Every now and then we suffer from a weak mental moment and order items from an outfit such as Dell. Was it there old ad campaign playing with my sub conscience tell me "Dude you need a DELL" or was it because the deal they were promoting was just what I was looking for. In my case it seemed like the deal that i was looking for. Up until now the only dealing I have had with Dell (other than my first 20" widescreen LCD) were work related and their customer service seemed worthy of the reputation as good customer service. If we needed a part replaced it was usually delivered within 24-48 hrs, which is exceptable in most cases.

So on October 22 I was browsing Dell's website and landed on a page that offered an XBOX 360 with controller, headset, HDMI cable and 3 games including Halo 3 for $399. I have always steered away from consoles for one reason or another in the past but this deal really seemed to catch my interest. I picked up the phone and called a Dell salesperson. During the conversation i decided to go all out and get the HD DVD addon, a 12 month Gold Subscription to XBOX Live, and Dell 22" LCD screen to make my gaming experience the best I could for the money i was willing to spend. Once I finished the ordering I noticed that the XBOX package said 5-7 days for delivery which to me was exceptable even though I would have preferred that it ship ASAP.

The 24th of October the first item arrived which was only the subscription to the XBOX Live. On the 26th I got another package containing the HD DVD Drive but no monitor or XBOX 360. This is when things started to go wrong; I contacted Dell to determine when the monitor and XBOX were going to arrive. After several conversations both online and over the phoneI found out the monitor was in transit but the XBOX 360 was not currently available for shipping. Well that really sucked because I would not have purchased any of the other items if I had not seen the sale on the XBOX 360 package.

So anyway on the 27th of October the monitor arrived. The following Monday the 29th my phone rings and it's Dell customer service on the line to advise me that the monitor had shipped and it should be there in 2-3 days. WTF?? I asked the gentlemen on the phone if they had sent 2 monitors. His reply was "No" why do you ask, to this i replied that the monitor had arrived the previous Friday and wanted him to verify that a second unit was not shipped by mistake. No sir only 1 monitor has been shipped. Ok cool I said and the conversation ended with me shaking my head wondering how their service got so sloppy that they didnt even know that their item had been delivered days ago.

This was now 5-7 days from when the order was placed and I decided to get back in touch with Dell regarding the XBOX 360. At that time I was told it was back ordered and that it would ship on the 8th of November which pissed me off because I missed out on buying an 8800GT because I alloted my monies to the XBOX 360 purchase. So moving ahead to Nov 8th i was excited that my XBOX 360 had finally shipped and I should have it on the 12th or 13th of November. I also did some digging around with online Dell CSR's and got a weighbill for the Purolator shipment that contained the XBOX 360 so that I could follow the shipment through Purolator. When i entered the tracking information the Dell CSR provided me I got some disturbing results. It seemed according to this that the package was not shipped until the 10th of November from the Toronto sorting centre and had been delivered back to Dell on the 12th of November. I immediately got a Dell CSR online and inquired about the status. I was told that the package had been re routed and that it was in transit. This person was unaware that I had purolator tracking from a previous CSR and tried to smooth it over like it was a normal procedure. I thanked them and ended the online session and picked up the phone to speak to a LIVE CSR for clarification. I told him up front that I had purolator tracking info and for him to bring it up on his screen. I was so pissed off at this point that I wanted to vent on the poor Dell CSR but the first thing he said was I'm sorry sir but it looks like we screwed up and shipped the package to our mail room by mistake.

I have given Dell until today to get the XBOX 360 to my door or I am returning the entire order and getting the 8800GT that I should have got in the first place.

Thanks for reading my rant and consider this a warning if you think about shopping with Dell in the future.

Give me your thoughts on this so called customer service!