A close friend of mine just recently decided to order a Dell laptop. Since he’s not into blogging and ‘the innernet’ he had never heard of the story of Jeff Jarvis and his encounters with this rather corporate thinking company. He paid for the portable box of fun using his Visa, and thus 1200 Euros were substracted from his account with the debit card (the word credit card is so optimistic: to credit is ‘adding money’ since the card is used for spending, I think debit card is more appropriate). Dell promised him the laptop would arrive the sixth of september, the foreseen time, and that UPS would deliver the goods. So far so good.
Yesterday (the 7th) he still didn’t receive the laptop, so he checked the status of the goods with the live tracking system UPS has on their site. There it stated the laptop had been dropped off in Brussels (airport) and got signed for on delivery – being september 6th, 2.05 PM CET in Lier, our very quiet home town. Very strange. Since he wasn’t home at that time, he couldn’t possibly have signed for the package, so he called UPS. Overthere they said ‘Mister x (real name on argumented request), you have signed for the laptop and we have delivered it so to us there is no problem. X started arguing and explaining he received nada, and he’d love this to be cleared out immediately. UPS then said they’d check it out and promised they’d get back to him.
Then he went one floor down, to check with the other guy living in the block (there’s three appartments) but he denied having heard or seen anything. Same story on the ground floor. X went back to his appartment, feeling ripped off – as you could imagine. Ten minutes later, he heard his neighbour leave his flat, only to have him show up at his door another ten minutes later, carrying a broken-sealed box from Dell, stating he had found it in the basement. All hell broke loose. Some shouting commenced… you know how that goes.
X went to the cops, but they said he didn’t have the evidence to cuff the bast*rd living on floor 1, and that there was no case. As x left the police department he saw his neighbour standing at the corner of the street. Maybe to verify X would really go to the cops to file a complaint? Definitely not a coincidence, that’s for sure. Since the box stated you shouldn’t sign for the package when the seal is broken, he called Dell and explained the situation.
Here’s where Dell kicks in : Over at Dell’s they immediately jumped on the case, and an inspector would come and visit X to check the situation and take the laptop with him. Without even waiting for the result of this case, Dell promised him to ship another laptop right away and that a personal follow-up by an account manager would swiftly follow to clear out this matter. Dell stated this kind of things are very important to them, and that they would solve this. The laptop is supposed to be on his way at this time.
X called me up to explain the situation and I suggested I’d come over to check the laptop for any evidence at all, since the guy living under him had it already for a day. When I arrived, X’s father was there (I think the laptop was for him, I don’t know that) and as we were discussing the matter on the curb (we coincidentally met, arriving at the same time) I saw the whining liar from floor one peeking through a gap of an opened window. So he was listening in. Tssss. He has no life. We started laughing real loud, looking up and letting him know he was a very bad spy. He stepped back and closed the window a bit more. What a fag.
People who do this incredibly stupid stuff usually are so stupid they’d never wipe out their traces, let alone know how to do that. I plugged in the laptop and went looking for documents or files. As expected no files where ‘physically’ present so there was no real evidence the cops could use. Then I thought about the temp folder. Windows keeps ‘a copy’ of everything you open, so there should’ve been some traces of activity there… and bingo !!! He’d been browsing through pictures on the DVD-writer (comes along with the Dell) and yesyesyes there were pictures of him and his ugly girlfriend. Now THAT is stupid.
Nailed ! – X will go to the cops later on today to show them what we’ve discovered. UPS is currently running an investigation within the company, interviewing the delivery boy (girl?) that dropped off the laptop and getting a description on the person that signed for the goods.
Dell is on the case too, with this personal inspector/account manager who will take care of this matter. I think the tenant of floor 1 is busted big time ! Don’t you?
So. What are we going to sue him for?
- Fraude with official documents and signatures
- Impersonating X
- Deceiving UPS, Dell and X
- Theft from X, UPS and Dell
- Being a jerk
Why this post? Dell has received a lot of negative publicity lately. Initiated by Jeff Jarvis the stream of comments kept on coming, silencing the words of positive writers, pushing those positive things way back in the result pages of any search engine. Well it had its consequences and Dell reacted and – by the look and feel of it – also changed a lot in the way they deal with customers. Even if it’s in a tiny dot called Belgium. I just wanted to mention it, because I was quite surprised to hear they’ve assigned a personal inspector/case handler for X and directly offered him to send a new laptop saying ‘it speaks for itself we’ll take back the laptop and send you a new one. You’re entitled to a product that comes straight from our company, only this way we can provide you with a decent service. A new one will be sent to you right away and we’ll investigate this matter personally.‘ I’m not going to say this is all because of Jarvis, but I’m pretty sure it has a lot to do with it. I’ve been in touch with Dell a few times myself for people I know that ran into a little this or that, mostly helpdesk stuff. A few times I felt being played with and sensed some disrespect. I think those days are over.
Of course X can’t file a complaint for UPS or Dell, but I’m pretty sure they’ll go for the jackass too. I never had a Dell myself. I used to refer people to Jeff’s story when they thought of becoming a Dell-patient (as I called them) – but I think I’m going to rethink this. This service is improved, better and damn good.