Customer Service Nightmares.

I don't know if I can do this here, but there's a site called ripoffreport.com - I have spent many hours browsing there. I have found some appropriate warnings and some people who don't have a clue and suddenly feel empowered!

At least home service hasn't been outsourced... yet.

As a side note - the "Flash" button on your phone will simply switch you over to the other line when someone is calling in during a conversation - and when you're done with speaking with them, press "Flash" again to return to the original call.

is the flash button like the any key?

we have a water treatment system for the pH, iron, and some other flavorings in our well water. These guys have to come out and service our units once a quarter. They will not install a bigger unit so that they make less frequent visits and, whenever they come, we lose a full day of waiting . They are such a bunch of jerks with people skills worse than mine.

Darn, I meant this for "General," not "General News." Oh, well, still like to hear peoples' warnings and horror stories.

I was just in the middle of a long rant about Dell customer service, when I got a blue screen...

When I calm down, I will try again to share my adventures.

Short version:

"Dude, you're getting a Dell." = "Dude your gonna get it rough with no lube."

Okay,
to finish my rant.
The Mrs. and I bought a brand new Dell desktop last December, and right from the get go the machine ran poorly. When it would run, it was painfully slow and we would get blue screens about once every three hours. We called Dell, waited 45 mins. to an hour, and were finally put through with someone in India with a shaky grasp of the English language. He informed me that I called the wrong department and transferred me to someone with an even shakier grasp of English.
I finally explained the problem to him and he said he would ask his superior what to do.
He hung up on me.
We tried several more attempts via phone and had similar results.
We tried to use the online help, but as our machine would crash so often, this too proved useless.
We finally resorted to e-mail and had slightly better results. We ran diagnostics and found nothing. Checked for viruses/yuckware...nothing.
I reformatted the hard drive and re installed Windows...Still no better.
The last e-mail I recieved advised me to pull out the RAM chips and check them individually, and if that did nothing, try installing a different hard drive.
This machine is still under warranty. I shouldn't have to be doing any of this. It's going on seven months of sheer frustration...
This post btw was written on our trusty old HP pentium II.
It's now the only working computer in the house.

Sorry for the long rant, but I feel better now.

I had a friend at work who bought a Dell a couple of years ago, then cancelled his order before he got it. As I recall, the money was deducted from his credit card anyway. It took him dozens and dozens of calls and letters to get it fixed. From what I gather their customer service is a total nightmare.

Dell shows up on the ripoff report numerous times... I don't think they're unique, but the word India also shows up regularly.

Re: Customer Service Nightmares.

Here's the epilogue. I called the Sears corporate offices in Chicago Monday morning. I asked to be allowed to forward a complaint to any manager. They asked me what it was in regard to. I said an incident that occurred when a Sears Home Repair man was supposed to come to my home. They said "Just one moment," and put me on hold. When someone picked up the phone again, I discovered that they had merely transferred me to their 800 number for re-scheduling my service call. It would take a genius to figure out how to show more disrespect.