Ok, a little background. I recently had an oppurtunity to update my gaming hardware, and decided to go ahead and get the Alienware M18 series laptop with all the fixin's. I got the laptop spec'd out after going over everything I wanted/needed, got clearance from the wife, and placed the order. Just for reference, this was on 6 September 2013. According to the Dell website, the laptop was expected to BE DELIVERED on like the 17 of September. Schweet!!!!
Then the fun began. First issue as actually not with Dell, but with my bank. Apparently, they would not allow a withdraw in the amount my laptop was for. I called, and asked if I could simply override this (surely in this day and age they'd have some system to make large internet purchases without wiring money). Nope, and to boot, they said they would not be able to remove the hold that was on the money, so for a few days, my money was frozen. MY money....
A few days later, after closing that account and picking a new bank (one that allows transaction limits to be exceeded if authorized by the account holder), the money issue was handled, and the process ws again underway. As a sidenote, this little interupt had not delayed the laptop in any way, and the Dell rep said that my laptop would still arrive by the expected delivery date. Schweet!!!
Well, the 17th came and went, and my laptop was locked in the state of "In Production". Now, this was not an off the shelf setup, so I could understand a few extra days for getting it all together, but nonetheless, my wife ventured a call to Dell to check the status. She was told (after a horribly long wait, and by a barely english speaking person) that my laptop was delayed a few days, but should ship out within the week. Meanwhile, the Dell site had been pdated, and my order now showed the following week for delivery.
To spare you some of the details and frustruation, let me shortne the next few weeks. That stupid status page was updates 3 more times, each time, pushing the date back at least a week.
My wife, for those that don't know, is an angel. Not in the practical sense (no wings, no halo), but she knows when I'm at that point where I'm going to lose my cool, and she typically steps in, and is the hand of moderation. Not to say she never gets upset, she has made grown men cry (literally). She is just a very compassionate person, and sometimes handles stressful situations better than I do, espcially when I'm being impatient, like when I order a new gaming laptop. :)
Well, Customer Support at Dell was apparently out to make her mad. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!
I'll give a little more background on that in my next post.
