Cheryl L.

BUYER BEWARE- I loved this laptop so much in the 15 days that it worked. It ran great, didn't run very hot and was fast. Unfortunately, on the 15th day of ownership after running Fortnite for about 3 hours, it shut off unexpectedly. I immediately thought that it had come unplugged without my knowing and the battery had died, but that wasn't the case. I then thought maybe it was a fluke and a key had been pressed that caused the screen to go black so I hit a few keys and when nothing happened, I hit the power button. Big mistake, smoke started pouring out of the side vents and it smelled like a fire. I ran it outside until the smoke cleared, but it caused horrible nausea from the smell left inside my home. I had not purchased an accidental damage warranty yet as I was pricing other companies since Dell charges almost half the cost of the laptop for their warranty. Even so, this didn't worry me as I figured this was a hardware issue and something had failed. I called Dell and was assured that they would repair or replace it within 5 business days. Everything went fine, I received the box and sent it back but I hadn't heard anything by the 3rd business day and started trying to contact them through the online portal where you can track your status. No one would answer me, on business day 5 I finally realized that if you scrolled all the way down on the portal, there is an area for dispatch and if you expand it, there was a note saying that it was beyond economic repair and that I needed to call their depot for additional options, this note was left on the day they received the laptop from me but no one ever contacted me via the phone number or email that they had. I called that number and no one would answer, I left a voicemail and no one would call me back. This went on for several days until I finally initiated an online chat session in which the rep told me that it was being escalated and depot would contact me that same day. They did not. Another 2 days go by of me calling that number and leaving messages and no one calling me back. Finally, I received a call that I missed and had a voicemail message, not in regards to my messages but as their update to me, that it was being returned unfixed due to liquid damage. I can tell you I was in shock, there is no way that had liquid damage. No liquid even came near it. I started calling the number they left over and over, no one would answer. I initiated another online chat session and this time it was escalated to another department to call me back the next day. I did receive that call, but over and over it was sorry ma'am, liquid damage, I explained there was no way that could be and asked if it could be retested. I finally had to escalate it to a supervisor, another day goes by and I hear from the supervisor and it's the same bland message, I'm sorry ma'am, it's liquid damage, I understand, blah blah blah, No one would retest this system as requested, no other options were presented to me, they said perhaps it's old liquid (I owned it for 15 days), they said maybe we can meet you half way on repairs but that never came about because each representative tells you something different and nothing is followed through on. At one point I was told it would be best for me to just buy another one. Who can afford that? It was escalated yet again and there was no phone call received, just an email stating the same thing, we are returning this unfixed. I will finally receive my broken laptop back 3 weeks after it was sent to them. I gave up fighting about it. Lesson learned, I will never again buy from Dell, their customer service is terrible and apparently their products too. They don't want to admit their hardware failed so they knew I didn't have the accidental insurance and made up whatever story they wanted to not have to be responsible for it. If you do buy from Dell, buy a warranty right away and if you are going to shop around for that warranty, have your decision made before purchase. I am so completely disappointed