Alienware lies and tricks.

First, I ordered a totally decked out Alienware 17 on the webpage and saved it to my shopping cart.. .
then... I was talked into ordering an alienware graphics amp, because quote" it would be dual video cards"...
I ended up letting the chat lady put my order through for me.. since she said I'd get more discounts...
She quoted me a price... and it was $3996.96... cool.. I'll take it..
So then she proceeds to order it...
I then find out that the amp does NOT make it dual video cards... after being told twice by two different service reps it does... then I find out, She didn't put the amplifier in the order at all...
So I call and tell them that.. they read the quote and see that she indeed quoted me the price with the amplifier... and say "sure we can do that.." and put in the order... canceling the old order...
again.. all this is over the phone because we must do it over the phone so I can get the "special" price...
So then, I look up THAT order number.. .and they took away my 2 year service and 2 year accidental damage..

So I call back... and tell them, and they say no, we can't give you the 2 year service and the amplifier for that cost.. that's not what she told you.. So i direct them to the chat logs... tell them the exact date and time, and they see she did in fact.. tell me exactly that... so yes.. they can do it... .. lets cancel that order and do it again.... well.. by this time my Bank account has a hold of $7324.38 total on it all to dell...

During this time.. I get the email saying my desktop 980 graphics card is on it's way...
Turns out the first rep has put it in as a different order number, that was never canceled... so she was literally going to send me a desktop graphics card that i could use as a paperweight with my laptop since she didn't add the amp...

So...I canceled everything... Thank you alienware for turning something that is usually exciting into hell..

* Check Card POS DEBIT DMI DELL CORP BUS 800 69 $670.34
*Check Card DMI DELL CORP BUS 800 695 8 $1,109.00
* Check Card DMI DELL CORP BUS 800 695 8 $1,109.00
* Check Card DMI DELL CORP BUS 800 695 8 $1,109.02
* Check Card DMI DELL CORP BUS 800 695 8 $1,109.00
* Check Card DMI DELL CORP BUS 800 695 8 $1,109.00
* Check Card DMI DELL CORP BUS 800 695 8 $1,109.02




02/21/2015 06:57:43PM Agent (TIP_Geraldine R): "just to make sure ive got the correct item , this is for Alienware 17, with windows 8.1, Nvidia geforce gtx 980m, 512 gb SSD + 1TB hard drive , and 16GB ram"
02/21/2015 06:58:07PM Agent (TIP_Geraldine R): "to make this a better deal, let me sign you up for FREE on our Dell Advantage program so you can get a free 2nd business day delivery after the ship date for this purchase plus a 5% back in a form of an e-gift card which will be sent to your email 10-20 d"
&nbsp ays after the order has been shipped out
02/21/2015 06:58:17PM Kenneth: "yes, and it should have a graphic amp"
02/21/2015 06:58:34PM Kenneth: "sure that sounds fine"
02/21/2015 06:59:17PM Agent (TIP_Geraldine R): "yes this has the amplifier, as well as 1 yr accidental damage service"
02/21/2015 06:59:33PM Kenneth: "good deal.. yes that's it"

02/21/2015 06:41:16PM Kenneth: "hi, could you explain to me what a graphics amp is? is it external?"
02/21/2015 06:42:06PM Agent (TIP_Geraldine R): "yes Kenneth .. graphics amplifier is an external accessory.. it serves as a second graphics card"


Another agent...
02/21/2015 09:22:50PM Agent (TIP_Nino C): "no, what Kenneth told you is correct"
02/21/2015 09:23:14PM Kenneth: "So... I will have dual graphics cards."
02/21/2015 09:23:21PM Kenneth: "working in tangent"
02/21/2015 09:23:21PM Agent (TIP_Nino C): "the amplifier will boost your computer performance specially the graphics card"
02/21/2015 09:24:27PM Kenneth: "so when it's plugged in, it uses both cards correct?"
02/21/2015 09:25:07PM Agent (TIP_Nino C): "yes that is correct Kenneth"



If I can talk to someone who's name isn't from the 1950's America.. and someone who really understands what I'm saying... I may try again.. but as long as you have people using the "language barrier" as an excuse as to why they keep screwing me over.. I think I'll have to hold off on giving dell any more business..

 

Why should this be a surprise to anyone? I've recieved the same treatment from Dell and they refused to do anything about it so far!

 

That really sucks, Relevance. I was reading through you issue with the ordering process and I'd like to forward it to our sales team to realign the information they are providing customers. I'm gonna hit you up in a PM to grab some info from you and see what I can do to make sure that doesn't happen again.

 

The great Khan makes an appearance! You can trust Khan to do what he can in his power to help you! He's pretty good to help with what he can.

 

While that sounds irritating, I do think that the graphics amplifier issue was just a misunderstanding. And no, I'm not talking about the fact that they quoted you for the amp and then completely left it out, but more on the dual video cards. I believe the salesperson used the term "dual" to be two separate cards, rather than what we here would consider dual video cards, which are two gpu's working in tandem. So that was probably the confusion, also it is something you could've and should've researched on your own, Not blaming you, but us buyers have to be even more educated on the product than the people selling it, that's at least how I am. (even with cars, I know more than the salesperson) Trust me, there have been countless times on Dell chat where salespeople have given me completely wrong information. I asked a dell rep if the AW15 has dual fans, I already knew the answer, yes it does, but I wanted to hear what he had to say. I asked if one cools, the GPU, and the other cools the CPU, he said that one cools and CPU and one cools the PSU, lol. You had a horrible experience, and dell handled it in a very unprofessional manner. But, when I conduct business with companies notorious for bad service, I do try to keep my order as simple as possible to avoid confusion. I would've shopped elsewhere for the graphics card. Not telling you how to spend your money, but that's a lot that you spent for the entire setup. (assuming it's usd, I saw the "$") Anyway, I hope that this issue gets rectified for you,as I will be shopping for an AW15 soon.

 

Why should this be a surprise to anyone? its DELL they only know how to lie to people well lucky you you can cancel your order but me pffffff they said i can NOT well i have everything recorded there call and emails tomorrow i'm going to talk to them I want my money back $2,326

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...rder-status-thread.771207/page-3#post-9937952


DO NOT be surprise people it's DELL ......

 

You are correct, I did find it myself later, which is why I asked.. on a side note, If I knew what I was talking about, I probably wouldn't be paying $4400 for an alienware, I'll be the first to admit that I'm one of those guys who uses a computer for gaming and just want a powerful computer without really understanding or utilizing it to it's potential. I'm an oilfield worker, not a tech, but I have respect for those of you whom know what your talking about. I built my own desktop's about 10 years ago and thought I knew computer's pretty well. That being said, if I thought I had any clue what I was talking about before, I know better now, I actually found powerednotebooks.com and ordered a ridiculously overpowered Titan, costing around $4300... I

Then I received a call from a Gentleman named Donald about 5 minutes later, and he proceeded to school me for about an hour, by the time it was over with, He had talked me into changing alot, I went from win7 to win8, I went from having 4 terrabyes of space to 5, I added the screen guarantee and the usb recovery drive. Then we started changing my hard drives, I wanted a fast computer... SSD's are fast... So I had chosen to get 5- 1TB Samsung 850 PRO SATA III Solid State Drive in this computer...

At this point, those of you whom know what your talking about are chuckling at my ignorance and laughing at how ridiculous that choice was... Well. my computer was gonna be fast!

Donald explained to me exactly what I was doing and we changed my 1 terabyte drives to 2 terabyte drives that were not ssd.. because... they are basically file cabinets, I use them to store movies and how fast do you need your hard drive to be to watch movies... I wouldn't have noticed a difference and paid 5x as much for half the space..

Anyway, after literally an hour of talking to this guy, I'm calculating all the stuff we added in my head thinking I"m somewhere around $4800 now... groaning to myself thinking damn.. that's more than I wanted to spend... I'm a fool....So i hesitantly ask him what the total is now.
He said.."oh.. your at $3300 now. ...

So to reiterate... Alienware upsold me to get the 980x graphics amp... which I now know, doesn't even work right now... when I already had a single 980m in my laptop... and powered notebooks had a fish on the line and gently removed the hook from my mouth.. they cost themselves around $1500 in parts, which I understand wouldn't all be profit.. but lets just say they only mark their equipment up 10%...

That means this guy spent an hour on the line to lose $150 in profit plus whatever his hourly wage is, when he could have just said "yeah, your computer will be fast buddy! I'll send it right out"

My alienware computer was going to have a single 980m....a 512GB M.2 SSD + 1TB 5400RPM SATA 6Gb/s and a 17.3 inch screen..
I now have an 18 inch screen.. dual 970's (as he talked me out of the dual 980's because that would be ridiculous),
I'll have a terabyte of SSD space, and 4 terabytes of storage, all for around $1000 less than alienware, oh, and lets not forget I'm getting a pretty sweet keyboard with this one... and a laptop that can be upgraded for the next two generations...

Since I usually buy a new laptop every two years and pass my old one down to my wife to play facebook games, he's saved me a ton of money long term, and earned a lifelong customer. All because he was more concerned with giving me the computer I would be happy with instead of making money...

Now AW khan did message me and try to help me, he was honestly the first helpful person I've met at Alienware and I do appreciate it, I'm not bashing alienware, but their customer service is quite horrible at the moment, Two years ago, it wasn't like this. I'm still flabbergasted that they canceled the first order and then recharged my credit card without talking to me about it first and seeing if that was okay... I still have a hold on my account for over $7300 which is not pocket change, I've contacted them to send me a return label for the graphics card in which it took me three calls now to get ahold of someone without getting disconnected while on hold for at least 30 minutes every time.. just to have them tell me that since it's not being delivered until this afternoon, I'll have to call back when I have it before they will send me the return label.. So they told me to just refuse the shipment if i didn't want to call back.. To return something, you can't call them direct, you have to call customer service and have them transfer you to the special team that does returns because they do not have a direct number.
I ended up calling fedex and just telling them to turn it around.

Anyway, Long story short, I do appreciate your advice Niko, it is hard to figure learn what is what when every review about every computer is always "4.5 stars' and "powerhouse" regardless of if it is or not.

I was upset with customer service but I'm not the type to start cursing and ranting and raving, I was polite the entire time. though it was irritating when I'd call for a question and get transferred before I was able to ask because they asked me for my order number and it showed processing... then get transfered back when someone finally let me ask the question.

I really am impressed with power notebooks, so much so I already have my brother planning to call them next week, His alien ware is ready for an upgrade too and he's already busy building and rebuilding it on their site...

So in conclusion, I don't want to turn this into a anti-alienware thread, but I do recommend if you've never heard of them, try powerednotebooks.com and on the dropdown box pick Donald Stratton

 

Make sure you cancel that order!
Reorder and don't spend more the $2500.00! Just order it with 980m and the highest cpu no with any ssd, you can buy it shipper at newegg.com!

 

Alienware need to learn to up their customer service or they'll be losing on big sales like this. AW Khan is an asset to the company, he's going out of his way on his personal time to try to help the people who the company screwed up with, but I feel it is more than he can handle or is capable of at times because we have a lot of people on here (plus he has his own life and job), sometimes we have to escalate to the very top to get anywhere.