YR Labor (Next Business Day) |
| Internet Access Service: | 1-Year DellNet™ by MSN® |
| Norton Antivirus® at No Additional Charge: | Norton Antivirus® 2000 for Windows |
| Proactive Support at No Additional Charge: | Dell Proactive Support-ATTUNE |
| Networking - Phoneline or Wireless: | 3Com HomeConnect 10MB Phoneline PCI NIC |
| CD-RW DRIVE FOR 2nd Bay: | 8x/4x/32x CD-RW Drive,2nd Bay |
| Special Offer: | $50 Special Offer |
| Choose Your Promo: | Upgrade to a HP Scanjet 4300 and Save! (USB cable included) |
| Single Item Cost: | $2,645.00 |
| Shipping/Handling: | $102.00 |
| Sales Tax: | $2.78 |
| Total | $2,749.78 |
The same day I placed the order I sent them an email saying:
I just placed an order (giving them the order number) and said
"I have two questions
(1) The email I received said "Your order has been placed and will go
into production upon authorization of your method of payment." It is
unclear whether you are saying that I must authorize you to charge my
credit card, even though I provided it on my form, or whether you are
referring to the credit card company authorization coming in, in which
case I am confused as to why you did not do the authorization while I
was online.
(2) I ordered the system with an 80 gig drive, but had no opportunity to
specify anything about how it was to be set up. Do I have the option of
specifying, in which case I would like to have 40 gig set up as drive C,
20 gig as drive D, and 10 each as drive E and F."
The response I received was:
Dear Mr. Singleton,
Your order 487997421 is in production. The estimated ship date
for your order is 1-08-2000. You can track its status on our
website:
www.dell.com
Select the order status button at the top right, then input your
order number and your zipcode for verification.
The hard disk drive (hdd) will be partitioned as one partition.
I already knew my order number and estimated ship date, since I got that information from my order confirmation, but the other part of their response was inconsistent with what I asked, so I sent:
> The hard disk drive (hdd) will be partitioned as one partition.
Even though you are still building my system, and even though I have
requested a different configuration on the hard drive, with the message
below, are you telling me that you have no intention of doing what I
asked?
Is Michael Dell aware that you disregard reasonable requests from your
customers? Does he feel that a customer ignored like that, is as likely
to recommend others buy from Dell, and be a repeat customer, as one
whose requests were met?
I received the following response:
I apologize for my brevity. The standard way a hard disk drive
(hdd) is partitioned is with one partition. I apologize that
I implied that you could not get the hdd partitioned to your
requirements.
I should have mentioned that special partitioning is a service
that may be purchased. To change an order requires cancelling
it and re-entering with new specifications.
I copied this email to your sales representative, Jared Boothe,
whom you may contact to change the order, at Dell Sales at 1(800)
288-1460, or 1(800)426-5150, ext 6-2636 or email Jared_Boothe@dell.com.
Note that they say that special partitioning is a service which MAY be purchased, but they do not say how much it will cost, and that the only way to do it is to cancel an order and re-enter it with new specifications. Since they did not provide an ability to specify it when I ordered it the first time, I seriously doubt they would have had provision for specifying it if I reordered.
I responded to both my customer support contact and Jared Boothe:
There is no indication on your website that the only way you will provide a hard disk, especially one as large as 80gig, without extra payment, is in one partition. What is Michael Dell's email address? I would like to discuss this with him.
My customer support contact responded:
Our website is designed to offer the most popular configurations.
For items not available on the website, customers can call Dell
Sales at 1(800) 288-1460, or 1(800)426-5150.
With your obvious experience dealing with computers, you might
consider disk partitioning a standard & simple operation. However,
in our high tech manufacturing facility, an order would have
to be configured manually for this simple procedure.
I can give out no Dell employee's email address.
(This last is in response to my question asking for the owner's email address so that I could discuss it with him.)
I got a message from my sales representative, Jared Boothe:
The Home and Home Office division does not partition drives. They will send a system with an operating system and we leave it up to the customer to partition the drive as they like. As well as us having no indication on our website that we will not partition the drive, there is no where on our website that says we will. Home systems generally are never partitioned by the customer because they do not how to do it or know the benefits of it. The business division may partition drives, but I am not sure. If you have any questions, you can contact us at 1-800-879-3355 ext 43784.
Very interesting, my "sales representative" says: "They will send a system with an operating system and leave it up to the customer to partition the drive as they like." but then he says "Home systems generally are never partitioned by the customer because they do not how to do it or know the benefits of it."
Well (1) I knew the benefit of it, and (2) I was not suggesting that I partition it (because then they might claim it voided the warrenty or something), but was asking them to do this simple job, on an 80 gig hard disk. I can't imagine anyone buying an 80 gig hard disk and not wanting it partitioned.
He says:
"The business division may partition drives, but I am not sure" and he gives a telephone number to contact them, where I can't maintain a record of who said what, but he does not provide an email address where I can tell them exactly what I want, and ask how much it will cost.
He also decides to insult me by saying "As well as us having no indication on our website that we will not partition the drive, there is no where on our website that says we will."
That is true, but can you think of a more insulting way to say that to a customer who has just paid the company over $2700?
My response to both was:
Please forward my complaint to Michael Dell, if he has not already received it. It is his name on the company, and he is entitled to know what efforts his employees are making to upset a customer.
I did not receive any further response, from my customer support contact, or from my sales representative, or from Michael Dell, so I am documenting this exchange and posting it in our on-line newsletter, with the hopes that someone who knows Michael Dell can forward it to him.
And others thinking about buying a computer from Dell may want to consider whether this sort of response is an indication of the sort of company you want to deal with.
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