Get your Head out of my Ass Dell!

The BBQ Pit
1

I do believe that this is my first pit rant ever, so please excuse a newby.

I finally decided to replace my 5-year-old Dell, with what else? Another Dell of course, especially since the old one has worked flawlessly and the couple times I had to call tech support or order upgrades and peripherals, the service was excellent and surpassed all expectations.

So, a month ago I studied, configured and finally ordered my new 4600. Ordering went smoothly; delivery was only one week later than quoted, so no complaints there.

I run a couple home-based businesses and need to be able to take calls while on line. The new computer has a call waiting modem that should allow this to occur. It didn’t take long after hooking up the new computer to start having folks complain that they couldn’t get through to me because the phone was constantly busy or it just rang and rang.

OK, so the call waiting modem is not working. I did all the self checks, read all the forum helps, spent countless hours either on hold for tech support or trying to work with tech support, had e-mail tech support give up on my problem without resolution, further hours being shuttled between the Conextant modem people and Dell, with both of them telling me that the other was at fault. Further time wasted with my local ISP and a local tech, trying to find a modem that would work with Dell, XP, and my ISP.

Back to the Dell community forums for further reading and find that it is FULL of similar complaints about the same modem and Dell’s ignoring of the problem!

At wits end, I called and ordered another modem, that the Dell salesman assured me would work, at my expense. Made sure I was here to take delivery on the promised day and after it didn’t show up, looked in my account to find that there was no record of the order. Hey, mistakes happen…I re-ordered the modem that sales graciously upgraded to next business shipping and waited in vain through yet another three days for its arrival. A week later, still no modem, no explanation, and no record of the order on my account.

Fed up with Dell at this point, I e-mailed customer care for instructions on returning this worthless piece of crap. Of course, to compound things, I’ve tossed the shipping boxes. I got an automated e-mail return explaining that due to a high volume of e-mail, it could take up to three days for a response from Customer Care. Those three days have expired without reply…

Obligatory expletives here!

If by chance you are listening Dell, hire some English speaking help!

Obviously, this is more than a rant, but also a plea for help. If anyone has experienced a similar problem with Dell, I’d appreciate a work around. I don’t need any of the fancy V.92 crap, I simply want to be booted off line when a customer calls.

2

Why don’t you just pay an extra $19.99 a month for a phone line? I mean if you’re running a business, you oughta have at least 2 lines if you want to be online and still do business.

Sam

3

Of course tech support calls for your new Dell are being routed to New Delhi. It sounded great in marketing, but maybe there are some bugs to be worked out.

4

Did you ever get Dell’s head out of your ass?
Did it hurt?

Man, if a computer company ever sticks its head in my ass, I’m gonna be pissed!
:slight_smile:

5

Would that I could. If there was an extra line available in my rural area, another line is 39.00/mo. to this location. Just to shoot down your next suggestion, cell phones don’t work here either.

6

Didja get a chance to talk to Todd?

7

Maccough cough cough

… excuse me.

8

No, didn’t get Todd, but apparantly some of his bretheren Tsar Isa, and Ten Rio were a couple of the phone techs.

9

How about CallWave www.callwave.com just $4 a month.

10

Tried 'em years ago. Don’t care to have my phone answered by someone else or for customers to get a recording saying that the person they are trying to reach is on the internet, please leave a message.

Let me be clear here when I asked for a work-around. I want a modem that will work with this stinkin’ Dell with XP.

Dell has a problem. They are ignoring the problem. They need to fix it and get back to me soonest! Either that, or take back their merchandise.

A simple e-mail or phone call telling me they are working on it would suffice for now.

11

Todd is not a machine!!

(that is the funniest thing every written by the way)

Can you get cable where you are?

12

Please ignore that extra y. I spell not goodly.

13

Maybe things have changed, but back when I was still living at home, just the call waiting tones by themselves would mess up my modem enough to kick me offline. No fancy hardware required.

14

I had the same experience as GMRyujin a few years ago. With call waiting enable on my line, I would get kicked offline whenever the phone rang. When I moved I didn’t get call waiting, so people got a busy signal whether I was online or on the phone.

Do you have call waiting enabled on your phone line now? If not, turning it on might be an easy way to work around the problem. In the meantime, you can still pester Dell and get the problem fixed correctly, but at least you won’t be losing business!

15

Yes, I do have call waiting working and have checked it. My old computer has an Actiontec external call waiting device that has worked flawlessly for several years, and in fact is what I am back to using. And no, I cannot use the external on the new computer becuause it is not XP compatible for some stupid reason.

I’m really hoping that someone else among the teeming millions has experienced the same problem, found a modem that for certain works with Dell’s new 4600 with XP.

And why the hell won’t Dell respond to my problem?

16

Now, on the remote chance that Dell eventually agrees with you, please explain just how this is going to happen.

17

Well, I assume that I would pay for them to ship me empty boxes or alternately, I could haul it 100 miles to a shipping depot for packing.

I know it was stupid! We’re always scrounging for room around here.

18

Hmmm…bare I was talking about paying the phone company to enable call waiting on your line. Nothing external, no equipment whatsoever…when someone calls while you are on the line, a few beeps/signals are sent to notify the phone that another call is waiting. When I had this, the modem interpreted the signals as “time to give up” and disconnected. Just have the phone company enable call waiting, plug the phone line into your modem, and off you go.

19

Pilot, CALL WAITING IS ENABLED. It has always been enabled, I pay an extra seven dollars a month for it to be enabled.

It doesn’t work with the modem supplied by Dell… in fact it doesn’t work on the old computer’s original modem either because I use them both, one for faxing and one for the call waiting feature.

20

Pilot, CALL WAITING IS ENABLED. It has always been enabled, I pay an extra seven dollars a month for it to be enabled.

It doesn’t work with the modem supplied by Dell… in fact it doesn’t work on the old computer’s original modem either because I use both, the original one for faxing and the Actiontec for the call waiting feature.