Dell Inspiron 8500 - In October of 2002 we leased three servers and several desktop computers from Dell. In October of 2003 we moved our offices to a new location

Dell Inspiron 8500 - In October of 2002 we leased three servers and several desktop computers from Dell. In October of 2003 we moved our offices to a new location

Dell Inspiron 8500

In October of 2002 we leased three servers and several desktop computers from Dell. In October of 2003 we moved our offices to a new location. For several months when we received our monthly bill I would fill out the “change of address” field on the bills. One of our accounts was eventually updated with the new address after many months of filling out the change of address notice and marking it with a yellow highlighter. The other account was never changed even after I called the billing department to request that it be fixed.

In July of 2004 I received a phone call from Dell Financial saying that my account was overdue and that I owed $77.78. I paid both my July and August payments with a check over the phone and again told the agent that the address was incorrect and needed to be updated because the bill hadn’t been forwarded to me. Again, I was told that the address problem would be corrected.

Over the last two and a half months I have received almost a dozen phone calls from Dell Financial and Dell collections telling me that the account which I paid over the phone is overdue. I have repeatedly looked up the various check reference numbers for Dell and on more than one occasion explained that they credited the money to the wrong account even though they had called me so I could pay over the phone. On each occasion I was told that the error had been noted and that the problem would be corrected.

On September 8th, 2004 I placed an order for a laptop computer and several server components. I received loan approval from Dell Financial for a 0% interest loan and a delivery date around the 17th of September.

On the morning of September 9th I received a call from our sales rep, Edward Bockholt saying that Dell Financial had put a freeze on the loan because of an account that was 60+ days overdue. The same morning I received a phone call from Duns and Bradstreet Collections wanting to discuss my delinquent account.

On September 10th I confirmed with my bank that all checks for past bills had cleared so I called back Duns and Bradstreet and spoke to Lisa to try and get this problem resolved once and for all. As had been noticed by Dell Financial and Dell Collections in the past, the problem was a bookkeeping error on Dell’s part where the payment on one lease was marked for the wrong account and that the current month’s payment that I had mailed on August 31st would bring my leases completely up to date. The only reason an account was supposedly 60+ days overdue was because Dell Financial had put the money in the wrong account to start with and even after over ten phone conversations had failed to correct the error.

For the next six hours I spoke to over a dozen people including Laurie, Brittany, Angie in Dell Financial, Pat (0138419), Brad, Russ and Rebecca at Dell sales, Pat in Dell Financial and finally Ed Bockholt (35986), our sales rep. I kept getting passed from department to department because nobody could figure out a way to seize responsibility and fix the problem that was still tying up my new lease.

After about five hours I spoke to Pat at Dell Financial who removed the late fees and put in a request to have the bookkeeping error corrected. After that I was transferred back to Ed, our sales rep who said that he had talked to his manager and gotten a note sent off to Dell Financial for the equipment to be released for processing. He told me that he would call back as soon as he had a reply.

Meanwhile, I got a call from Jennifer at Dell Financial asking me again why I hadn’t paid my bill – this was after the dozen phone calls in the past from Dell Financial, the call from Duns and Bradstreet collections and my conversation with Pat who had put in the request for an account correction. I later spoke to my wife and found out that Jennifer had called my home first and was rude to my wife because my wife had no idea what she was asking about. Jennifer didn’t even explain what company she was with, she just demanded the accounting department.

After waiting for another hour to hear back from Ed, I called again and spoke to first Tiffany , who transferred me to Adreana (47826) who told me that yes, my equipment had been released for processing. Ed never called back.

Today, September 13th, I checked the order status at Dell’s website and noticed that the order was still listed as order processing. At 9:30 am I called Ed (35986) and left a voice mail asking for a status update. I left my cell phone number since I wasn’t in the office today.

At 4pm I still hadn’t heard back from Ed so I called again and spoke to Joe (57698) who transferred me to Kitty (48914). Kitty said that the equipment was STILL being held up by Dell financial which, contrary to what Adreana had said on Friday, hadn’t released the order. Kitty tried to contact Dell Financial but they were already closed. She upgraded my shipping to overnight from standard and promised to call tomorrow just as soon as she could get through to Dell Financial. I spent 5 more hours on the phone to no avail. Summary of people I talked to below. 10 am Kitty 48914 VM request a change on lease number will call tomorrow with update

12pm Barbara 8885230254 DFS 655893464

Judy DFS will send me to customer service to get the hold removed.

12:35 hold 12:58 transferred from customer care to end of lease by someone who wasn't listening to what I was saying

Back on hold at Customer Care

Twana DFS says that there is an error on the order that needs to be fixed by Dell Sales

Shana DFS will forward me to corporate.

Vivian - Corporate will forward me

Patrice - 800766-3355-36698 will call back within 30 minutes. (1:30)

2:17 Patrice has removed the lock.

Bieu Bowers 36906 - can't process the order for 24 hours

Patrice - since it has been removed by collections there is no wait time.

3:20 Chris - calling Patrice to get this resolved but has passed me to Quia DFS who put me on hold. Then disconnected.

Joaan - 6140 is sending me back to customer service - disconnected.

3:50 Calling back customer care

Sherry - 0143091 - transferring to DFS customer Care

4:30 Pat - badge 44383 - transferred me to

4:55 Ed VM

5:00 Dottie Simonik 84524 (Ed's supervisor) VM

5:08 Kristin 7166 transfer 8775753355 X 48548 - this is the wrong number

closed for the day.

Ian

Click this link to e-mail the above consumer: //