Tech Support Nightmare

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

I recently purchased a new Dell laptop computer, something Hubby agreed I could do if I got a job. I got a job, so I got to buy a computer. Anyway, I've had the thing for exactly 3 weeks today. 21 days is the magic number for being able to return it and get my money back if I'm not satisfied. I had been satisfied... until Thursday.

Thursday morning I saw the blue screen of death no less than 6 times before school started that morning. Every time I tried to disconnect my USB flash drive, it was immediately going to the blue screen, and then spontaneously restarting the computer 5-10 seconds later... SO FRUSTRATING!!!

I didn't have time to call Dell tech support on Thursday. Friday I didn't even take my computer to work since I was having problems with it Thursday. I didn't sit down to deal with it until this morning. About 11 AM I called Dell tech support...

... for the first time...

The tech guy (probably in India) remotely accessed my computer and updated my USB port driver, and maybe messed with one other thing... problem not fixed. I could make my computer go to blue screen on command with my flash drive practically on command. It was not a power I enjoyed having, let me tell you. So that guy finished with me and sent me over to a software tech support guy who basically told me that I should get my money back while I had the chance, today being day 21 and all.

I got off the phone with him, had a conference with my hubby, and tried to call Dell back.

I should make it clear to my reader(s?) that every time I called in I waited on hold for at least 15 minutes before I spoke to an actual human being. And the music playing was a very fast-tempo string quartet piece that was edited together so that it never ended. Every few seconds a recording would interrupt the music and tell me how to go online and/or solve my problem some other way. It was obviously designed to make people want to hang up. Good thing my computer was still working well enough for me to be sitting there playing Free Cell and watch HGTV while I waited.

So when I called Dell back to hopefully talk about my options for returning my computer or exchanging it, I was redirected once, and then left on hold until the recording on the other end finally came up and told me that they were unable to complete my call and to call the 800 number again.

So I did, but I was much less nice about everything by then.

TWO technical support people, one supervisor, and 4 hours later, my computer was fixed by uninstalling some recent Windows updates. Befre it was fixed, I had already threatened to drive to Round Rock's Dell campus and yell and scream until I got somewhere... I was so frustrated...

But now my flash drive and my computer are on speaking terms again, and I no longer want to throw my new laptop out the window.

So even though I went through the tech support nightmare, I guess the story has a happy ending... until the next wave of Microsoft updates comes out...