Tuesday, January 14, 2014

This is why I am unhappy...

Here is the situation in a nutshell:

I ordered a Dell Venue 11 pro tablet from dell on Black Friday because there was a special. I also ordered two Venue 7s, but in a separate order (using the same Dell account). The Venue 7's shipped the next day, and we had them within the week. The Venue 11, however was scheduled for delivery on 1/14. Nothing in the ordering process informed me of this delay--I didn't know about this until I got confirmation of my order. Having extra time, I would periodically check on the order to see if maybe they just found some 11's in a box hiding behind a palette or something. That's when I remembered the Venue 7's shipped to the house via FedEx, so I decided to change the address to my father-in-law's house.  I changed the delivery address before the tablet was sent, because I knew from our previous experience with ordering tablets, that you must have a signature for delivery. The change did not take, but I only found out when I got the shipment notification.

I then contacted Dell customer Serivice and asked them to change the delivery address from my home address, since I knew I would never be home when delivery was attempted to my in-law's address, as he is more consistently home, and had a better chance of signing for this. It took 2 days from sending the email for Sesha to get with me. She was very apologetic about the delay in sending, and told me they could not do that once the package was "in transit." I have since found out from UPS that this is not the case, you can change up to the first attempt, which had not been made. Once the first attempt was made a day or so later (and I was not home, as I knew I would not be), I asked them again. Sesha said that now that an attempt was made, they could definitely not change the address.

Don't get me wrong. Sesha was helpful with my other questions. Most of them stemmed from my inability to get any information about the tablet when I clicked on the link in the order information. It told me the product didn't exist. She told me how much memory was in the tablet (as I asked directly), and sent me a working link that outlined everything in the tablet. However, the she never did answer my biggest question: why did it take over a month to put together a black friday deal and send it... after Christmas. The tablet WAS a Christmas present, alternate arrangements had to be made, and we eventually got it worked out, but why did it take so long in the first place when the Venue 7's shipped pretty much next day.

After the 2nd attempt, I gave up on Sesha (who by this time had stopped responding to my emails anyway) and went to our local UPS store to have it intercepted and sent to the store. The girl at the store was sympathetic but didn't know how to do it. She suggested I call the UPS hotline and ask them to "intercept." The voice menu did not give me this option, so I instead changed the address (for a fee) to my father-in-law's house.

Even this was problematic... I knew that he is consistently out of the house for at LEAST a couple of hours during the day as he has to pick up his grandchildren from school. My fear was that he wouldn't be home to sign, which is why I wanted to change the address to the UPS store. Instead, they attempted delivery while he was in the backyard and could not hear the doorbell. They left and I got a notification from UPS Quantum View. I logged in and contacted UPS using the chat system, and chatted with Sid O. He informed me that UPS could not change the delivery address to the UPS store in Kyle because they might refuse it since they didn't know me. Additionally, it could not be held at the delivery center in San Marcos (the city where I work, incidentally), since that would be a second delivery request. He told me to contact Dell for further help with the issue, and then did not respond to my next two questions: "what happens after the final attempt is made?" and "hello." I waited several minutes, and ended the chat.

Herein lies the problem: Dell says to talk to UPS, UPS says to talk to Dell. 

Eventually I reached out to both Dell and UPS via twitter and UPS responded promptly. they intercepted the package, and had it sent to the delivery depot which happens to be in the same town where I work. Dell responded the next day, and after getting my information, told me: "At this stage,we are unable to change the ship address. Best to contact Carrier & arrange for a time to have the Order dropped. SS"
Exactly how was that helpful? I didn't need to know the status. I didn't want the address to change... I wanted to know why I have had to go through hell to get the tablet in the first place. My tweets were:

  • @Jenni_Froedrick @DellCares UPS got shipping sorted out, but still confused why all the trouble. Feel like this could have been avoided w/better cust svc.
  • @Jenni_Froedrick @DellCares Order# is 512xxxxxx bought 3 tablets in 2 orders. ?? on 1+ mo delay in shipping & wrong ship address. Service Request# was 88xxxxxxx. Thx
  • @Jenni_Froedrick @DellCares also, if it's easier, my email is [email]. Thank you.
  • (in response to aforementioned tweet in paragraph above)
    @Jenni_Froedrick @DellCares Yeah. I took care of that... Took me a week to get it straightened out. Very disappointed.

I know the shipping is taken care of because I took care of it. I still have two questions remaining:
  1. Why was this backordered? Why wasn't I notified of this until I checked out?
  2. Why didn't my address change when I altered and saved it before the unit shipped?
I AM NOT HAPPY. I can tell you that for a fact. I seriously considered having the tablet sent back to Dell this weekend because I am convinced looking at it will only make me angry. But I also went through a LOT of trouble to get to the point where I can actually hold the thing in my hands. Additionally, since this was a present, we were going to let our relatives buy accessories as gifts to go with the big present. since there was no tablet, this was nixed. Instead, I have been waiting for the tablet to arrive to make a decision about whether or not I wanted a case, or a case with keyboard, or maybe a charging stand, etc. Due to the timing, the tablet now mine.

I just don't think I will be ordering from Dell again after this fiasco. Bridges have been set ablaze--they may be burned.Let me be clear: previous to this, we have not had issues with shipping or with the products. And we've ordered several big items from Dell. We're not big spenders, but we are consistent spenders. We have bought TVs, laptops, and now tablets from Dell and it has gone relatively well. But this tablet business has been beyond horrible. After waiting over a month for the tablet, I then had to spend almost a full calendar week straightening out the shipping mess which (apparently) either UPS or Dell could have taken care of at any time.


And that, my dear people, is why I am unhappy.