Dell Hell, The Nightmare Continues

So why does a Blog Having to do with relocation to the Virgin Islands have posts about Dell Computers two days in a row? Well instead of talking about boats, bars, and beaches we are talking about one of the less favorable aspects of living on a Rock in the Caribbean. US companies just don't understand where we are and that basically this is, for shipping purposes just like shipping to Kansas, or should be any way. This insane multi week saga to get a part that normally would be a simple phone call or email away state side turns into a huge drama when you add in the geographical location. The fact that a simple one price priority US Mail package can and will arrive here in a week or less from any place in the US is apparently a total mystery to Dell, and in a lot of cases most US retailers.

So here is the continuing saga:

Well yesterday was an interesting day in the continuing Dell saga. Deb received the message and followup emails from Dell Customer Service about our blog post. She sent several back and fourths with additional information about the computer, what we have done to get the parts etc. etc. About 5:00 yesterday I get a cell phone call because I had sent a complaint to customer service asking them to call me. Same drill, order number, service tag, you live were again? "Oh that is a US mailing address we should be able to ship there. Let me double check with the sales department and I will call you back in a half hour." Half hour later, "I am so sorry but you will have to re-order from Latin America. I will email you the number."
We get home and I start calling Latin America Sales, after about the third attempt to get through I finally get a person on the phone. In her broken English she informs me that I need spare parts not sales. So she transfers me to what I think is spare parts, except it is an all Spanish voicemail menu. Guess how that went. So after blindly navigating that I eventually get the all to familiar click/dial tone. I then find a chat for Dell customer service in Latin America. So lets give this a try. Sure enough after about ten minutes of wait time I get a chat agent from LA. He quickly informs me that I need to contact customer service by phone. I explain that this is basically impossible he doesn't believe me. Besides I am in technical support chat not customer service. So I log out of technical support fumble around the Dell Latin America web page and find sales chat. That didn't go much better. I eventually harassed them into giving me a phone number and extension that takes me around the Spanish voice mail. I get a lady on the phone who immediately wants to transfer me to spare parts. So I stop her explain the trouble I am having with spare parts and demand that she not transfer me until she get a human on the other end. She reluctantly does this and now I am talking to Mosses in spare parts. I have at this point given up trying to explain the lost order, I simply want to place a new order for the card. He pulls me up in the system and explains that since I live in the United States, they still had my West Virginia mailing address, they can't ship to me. So I go on to explain that I now live in St Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Oh then we can change your address and ship to you. So I give him the Latin America price quote that I received a few days ago, after waiting over a week, he pulls it up and starts to take my order. I repeated my address about ten times as he is typing it in. He also assures me the DHL won't need my zip code to deliver it. Then I ask him about a projected ship date he puts me on hold to check that and that's the last that I hear from old Moses. After about five minutes on hold, click and dial tone. So I have a Latin America customer number but the odds of the card actually being shipped aren't to good since Moses never took my credit card. When I called back to try to find Moses I am greeted by a voice mail that declares in Spanish and English that they are now closed and please call back during normal hours.
Jay