After today, I don't know who has the worst customer service: Best Buy or AT&T or Dell.
Part of me just wants to let that sentence stand by itself and think about happier things during this holiday season. But with all the difficulties that I have had getting my computer working again it is still weighing my mind down. And since suffering breeds creativity, why not just do this?
So here's what it comes down to. On Friday we had a new carpet installed in the basement to cover up the cement floor. And I must say the gray look with the dark blue spots. It looks really classy and contemporary. But part of what had to be done was all the electronics had to be unplugged and strewn out all over the floor. So when I got home on Friday night, we had no Wi-fi, we had no Direct TV, and we had no working desktop computer.
Now after work and playing bingo with then yelp crowd, I did not get in the door till at least 10 o'clock at night. I stayed up till 1 in the morning trying to figure out all these cords that seemingly had no place to go into. It was like having a jigsaw puzzle at about 30 extra pieces that you have absolutely no use for. I did call AT&T and we did get the Wi-Fi working and I was also able to figure out the DirecTV on my own. But the issue was my desktop computer which I've only had for about 5 months. I would turn it on and within a few seconds, I would get an error message that the power cord was not supplying enough power to run the machine. Then it would just shut down by itself. After about the eighth or ninth time with different chords hooked up and then disconnected from it, I knew it was a serious problem. Exhausted and fed up and after fight number one with my mother, I went to bed.
The next morning, I went through phone calls with AT&T, Dell, DirecTV, and Geek Squad in the span of two and a half hours. The only people who were really helpful were Direct TV, and maybe that was because that was the one customer service rep I talked to whose first language was freaking English. The Dell people were just outrageous. We brought the computer out of box, meaning that somebody else had purchased it, and then returned it, and then we picked it up. However Dell did not recognize me as the owner of the computer. Essentially, they implied that the computer did not belong to us. What that meant was Best Buy never transferred ownership to me. The consequence? Our one-year warranty was not recognized and any parts I was going to get I would have to purchase.
And then with AT&T, they really couldn't come up with any ideas about what was going on or what the real problems were. Although they did want to send a technician to our house and charge us $149 to have anything like that besides the service. And that was after it took 15 minutes just to get a real person on the phone, who of course barely spoke English. And somehow I don't think his real name is Alvin.
The DirecTV guy at least got me figuring out what parts when where and the hookups that made the most sense. We eventually determined through trial and error that the problem had to have been the power adapter that goes from the wall into the computer. I called Geek Squad and they invited me to come in for an appointment and so I did thatat 1:20. An older gentleman named Bruce looked at it and he noticed that the pin from the plug had gotten stuck inside the computer, so the plug itself was not supplying sufficient power, even though I was definitely using the correct words. Since they did not have a replacement battery available, they sent me to a battery store up the road to get one. This Battery and Bulbs store had several 90 watt computer chargers in stock. However, none of the plugs fit into the back of my computer; they were too big for mine. So then I went back to Best Buy, feeling more annoyed, as I felt I was getting a little bit of a run around at this point.
They advised me to look for a universal charger in the store, but they were none left. The only universal charger they had in stock was a laptop charger, and that was never going to work on my computer. They even started looking through the Dell website trying to find the part that would work. They couldn't find anything except a 130 watt charger. The concern I had with that was I didn't know if 130 would be too powerful for my computer. But they assured me it would be okay. And keep in mind even though I had mentioned I had purchased my computer within the year and should have had a free one-year warranty, they still could didn't honor it. At the end of the day, they did not do anything for me. So I went home to contemplate my next move. Best Buy's Computer Service as well as Geek Squad's absolutely sucked.
My mother ended up calling Geek Squad and Dell as well, only to realize that they were no more helpful with her than they were with me. Now she tends to be a lot more aggressive and demanding than I am. But we have been fighting enough about all these electronic issues during the day and when she realize just how bad and unhelpful these people were, she started to understand the challenges that I was facing. Eventually we ended up doing a live chat with a Dell customer service rep and ordered a new power cord that is scheduled to arrive around Wednesday of next week. So we're talking about 5 days without computer access.
What's so frustrating about this, is that I plan on starting to apply for jobs across the country. And my documents are all on that computer and now I can't access any of them. I don't know what God has in store but I'm guessing it's just not my time to apply right now. Hopefully he's closing a door to open up a new one. But as I spend more and more time in Chicago, I realize more and more that I am absolutely ready to get out of here.
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