What the Dell?!?

So ... I'm not going to name names, but I'm having some serious issues with my computer. Well, not my computer - it's still a pimped out stallion, albeit it is limping slightly right now. I woke up to it yesterday and one of the monitors had died:

So today I just harrumphed around until Gary took apart my computer (I was being too grumpy to do it myself) and we looked at the graphics card. Got its part number and starting looking for them online.

Got close, but decided to get on with the online chat guys at the place that sells my computer and make sure it was compatible with my computer ...

Got on with James - an ever so über friendly support person. We told him the problem and the steps we had taken to diagnose the problem being with the graphics card. Told him what graphics card we were interested in and did my computer support it? He tells us that he could sell us the exact same graphics card that was in my computer - refurbished - for $451.00. That would be a broken one, then fixed, old piece of crap.


We sort of blinked at each other, wondered what he had been smoking, mentioning to each other that we weren't even asking for a sales pitch - we were looking for a yes or no answer - did this particular graphics card work with my PC? Did I mention that it cost $67.00 at Amazon? A newer model? Double the RAM? Faster?

Gary picked a graphics card off their own website for $139.00 and asked if that one was compatible. He said yes, it was compatable with my computer and he could get a quote to us (... "let me just go ask my manager if I can do this ... just for you two, 'cause you look like a really nice couple" ...) We sort of blinked at each other, AGAIN. He had just dropped to 1/4 the price - no reasoning for why he quoted us what he had to begin with. Gary suggested that people like to replace what they had with the exact same model - but he should have been a little bit repentant about trying to sell us something for FOUR TIMES the cost just moments previous.


And here we thought we were on with TECHNICAL SUPPORT ... and ended up with a used-car salesman ...



We told him thanks but said we would need a few days to think about it and ended the chat. He was not giving us any warm fuzzies that he wanted to be helpful at all. Went back on to Amazon, noticed that the card Gary had randomly suggested only supported one monitor - and he was willing to sell us that one!


What? Was he even paying attention? Do they get a commission?

So we decided to order the one we were going for in the first place.





I think this is a crime:

Tech support guy: SUPPOSED TO BE HELPING US FIX OUR COMPUTER

was going to sell us a graphics card ...

used ...

for $451.00.

Call us crazy, but we decided to go with the one that was WAY better for $67.00 - that INCLUDES express shipping ...

Oh, and James? Didn't go away - sat around, lurking on our computer with a quote for us for another half hour -THEN proceeds to e-mail me the quote ...

He is now cyberstalking me ...