BIG BUSINESS ROUND-DOWN

The Register provides a good roundup of issues that have and continue to affect us many millions of DELL customers ("Want to Complaint About DELL? Forget it") (DELL has closed it's so-called 'customer service' forums on thier "customer" website.

And, so The Register writes, "...part of the problem seems to have stemmed from Jeff Jarvis, a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner, who summed up his anger in a letter to a Dell VP, saying: 'This machine is a lemon. Your at-home and complete care service is a fraud. Your customer service is appalling. Your product is dreadful. Your brand is mud.'"

With pause to write here that Jeff Jarvis is now affiliated as a writer and editor with The New York Times. His words in that column for the S.F. Examiner, however, did amplify what many of us customers were struggling with as to purchases from DELL: not only lack of customer service but downright denigration when it was sought, even if there was a service contract in place.

I bypassed the 4200 power supply woes but I did purchase an expensive 8200 from DELL that had to be rebuilt piece by piece throughout the four-year duration of my extended service contract, starting with the easiest first and many, many hours/days/months later of telephone holds, hangups from irritable "service" "helpers," the contract was finally, and effectively honored the day it expired in the culmination of the rebuild: a replacement motherboard and memory. That solved whatever the problem was with the 8200 just as it became antiquated in the world of computer technology and now I begin the process of looking around for my next big computing purchase.

About DELL, I was pleased that they'd rebuild my expensive hardware but it was not the solution that made my outlay of troubles -- and for all that money I paid DELL for the troubles, was the result. My purchase experience with DELL did not end well because I was double-charged by DELL for merchandise and they never corrected their dishonesty. Ooops, error. Just a mistake. A thousand-plus more dollars, charged twice, ooops.

I continue my disappointment in commerce. I don't know if it's that there are many millions of badly behaving employees in our American business (in DELL's case, the majority of their employees are now located in other countries and in all fairness here, the very best care I received from DELL was from DELL employees obviously situated in India and the very worst was from those locally) or that there are arch criminals -- oops, those who are error prone -- leading many large organizations in our nation and elsewhere. I don't know why it is, but I know that it is getting more common than not that the consumer is defrauded with no consequence to the fraudsters. There's plenty of incentive to do well in business, reap profits and all, and yet there's less if any incentive to just do things right. Again I see the "ends justifies the means" methodology of profit. About which I'll never agree.

As to computing hardware, choices are narrowing as to reliable products with lucid service contracts and actual delivery on those service contracts, so I am thinking I may just purchase from DELL again, but I really hesitate to do so, I have to say here. I really hesitate to do so. I am not looking forward to additional hours/months/cumulative years on hold on the 'phone only to reach someone who could care less and disconnects the call when I ask for a response specifically to specific issues. Like almost everyone, I just want a system that is secure and works very well. And I try to get and maintain those wants.

What I think it is is that American business is doing so well that us customers are now the forgotten aspect to the mix. And, people with many millions of dollars a year available for use have no idea what the average customer goes through to purchase five, ten thousand dollars' worth of computing hardware and software every few years, and, there is no appreciation for what what we go through because they have no understanding of what we experience. Conclusion is that customer service is almost always a great big lie of people iterating, reiterating "highly trained" content that they have no idea how to implement. And really resent being asked to implement. A hangup on a customer asking for implementation is the only solution to people on a clock who are not personally accountable and thus, you get customers who are not serviced and you have to close down websites and...

Read about DELL's doings in North Carolina...

Meanwhile, Democrats attack Wal Mart. And here us Republicans have never pursued COSTCO (not, also, have I ever read or heard of such). Just saying: go read who is involved in the 'attack Wal Mart' efforts. And COSTCO contributes royally to the DNC, but I'm still shopping there, as I do/will continue to do at Wal Mart. As to political participants, COSTCO contributes a lot of our membership dollars and their profits from membership shopping to the DNC. That's O.K. Wal Mart contributes to the RNC. That's O.K. But Republicans aren't attacking COSTCO warehouses, the business practices, their employees, neighbors (by comparison to Democrats and their offenses about Wal Mart), nor COSTCO business in general. My perspective about these issues is I patronize businesses who offer good value, decent, accurate/honest shopping conditions and regard customers well. It seems that Democrats apply a level of guerilla warfare to businesses who refuse them contributions and support, as an organized (go read who is involved in the "attack Wal Mart" behaviors) political retaliation and/or offensive for refusing support to the DNC and other already-aligned Democrat organizations, a form of political-operative ruination. Labor seems to be often involved in these efforts, to the embarrassment of the labor movement, and, the labor movement is among the DNC's leading funders, locally, nationwide. COSTCO's a non-union organization, by the way.