The situation with Dell has been resolved. Bill, the guy who wasn’t responding to my emails did respond after I started putting up blog posts about Dell. If you read the comments section you can see that he says that he thought he had responded before but apparently had not hit send.

The cynical bones in my body, and there are many, were screaming: Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!.  At first I strongly felt that he only responded because I went public. But since then I have talked to him. There is something about having a real conversation with another human. Either he made a couple of really bonehead moves in not responding to my emails and it truly was just human error, or he just didn’t take me seriously and intentionally blew off the emails.

When I talked to Bill I did not hear any animosity in his voice. He seemed very embarrassed to have screwed up and wanted to make things right. I’m going to take him at his word on that. If I’m wrong, than kudos to Bill for his acting abilities.

Since then Bill has been bending over backwards to clear up my concerns.

So here is the resolution to my 3 questions in part 4.

1. Why was I told that I should call back on or after September 22.

Our best guess is that the rep wanted me to call back after the Insperion had been processed through their system.  I have another email, about another part that says it takes 10 days to process a customer return, that would be Sept. 13. Still not sure why the rep chose that particular date of Sept. 22. It’s minor and not worth researching.

2. Will you refund the $126.29 difference between the price I was quoted and the price I was charged.

This one created a technical challenge. Complicated story of 3rd party companies, tax issues with no retale stores in my state, etc. You would think any company would be able to simply cut a check or refind a credit card. But at a large corporation level it’s not always that simple. They were not refusing to do it, just complicated.

Bill asked if there was any product I might be in need of. As it happens, I was outgrowing my hard drive. So we found a solution that worked for both of us.

3. Why are your employees not allowed to put anything in writing? They seem to want to help but are not being allowed to. Do they even work for you or are you farming out the work to some other company?

The part about them farming out the work was just me being snarky. I know every big company does this to some extent. My main concern was the apparent policy of not allowing employees to put promises in writing.

Bill assures me that there is no such policy. He also assures me that they will be taking measures internally to make sure the reps understand that if they are making a verbal agreement they should be willing to put it in writing for the customer.

So readers, here is what I want from you: if you are having trouble with Dell I want to know about it. Help me keep their feet to the fire. Don’t go off on the reps, they are just doing their jobs and yelling at them won’t get you anywhere. Be polite, be reasonable, and take lots and lots of notes. Use Fonolo.com if it’s available to you (currently in beta).

Then tell me about it. I am satisfied with my situation but if they are just giving me the brush off and continuing to do this to others, I want to know about it.

Alex has assured me that he is done with blogging about podcasting so I will attempt to fill in his very large shoes. This is where I’ll talk about podcasts, podcasters, Podcasting equipment, mp3 players and accessories, new media, social networking, etc.

On my show I stay positive, always positive. I don’t see the point of telling you about shows I don’t think you will like. On the blog I will be a bit more critical. Keeping the first paragraph of this post in mind, I won’t be mean. I’m not interested in getting into a flame war with anyone. However, I do have opinions and I will be sharing them here.

My threat to Scott Sigler on his Gore Line

Scott Sigler vs PodcastJunky at the Expo