Yesterday I bought a Dell computer online. There’s a thread on it somewhere. I bought it at their homepage, not some shady website.
Just now I got a call from “Dell”. This guy says that he sees I bought the computer at the regular retail price. But I qualify for employee pricing discounts because I am in the military.
… Sounds good so far.
But then he says to get the discount, he will place a new order for the same computer at the discounted rate, and then I am responsible for canceling my original order!! He says he can’t do that and I would have to cancel it myself after our phone call.
“You will cancel the order, right?”
“You will call them soon?”
“You will call them like in 10 minutes after you get off the phone with me?”
It was kinda freaky. Either he really, really wants to make sure I cancel my order so that I’m not going to be billed twice, or there’s some scam going on. Plus he has a very thick accent (maybe Nigerian )so I can hardly understand everything he says.
So he’s going on about that and says he is going to start my new order. I freaked! I told him “Hold on. Is there a number I can call you back at? I am really busy right now” I figured I could take some time to think about this first and maybe ask you all.
He says “Dont worry, I will call you back in an hour or so. While you are taking care of your business, I will get started on your paperwork so it’s ready when I call you back! My extension is 7234757” (What the hell kind of extension is that??)
OMG OMG OMG… he just called back as I’m typing this. He said “Hello!?”
“I thought you were gonna call back in an hour. I’m in a meeting”
“Oh I’m sorry… I also just found out I can take an additional 20 dollars off all your software too”
W T F
Either Dell Customer Service fucking rocks hard. Or there is some kind of scam going on!! Its harmless right now, I suppose. But do you guys think he is gonna ask for a credit card number or some shit???
And how does he know about what I ordered? Is this a known scam? Or am I just really paranoid??
Having gone through the Employee Pricing Plan (EPP) sites for Dell, Gateway, HP, and IBM/Lenova, it seems the employer updates the vendor with employee lists for eligible participants. However, as I don’t work in HR with these vendor relationships, this is just an educated guess.
If you have the necessary code to enter the EPP site yourself, Bear, you can configure the system on one screen, and cancel your order on another just before placing the new one.
Dell does have long extension numbers like the one you quoted. When I first saw them, I thought they were goofy too, but I’ve used them repeately and they are legit. Dell is willing to cut some great deals to get business, but I’m suprised to read they’d cut the price after they already have the sale.
The online application has a line for employer. My answer was “US ARMY”
The shipping address is to Ft Benning.
The email I used to register was my .mil account.
You know, the Army does have a HUGE account with Dell. Every computer I’ve ever seen on any desk in the Army is a Dell. Maybe they are just trying to take care of the soldiers???
Next he calls, ask for his representative ID number, or some other identifying number. Then, hang up, and call Dell, and check it out from them directly. I’m going to go ahead and assume it’s a scam, though.
I did give my office number on the application. He called the exact number I used for “daytime” contact.
He’s obviously not fishing or guessing on any of this.
He knows EXACTLY what I ordered to include accessories and software. He knows my phone number and he knows my employer.
Next time he calls, I will just go through the motion with him and everything. There will be no harm in that. But I WILL NOT give him any financial info.
Hell… I dont have that info anyway. I used a newly created Dell Credit account to buy the thing, so I dont have those numbers anyway.
HOLY CRAP… I just realized he could have gotten 90% of all that info from my MPSIMS thread!!
The phone number… that would have taken some research though!!
Why can’t he just give me a discount on the purchase I already made??? Why would we have to repurchase everthing and then cancel the original?
Does that sound like normal business? Maybe it’s how their system works or how they account for things.
OMG, he just called again!!! He is hounding me!!! I had someone else answer the phone!!!
If he has all that personal info re the order it’s probably legit , but you need to call Dell and confirm on this. I also don’t quite understand why he can’t just re-price the existing order to reflect the discount. Why he would call for an already paced order is also open to question. I suspect a sales commission is involved somehow.
I’d advise the following
Call Dell and confirm the discounted pricing. Tell them about the call you received.
Confirm that they simply can’t reprice the order without you having to cancel & reorder.
If this is indeed the case cancel & re-order YOURSELF using the new code.
You’d think Dell would know this and therefore not condone such activity; Never buy anything over the phone/internet when you, yourself, have not initiated the phone call/order.
Simply get the guys contact info and try to call him back. Now that you’ve verified his contact info, go ahead and call a Dell manager and relay that info to them to verify it also.
This should not scare you or intimidate you.
I don’t know if it’s a scam or not but Dell did call me about an order.
I found you can negotiate price over the phone with Dell so when I was purchasing more ram I called and told them the price of the ram at Crucial. I must have given my number, can’t remember the details, but they did call me back and went below Crucial’s price.
They did the same thing when my HD died (after a little over a year). They came down in the price but at that point I decided to get it some place else.
I called Dell’s 1800# and dialed his extension. It was the Employee Pricing extension but a machine answered. So that neither confirmed or denied anything. . .
I talked to some other people at Dell and they seem to concur that the order DOES need to be cancelled first.
It sounds more like a new employee that is just overexcited than a scam with this info. Probably a kid that just got his first job, I’d be nice to him.