Anyone want to buy an almost new (taken out of a brand new empeg) 20 GB IBM Travelstar for $75 plus shipping (or no shipping if you are in the Bay Area...)

- Jon

Greetings!

I take it that you are very happy with your new 60s...

So far so good. They are working perfectly...

- Jon

Where did you finally end-up getting the 60's? In the previous thread on this topic, I thought you mentioned that Dell had cancelled your order? What did you wind-up paying for 2?

Dell couldn't get those drives no matter how hard they tried. They said that their distributers couldn't get em. I went back and forth with an "Executive Support" person there. In fact, below is our email exchange in case it helps someone else... Dell ended up telling me to order the drives elsewhere and they are paying the difference in price.

I bought the drives from Googlegear which was also a nightmare, but that's another story.

Here are the Dell emails: (read from the bottom up - note who is on the email distribution!)

-----

Hi All,

I appreciate Mary's efforts here and will accept her offer. Thank you for your support and for doing the right thing in this case. It doesn't address all of the issues that I had, but it does allow me to obtain the drives at my expected price and hopefully, quickly. I'll accept her apology for the poor service I received.

I'd also like to encourage the executive team to investigate the support that I received as I'm sure that this isn't an isolated case. As I said in my last email, the support person I spoke with even admitted that another department was telling ALL customers that their systems were down when they, in fact, were not.

Not trying to beat a dead horse here, but I've always thought of Dell as having the best support available today. Please don't let your customers down in the future.

Sincerely,

Jon Bauer

----- Original Message -----
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, October 21, 2002 8:45 AM
Subject: RE: My experience with Dell


Mr. Bauer,

As per our telephone conversation this morning, I have agreed that if you purchase the 2ea. 60GB TRAVELSTAR 60GH ATA
Hard Drives locally and fax me the receipt I will issue a refund check for the difference in price, since Dell is not able to get these Hard Dives for you.

Please fax me the receipt at 512-283-6161 and put my name and badge number on the fax.
Mary Gordoa / Badge 20776

Thank you,

Mary Gordoa
Dell Executive Support
800-289-3355 ext. 40531

-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Bauer [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2002 4:41 PM
To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Fw: My experience with Dell


Hi again folks at Dell,

I was glad to get a call from Mary Gordoa this morning as she informed me that she was looking into this issue for me. This afternoon she called me back to let me know that the SKU that I had ordered is not available from Dell anymore and my order could not be filled. She offered to give me 30% off on another order. I find this to be an unacceptable solution.

As I explained to Mary, I feel that I have been more than patient and have given Dell the benefit of the doubt through this saga. I'd like to expand a little on what I referred to in one of my bullets below.

On 10-14, I called Dell customer service after getting an email that told me my credit card had been denied (that ended up being incorrect, by the way). The first person I spoke with told me that their systems were all down and that no one could help me for several hours. Well, several hours later when I called back, the service person told me that this was untrue, but that another department had been telling customers that in the morning to "blow the customers off". What? I certainly hope that this is untrue, and if it is true, I definitely don't think you want your customers to know it! Next, after being passed to department after department, I finally spoke with someone in sales who told me that my order was cancelled, but that the system doesn't tell him who might have cancelled the order.

The comedy of errors goes on and on with Dell that day, but the crux of it is this: I feel that I've been treated without respect and without proper attention. You now have 1 1/2 days to make good on my order. Please see my email below for the consequences of not putting the proper attention to this matter.

I can't believe that a company such as Dell cannot acquire 2 IBM Travelstar hard drives. These are being mass produced and are readily available in 100's of on-line merchants.

I'd really like to continue supporting and recommending Dell's hardware and services. Again, I urge you to do the right thing and reverse the damage that has been done to date with this customer.

- Thank you
- Jon Bauer, (telephone number deleted)

----- Original Message -----
From: Jon Bauer
To: [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2002 1:56 PM
Subject: My experience with Dell


Hello,

I wanted to share my recent experiences with Dell with you and also let you know what I intend to do if this issue is not remedied promptly.

Here's a timeline of recent events:

10-2 - Placed an order (122644850) for 2 IBM Travelstar hard drives
- Received 2 email confirmations that the orders were placed properly and all is well

10-7 - Received an email which informed me that the order is delayed. Possibly until 10-16

10-13 - Since I haven't heard anything lately, I check my order status and find that the order has been CANCELLED
- I write an email to [email protected] and ask why the order was cancelled

10-14 - Receive an email telling me that my credit card was probably denied
- I call Dell customer service and spend 6 hours bouncing around to different departments trying to get some help
- Every Dell customer service person I speak with gives me a different story about what happened with this order
- I plead with several different Dell representatives to take an interest in this issue and get real & solid answers. None of them pay attention

It appears that this SKU is no longer available from Dell. Why not communicate with your customers? Why allow them to order products and then cancel the order without any regard to the customer? Why was I given the run around for 6 hours without anyone giving the appearance of caring about me?

I don't feel that I've been treated fairly or with any care. I wasted a lot of time trying to get this sorted out properly but no one at Dell has taken an interest in truly trying to help me.

Now it's not common for me to get this upset - I rarely do it. Since this has been handled so poorly, I feel that I have no choice but to give this fair warning:

If I do not get a response telling me that my order will be filled promptly, I will be starting a web site called www.dell.unfair.com or something similar and will be posting my story and will act as a public bulletin board for others with similar stories. I intend to reach as many people as I possibly can with my story and share similar ones with other people around the world. If I don't hear from you within 3 days, I'll be sending you the web address.

I would also, of course, file a report with the BBB, write the story on epinions and all other consumer complaint web sites that I can find.

Please do the right thing.

- Jon Bauer, (telephone number deleted)

-----

- Jon

Aarrgh! F**king top-posting! When will people learn!?!

Jeez. Do we need to follow the generally accepted newsgroup etiquette in our personal email as well, captain?

- Jon

Well, since you posted it here....

In general, though, I think bottom-posting should be universally utilized. For example, in order to read that, I had to go to the bottom, scan up to find the start of the first message, read that, scan up, skip the first message header I got to, start reading at the next one, etc.

If bottom posting had been used, I could have simply started at the top and read to the bottom.

You can do whatever you want to, obviously, but it's much nicer to everyone involved to use proper bottom posting in almost every case. I think that it should be taught in schools, and software vendors who encourage top posting should be taken out and shot.

Jeez, too! To me, this rule is like speed limits, made to be broken when conditions are favorable.

In personal e-mails, I do both (top and interleaved) depending on the length of my response. This drives some people nuts, but other folks say they don't want to page down to search out a 2-line reply.

Howya gonna keep everybody happy?

Aarrgh! F**king top-posting! When will people learn!?!

other folks say they don't want to page down to search out a 2-line reply.

Howya gonna keep everybody happy?

Judicious editing of the text to which you are responding.

See?

Im in the market for one since I just had a piece of crap 20GB Hitachi fail on me after only a month. So I am definately interested in this. How should i contact you?

Just sent you a PM Kevin.

- Jon

See?

Yes.

(Oh, I know that and I do that -- I'm probably not making my point very well -- but it depends on the circumstances. When I get an e-mail from my top-posting sister with a short question, I give her a short, top-posted answer. If I get an e-mail that contains a lot of stuff, but the point is "What time should I pick you up?" I do not generally edit the body of the original message to insert "6:30". Yes, a risk is that if "6:30? How about 6:45?" becomes a lengthy philosophical debate, I may have wished that I responded in bottom/interleave fashion. But I'm just a risk taker!)