Dell Customer Support Uses Fake ‘Sweepstakes’ To Push Unnecessary Warranties

Dell Customer Support Uses Fake ‘Sweepstakes’ To Push Unnecessary Warranties


Don’t dial up Dell’s tech support unless you hate yourself. Laptop Magazine did some undercover sleuthing and in a simple call about a battery issue, a rep claimed that they had won a sweepstakes that entitled them to pay Dell $US317 for a four-year extended warranty. What luck!

AU Editor’s Note: We’ve been in touch with Dell Australia, and they’ve assured us that all of their call centres are in house and that they don’t run warranty sweepstakes. Thank goodness.

In fact, Laptop could hardly get the rep to answer the actual question they had, because he was pushing that warranty so hard. And the rep continued his sleazy pitch even after it was turned down, arguing that he was doing the caller a favour. $US317 down from $US512? For a computer he might not even have four years from now? Eureka!

Dell told Laptop that this isn’t an encouraged practice. But that canned response to some shady dealings isn’t exactly reassuring. In two other calls to tech support, Dell reps tried to hawk premium warranties that the customer had no interest in — and in both cases these pricey warranties really had little to do with the questions being asked.

It’s really a shame that it’s such a gigantic headache to make a simple phone call about a simple issue. Laptop points out that 80 per cent of Dell tech support issues can be solved at support.dell.com. And that’s definitely the way to go if it works for you, because their pitch men are a total hassle — and in some cases, openly dishonest. [Laptop]

Image credit: Rob Marmion/Shutterstock


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