An Open Letter to Dell Computers

 Angry Matt, Open Letter, Ramblings, Random, Rants, The Technology Whore  No Responses »
Jan 102011
 

Dear Dell Computers,

My name is Matt Armstrong, and I have been a customer of yours for just shy of 11 years.  Every single computer I have purchased since that time, with the exception of two machines, was a Dell.  And, I would like to add, I buy a LOT of computers.  I have purchased monitors from Dell.  I have purchased nearly all of my camera equipment from Dell.  I purchased numerous accessories and upgrades from Dell.  However, despite this long relationship, I will no longer be purchasing anything from Dell again.  As of December 2010, Dell has lost my custom for good. 

There are several reasons for my leaving you behind, Dell.  It all started back in October, when I started looking around for a new machine for my recording studio.  I built the machine I needed, placed it in my cart, and went to order it.  That’s when I discovered that I was unable to use my Dell Preferred Account to purchase the Dell computer I wanted.  Let me repeat that.  I couldn’t use my DELL credit card to purchase a DELL computer.  The reason: the computer was a “business” computer, and my credit card was only good for “home” computers. 

What made this situation worse is when I called into the line to speak with a sales person, after waiting on hold for 10 minutes, he then proceeded to build a computer that was COMPLETELY different from the one I had asked for, and which did not contain the technical features I required for my very specific use case.  This particular sales person was not technically adept enough to understand my request, and then tried to sell me something that, had I not been as knowledgeable about computers as I am, I would have ordered only to have it arrive and find that it wouldn’t meet my needs.

Two days later, I got another call from a different sales person, asking me if I wanted the computer that this sales person had built for me, despite my very clear instructions that the computer would not have met my technical needs.

During this time, I also noticed that Dell began to send me an email ad at least four times a week—and even more often during the holiday period.  I went to the Dell website, signed into my account, and turned off all of the “newsletters” to which I had been subscribed without my permission.  The newsletters still came.  I used the unsubscribe link in the emails to remove me from the mailing list.  The emails still came.  I called customer support to have my email address removed.  Guess what?  They still came.  They are still coming.  The only way I have been able to get rid of these emails is to mark them as SPAM and have them filtered into my junk mail folder.

December rolled around, and I decided that I wanted to purchase a very small, fairly underpowered machine to serve as a media server for my movie collection.  I found the machine I wanted, placed the order online, and realized about 20 minutes later that I had made a mistake on the order.  So, I called the sales line, waited on hold for 20 minutes, and asked the sales person to cancel the order, which he did.  I then went online, and purchase the correct machine without too much difficulty. 

The next day, I got another call from the Dell sales team asking me if, are you ready for this, I was still interested in the machine they had spec’d for me a month and a half ago.  The one I never wanted, and shouldn’t have even been spec’d in the first place.  I attempted to be as polite as possible to the person who called me, but his command of the English language was so tenuous, that it was very difficult.

My new machine arrived, and it works fairly well.  (It has a small technical issue that is a problem with the design of the system, and can’t be resolved without changing the entire architecture of the motherboard, but that’s beside the point.)  But it serves my needs.

And the email ads STILL come.

Last Friday, I was sitting at work, and my phone rang.  It was a number that I had seen four times in the last week and didn’t recognize, so didn’t answer.  I finally got sick and tired of screening the call, so I picked up the phone to demand to have my number removed from their calling list.  Guess who it was?  I was Dell warrantee support.  They were calling because they were concerned that the brand new machine I had just purchased ONLY had a 1-year warrantee on it.  And, for only $230 dollars (which was just shy of half of the price of the machine to begin with) I could extend my warrantee for two more years with a full on-site support plan.  A plan which, three weeks ago, I had turned down on purpose when I purchased the computer.

I explained this to the woman who called.  (This woman also had an extremely tenuous grasp on the English language, so I’m not sure how much she understood.)  I explained that I am a very technically savvy person, and am capable of performing my own technical support and I wasn’t interested in an extended warrantee.  She then proceeded to explain the benefits of the warrantee to me AGAIN, and then said, “so if it’s okay with you, I’ll go ahead and add this warrantee to your Dell Credit Card.”  I explained AGAIN that I wasn’t interested.  She proceeded to expound that if something were to fail, this would cover it for three years—a fact that, thanks to my multiple degrees, my two decades of computer expertise, and a fairly decent grasp of the principles of common sense, I had already managed to figure out.  For the third time in a row, I explained that I did not want an extended warrantee and, moreover, I probably wouldn’t even have this computer for a full year, so spending 50% of the original price on a warrantee would be an epic waste of money—almost as big a waste of my time as this phone conversation had been.

Oh…and the email ads still keep coming.

In addition, in the last three weeks, I have received two catalogs in my mailbox, and today, received a letter trying to sell me an extended warrantee for this stupid little media computer.

Dell, here’s the thing.  Your website is poorly designed, and the incessant popups asking if I want to chat with someone if I need help were almost enough to get me to stop coming to your website entirely.  Your ludicrous rules about not being able to use my Dell credit card to purchase a Dell computer are asinine.  The inability of your sales people to read a customer’s record is laughable—nearly as laughable as their lack of technical expertise and inability to listen to a customer’s requests. 

But what is COMPLETELY inexcusable is the way you treat your customers once they have already purchased a computer.  The act of purchasing a computer from your website does not give you the right to fill up my email inbox with junk mail that I can’t possibly unsubscribe from.  The act of purchasing a computer does not give your sales people the right to cold call me in the middle of my work day to sell me a product I didn’t want when it was offered the first time, and didn’t want despite repeated attempts to upsell me on an extended warrantee (which is the biggest sham in the technology industry).  Simply because I call your sales line, I do not give you authority to call me back several times to ask me if I’m ready to buy the computer that was spec’d for me, especially when you didn’t spec the computer I wanted.

Dell, you used to be one of the most highly-rated computer firms in terms of customer support.  That’s gone now.  My last two years of experience with Dell have been atrocious.  In addition, your computers are no longer as stable as they once were, your industrial design is heinous (especially in comparison to some of your competitors), your prices are too high, the turnaround time on your systems is too long, your website is too difficult to navigate, and you’ve become so bloated as a company that you’re starting to collapse under your own weight.

I tend to be a VERY loyal consumer.  Having worked in the technology industry for a large portion of my adult life, I understand that a single bad experience does not a company make.  But the problems Dell is facing are systemic and deeply ingrained.  Not to mention, nearly consistent.  You’ve lost me as a customer for good.  I will not be purchasing any of my computers from you in the future.  And, moreover, due to my experiences as a home consumer, I will not be purchasing any further Dell computers for my staff at work either.  You see, I have some sway in the purchasing decision at my office.  We will be moving a new computer provider entirely.  I simply can not continue to support a company that thinks so little of its customers and treats them with such a systematic contempt. 

Your former loyal customer,

Matt

 Posted by Matt at 9:07 pm

Dear @MartinandOsa: Seriously?

 Open Letter, Rants  2 Responses »
Jan 222010
 

Dear Martin + Osa

I love your store.  I really, really do.  I shop there almost exclusively.  I have brought my friends to meet you.  I talk about you all the time.  I’ve even introduced you to my mom.  You’re the only store that manages to make stylish clothing for people who are too old to shop at American Eagle, but not old enough to shop at Mervyn’s, who aren’t interested in spending the equivalent of three month’s mortgage payments on a single jacket, and who don’t want to look as though they’re old enough to need black Velcro orthopedic shoes.  You are reasonably priced, but your clothes are of very high quality, and of a design that real people would generally want to wear. 

But I have to tell you.  This season’s collection is a complete and total fail for me.  I looks like a bad cross between hipster punk and snotty New England WASP.  If I wanted to look like a stuck up, rich retiree in Nantucket, I would buy my clothes from Nautica.  But a cable-knit navigator sweater with White Skinny Jeans (which should be outlawed entirely) is not a good look for anyone.  There is so much wrong with this collection it’s hard to know where to begin.

It pains me to see you stumble so, especially after such an awesome holiday season.  (I bought two shirts and four sweaters, so you know I’m devoted.)  But I honestly can’t get behind these rejects from a Yale college bookstore circa 1936.  I’m just glad that I was introduced to you before I saw these clothes, or I would probably never have bothered stopping by again.

Here’s to hoping that the Summer collection is little less embarrassing. 

Love, Matt.

P.S., Please, for the love of all things good and holy, PLEASE make the skinny jean die a slow and painful death.  Only 0.02% of the population has the body type capable of pulling off the skinny jean, and not a single one of those 0.02% is male.

 Posted by Matt at 9:08 pm

An Open Letter to AT&T Wireless and Apple: There’s a Slap for That

 Open Letter, Rants, Seriously?, The Technology Whore  2 Responses »
Nov 222009
 

Hey guys,

Have you ever been in a relationship where the other person treats you like garbage, and you keep trying to leave, but every time you do, you convince yourself that you’ll never find anyone out there who’s better, and then you end up coming right back to the same person who treats you like garbage?  And then you suffer in the relationship and wonder where your life went so wrong that you’re willing to just stay put and put up with the abuse, because you used to be so strong, so independent, and if you had told yourself a year ago that you’d be in this position you’d never believe it?

Well, until yesterday, that was me. 

On October 16, 2008, I walked into a Best Buy and purchased an iPhone 3G.  I had put off purchasing the iPhone for a long time.  I had a phone.  It worked fairly well.  It got pretty good service.  But it was coming to the end of its life cycle, and I realized that I would soon need a new means of communicating.  I was excited.  I’m not a fan of Apple products, overall.  I find them to be overpriced, overdesigned, underperforming, and honestly, pretty ugly.  I, to this day, can’t stand to use iTunes.  I would sooner set my money on fire than spend it on one of your ridiculously overpriced Mac computers.  But I had to admit–the iPhone was a pretty sexy piece of tech.  Sure, it still looked like a reject from the Wall-E character models, but it had a lot of cool features, the OS worked fairly well, and it had a great app store.

I got the iPhone, and spent the next day or two playing with it.  And I loved the device immensely.  Except for one thing:  It didn’t make or receive calls.

Now, call me crazy, but it seems to me that when you spend several hundred dollars on a phone, locking yourself into a RIDICULOUSLY overpriced two-year contract, the one thing that you should have every right to expect your phone to do is to MAKE AND RECEIVE CALLS.  My phone regularly got 0-1 bars of service from within my apartment.  At work, I got five bars, but I still couldn’t make calls, check my email, or send text messages.  I wouldn’t get emails or voicemails until hours or even days after they had been sent.  I did everything:  I reset the phone, reset the network settings, spent $300 on a cell signal repeater for my apartment, got a new SIM Card, even tried to get a replacement phone.  All with no luck.  But I was so in love with the iPhone’s non-phone functionality that I decided to keep it anyway, and instead got a land line in my apartment.

Let me repeat that.  I spent $300 on a phone, was under a contract to spend a minimum of $90 a month for service I couldn’t use for two years, and in order to keep the device, was forced to go out and spend another $50 a month just so I could have the ability to make phone calls from my apartment.  I should have taken that as a warning sign.  What idiot in their right mind spends that kind of money on a phone that can’t make or receive phone calls? 

But I persisted.  Sometimes the phone would work just fine.  Most of the time though, it would drop calls, fail to deliver voicemails, connect to wi-fi, or perform any of its regular communication duties.  I was once on hold for 30 minutes to talk to someone at the IRS and had the phone drop my call less than 20 seconds after the IRS agent picked up the line.  But like a battered wife, I stuck with it, hoping that someday he would change.

Several months ago, Sprint came out with the Palm Pre, and at last, I thought, there is a Smartphone that will be able to free me from my AT&T shackles.  But, alas, I was mistaken.  I bought the phone and decided to try it out for a few days before porting my number and cancelling my account with AT&T.  (I was fully willing to pay AT&T’s early termination fee just to have them out of my life.)  The Pre was a decent phone, but the limitations and the lack of third party software, coupled with the atrocious battery life made the phone unusable.  I took it back to the carrier, and decided to stick with the iPhone.

I looked and looked for a better Smartphone…one that could do what the iPhone could do and also function as, you know, a phone.  There weren’t a lot of options.  So, last month, I bit the bullet, and decided that it was time to try an iPhone upgrade…I was going to try to get the 3GS, hoping against hope that maybe now, my phone would function as less of a PDA and more of an actual Smartphone. 

I need hardly mention that, once again, my hopes were dashed.  The 3GS was just the same: no calls, no texts, no voicemails.  All of my incoming calls go through Google Voice, which simul-rings both my cell and my landline.  I would sit there and watch the landline phone ring, but the iPhone do nothing, even though it had 4-5 bars.  If I let the call go to voicemail, it usually wouldn’t show up on the iPhone until two days later.  Now I had just spent $500 on a new phone and protection plan, and had foolishly extended my contract with AT&T for another two years.  Just on the hope that the only phone that functions as a decent PDA would also be able to make calls on "The Country’s Fastest 3G Network."

Let me just take a moment to send a special message to AT&T:  I realize that you claim that you have, and I quote, "The Country’s Fastest 3G Network."  While it’s true that, theoretically, your network is capable of delivering data at a faster rate than any other network currently built in the US, that hardly matters if the people who use said network are never able to connect.  I live less than two miles away from a major AT&T Wireless Building.  I live less than a mile away from the largest software company in the world.  If there is a single place in the entire world I should be able to get excellent service from your network, it should be here.  And now, Verizon is mocking the overall performance of your network by TELLING THE TRUTH in their television ads and using a Apples to Apples comparison of a coverage map that you have validated is accurate, and you respond like a poopy-pantsed cry baby and take them to court because they said mean things about you.  If you don’t like what Verizon is saying, how about you FIX YOUR NETWORK.  But no, instead you hire Luke Wilson to shoot a commercial that looks like it was written, produced, directed, and edited in about 45 minutes by a mentally challenged marketing exec on a bender.  If your network didn’t make people want to join the West Baghdad Suicide Bomber Union Chapter #306, none of this would even be necessary.  But it’s easier to go whining to the judge that Verizon called you a bad name.  Grow up.

In any case, I thought that I was going to be forever in your grasp.  That there was never a device out there that could compete with the iPhone, and therefore no way that I would ever be able to escape from the clutches of the abortion known as the AT&T "Country’s Fastest 3G Network that doesn’t actually let you make calls or check email."  But last week, deliverance: The Verizon Droid was released.

I bought one of these phones on Friday night, and already, I feel as though my live has been changed for the better.  The Droid is a hella sexy beast.  It’s got a gorgeous screen, a METAL body, a physical keyboard, a standard USB connector, an open-source OS, a very respectable app store, a better camera, a camera flash, interchangeable memory, a removable battery, and best of all, IT MAKES CALLS!  It doesn’t need iTunes to sync to my computer.  It allows me to drag and drop files over USB or bluetooth.  AND IT MAKES CALLS!  It can multi-task, does visual voicemail and voice dialing, doesn’t have ridiculous limits on the size of files that it will allow you to download over the 3G network (like podcasts), and did I mention, IT MAKES CALLS!  I’ve never in my life found so much relief from a piece of technology.  DROID is the Rolaids of the cell phone world.  I walked out of the store on Friday night feeling like Kathy Bates in Fried Green Tomatoes.

You see, AT&T, there was a time where I was beholden to you.  But I’m older, and I make better money.  Towanda!  I’m the kind of customer that you should really want to keep.  I spend money on technology like it’s going out of style.  I have never in my life kept one phone for my entire two year contract.  I am always paying more for my phone than most, because I do early upgrades.  I will pay extra for the data plan and the accessories, and the special features. 

It should also say something to you that I am willing to break my contract and pay the full break contract fee less 34 days after I renewed it and paid $500 for a phone.  You pushed me to the edge with your lousy service and your overpriced payment plans.  And the only thing that was holding me back from leaving you a long time ago was that I couldn’t find the right phone.  Well Motorola has done it.  Their phone has made it possible for me to escape from your clutches.  I know that one person leaving you isn’t that big of a deal, but I know several folks who are more than anxious to jump off of your network the instant their contracts expire if there’s another phone out there that can compete with the iPhone.  And not only is there, but there’s one that’s a WHOLE lot better…that can do everything the iPhone can, and a whole lot more.

So "Good Day" to you AT&T and Apple.  I SAID GOOD DAY!  AT&T, I don’t know that I will ever be willing to go back to you again.  Pretty much the only way I would is if you were somehow able to get a phone that could clean my house and walk my dog…and make calls.  And Apple, maybe next time you should be a little more careful about who you get into bed with.  Because in the cell-phone world, you picked the partner with technological Chlamydia.

Now if you will excuse me, I’m off to go make some custom ringtones, check my email, post to my Twitter feed, and download some apps on my new Droid. 

 Posted by Matt at 2:27 am

Two Open Letters: USPS and Häagen Dazs

 Food, Holidays, Open Letter, Rants, Seriously?, Whine  1 Response »
Nov 112009
 

Dear US Postal Service,

Seriously?  SERIOUSLY?  It’s no wonder nobody uses you anymore.  It’s not enough that you fill my mailbox with so much junk mail that I could use it to reconstruct the Taj Mahal out of Paper Mache twice a week.  It’s not enough that I get stuck with the surly mailwoman who writes pissy little messages on my Netflix envelopes about the fact that my address is so long that the apartment number doesn’t fit in the window.  It’s not my fault that they named the street West Lake Sammammish Parkway NE, nor is it my fault that Netflix INSISTS upon using the USPS standardized address, which, in turn, makes the address too long to fit in the window.  But today was the last straw.  Four months ago, I purchased a piece of electronic equipment, and got a rebate form.  I went through the ludicrous hoops of getting said form filled out, sent in with all of the documentation and UPC codes (paper clipped, not stapled) and I waited.  And today, I got my rebate check.  Or, to be more accurate, I got 25% of my rebate check.  Because the other 75% was apparently shredded by your automatic sorting machines.  But that’s okay.  To make it all better, you put what remained of my mangled check in a giant plastic bag with a printed message explaining that, sorry, that’s just the way it is because you have machinery that operates at a really high rate of speed in order to provide fast and friendly service, and you apologize for the inconvenience.

Well how about this, dimwits: how about, rather than being sorry for the inconvenience, why don’t YOU write me the check for $40.  Because your machines that sort the mail in a more convenient fashion managed to tear off the contact information for the bank, the check number, and the rebate number, thus making it impossible for me to contact the company and see if it would even be possible to get my check replaced.  In fact, all your damn machine managed to save was half of the bank account number, the last three letters of my name, and the amount of money I will NOT be getting because you’re sorry for the inconvenience.  I WAS going to use that money to buy the ridiculously overpriced stamps that I was planning on using when I sent out my dozens of Christmas Cards this year.  But since you’re sorry for the inconvenience, I will be sending out my cards via e-mail to my friends and family.

Suck on that.

With Coldest Regards,

Matt

***

Dear Häagen Dazs,

This is going to be one of the hardest letters I have ever had to write.  But recent changes in my life have made this absolutely necessary.  It pains me to say what I am about to say, but it has to be done.

I’m breaking up with you.

It’s not that I don’t love you.  I do.  More than you know.  But I can’t trust you.  I can’t rely on you.  You let me down time and time again.  Every time it seems like things will get better, that you’re getting your act together, you pull something like this last stunt, and we’re right back to where we started.  And I can’t take it anymore.  I need the kind of stability and support that you’re just not capable of giving me.  It’s time I move on.

Wow.  That was hard to write.  I wish it didn’t have to end this way.  We’ve been together through so much over the years.  You’ve been there when times are good and life is happy.  You’ve seen me cry.  You helped pull me through times of depression or dejection.  We used to sit on the couch in the living room together and make fun of the people on the Biggest Loser while we basked in each other’s company.  I’ve told you secrets that I’ve told almost nobody.  I gave you my grocery money, I introduced you to my friends and family.  I even took you home with me for the holidays.  And you repay me by running away.

First it was the Chocolate Brownie Walnut.  Then the Sticky Toffee Pudding.  And, finally, the last straw, the Fleur de Sel Caramel.  Each time, I’ve given you my heart, and you’ve just thrown it away.  I’ve written and called, I’ve begged you not to change, not to disappear again.  But nothing seems to work.  All I ever get in reply are these terse, formal, cold letters explaining that sometimes, you just need a change.  Well, I don’t need a change.  I need the Häagen Dazs that I fell in love with, the Häagen Dazs that I always turned to in my hour of need, the Häagen Dazs that always seemed to love me in return.

So, I’ve moved on.  I can’t afford to give my heart to you if you can’t guarantee that you will still be there in six months or a year from now.  I’m leaving you, and I’m moving in with a delightful new couple, Ben and Jerry.  They can’t compete with you on any level, really.  They aren’t anywhere near as classy or sophisticated.  They don’t know me as well as you do.   Nor can Ben and Jerry excite me the same way that you do.  But I can trust them.  I may not ever be able to give my heart fully to these two, but at least I know that what I do give them won’t be ripped out and thrown away.  There are even moments while I’m with them where I almost forget the beautiful thing that we shared together.

I still love you deeply.  And if you come back with Fleur de Sel, I’ll be right by your side again.  But until that day, I just can’t look at you anymore.  It’s like I don’t even know who you are.

I hope you have a good life, and that someday, you will grow up enough that you can realize your true potential.  And if that day ever comes, you know where you can find me.

Have a wonderful life,

Matt

 Posted by Matt at 12:01 am
© 2012 One Off Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha