Dude, Don't Trust Dell: Laptop Magazine Exposes Contest Scam

Oh, screw a baker's dozen of Dell.

Laptop Magazine caught some low-life customer service reps bilking Dell customers out of over $300 using bogus sweepstakes-win announcements, Gizmodo reported Wednesday.

The bust went down a little something like this: an undercover operative phoned their notoriously frustrating helpline with a made-up battery problem to bait the rep into the con. Lo and behold the luck! The friendly representative then claimed the caller had won a peach of a sweepstakes prize: paying Dell $317 dollars for an optional four-year extended warranty normally priced out at $512!

Yippity-skippity!

According to Laptop's report, the customer service representative was pimping accepting the discount so hard, that getting the original question answered would've taken not much less than water-boarding and a 19-hour loop of "Call Me, Maybe." The pitch allegedly persisted even after the caller rejected the warranty.

"Call may be recorded for training purposes?" In this instance, you're damn-skippy right.

When confronted, a higher-up Dell representative claimed that the PC maker doesn't authorize such a so-called "bargain." Two further calls resulted in other representatives giving other operatives the hard sell on more extended warranties, this time on plans that had nothing to do with the original supposed problem.

Pro-Tip, kids: as Laptop itself points out, 80 percent of issues don't even demand a phone call. They can instead be solved with a visit to support.dell.com.

In the first instance, a "customer" called with a question about making three-finger swiping work on a touchpad. One three-minute wait and a reportedly pissy greeting response from "Sakhi," the operative was told it was a software issue that required a paid software warranty for further assistance. A one-time fee of $129 would guarantee further help and 72 additional service hours of assistance, or the $239 Value-Bundled Plan would cover another four incidents over the next year. Your move, Valued Customer. S**t supposedly got real when Sakhi claimed he could authorize a discount down to $199, but that the offer expired if the client hung up.

What say you, Dell Overlords? "Any issues to do with the touchpad are indeed covered under the traditional warranty. We will address this misunderstanding with our tech support representatives." Sure, you will. What's your average hold time to speak with them?

Next, another operative spoke to "Denzil" about backing up data using Dell DataSafe. Second verse, lying like the first - that will be $239, please and thank you. This time when rebuffed, Denzil passed it off to his manager "Raj" - if you're not laughing at the stereotype parade by now, you've never dealt with Dell - who first recommended buying additional DellSafe storage from him, but then also suggested purchasing an external hard drive somewhere else to accomplish the same thing for less money.

The Dell higher-up danced swiftly around an explanation like a live ABC camera was watching.

"The biggest motivation for our tech support teams is resolving a customer's issue the first time and that is what they are measured on first and foremost," the Voice of Dell explained. "We have several internal metrics that are used to capture resolution rates and measure external resolution rates through e-surveys that we send out to customers.

"Occasionally, a resolution may involve offering additional service options, like part upgrades or software & peripherals that add value to the product experience, and help prevent issues from occurring again. When customers are out-of-warranty or they contact us for an issue that is not covered in their existing warranties, we advise them to either buy an extended warranty or available one-time, fee-based support."