Off the Rock

Well, we're taking off today to make our trip back home to visit friends and family. The weather forecast doesn't look as bad as it could have been. It's been in the 30's with wind and flurries, so 50's and 60's for the next 10 days is not that bad. It will still feel cold after being in 70's, 80's and 90's for the past year!

Our laptop is on the fritz again; the video card is going out again! And our external harddrive that contains our backup, pictures and music is also on the fritz. So it looks like we are going to be making a pc purchase while we're back in the states. We are also going to buy a voltage regulator because the voltage is low in the house (not sure if its just the house or island wide) and between that and temperature/moister, it could be one of many reasons why our electronics are freaking out. And god knows we can't be without a computer! Yikes!

So the posts for the next week will most likely be about our crazy boating friends in WV, cold weather and family pre-christmas pics, so watch out!

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

Dell Hell Part Deux

Well two days ago I logged onto Dell's web page only to find that the video card order that I spent untold amounts of time placing had been cancelled. Well since I couldn't get anyone on the phone to tell me why I sent an email to them to determine what the problem is. Well yesterday afternoon I got this ridiculous response from Dell.

"Dear Mr. Pennington,
Thank you for contacting Dell Online Customer Care.
I understand from your e-mail that your order has been cancelled without any notification. I really apologize for the inconvenience caused to you. I will be glad to assist you.
I have checked the account details and it shows that the order has been cancelled as you had requested it.
To place a new order I would request you to contact our Sales Department at the toll free number 1-800-915-3355 between 08:00 AM – 9:00PM (CST), Monday to Sunday. They will be more than happy to assist you."

So since I was pretty sure it wasn't 9:00 PM (CST) I started calling. The first person I got, I am assuming he was at a call center in India, didn't know why my order was cancelled. He gave me different toll free number than the one I was given by Dell. That person, of course after several minutes of voice recognition software prompts telling you that you will receive faster service online, produced a woman with an accent I couldn't make out tells me that they don't ship to the Virgin Islands. I ask to speak to a supervisor and I am promptly hung up on. Well this just gives me the warm fuzzies, so I call back. They inform me that I have to call the original number as I have a sales question not a customer service question. They try to transfer me I am lost in switchboard hell and click it goes. So I call back the original number, ask to speak to a customer service supervisor only to be told the supervisor is in a meeting. I promptly call BS on that one as it is now almost 10:oo pm Atlantic Time. She promptly tells me it is 10:00am were they are located. Now real alarm bells are going off, I politely ask what country are you in? Why Manila of course. So I have a woman from Manila telling me that Dell only ships to the United States. I am thinking maybe we should give the whole damn country back to the Japanese. She repeatedly tried to convince me to have the card shipped to someone that lives in the United States then they can ship it to me. I of course can not understand why they can't put it in a priority mail package to my address and ship it. "In her endless continuing idiot loop voice she calmly states "we don't ship outside the United States."

Since I first orderd the card I also received via email a price quote from Dell Latin American/Puerto Rico. So apparantly now I will have to call Dell Latin America to order the card. So two weeks later the screen still looks like a checker board when it's not locked up and Dell still has their collective head up their arse. We actually considered buying a new computer from them when this all started. You couldn't give me another Dell after this insane run around.

Jay

Dell Spelled Almost Like Hell

Well I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon trying to fix this computer. After countless downloads and hours spent in safe mode, I managed to download a new driver from ATI for the video card. This new driver has software rendering that kicks in after the computer locks up six or seven times and by passes the video card. So after all this we have confirmed that the video card is the problem. So you would think you just call Dell and order the new video card and all is good with the universe. Not so fast remember we live in the islands. I called Dell and they confirmed the availability of the card and agreed with my conclusion, but they don't consider this a user serviceable part. Even though they have step by step instructions posted on their web page on how to replace it. So they aren't allowed to sell it to me on the phone. But I can order it online if I want to. So being a St Thomian I am used to this kind of nonsense, I log on and try to buy it. Well according to the Dell Web Site I live in Latin America not the US and I have to send an email to Latin America parts to order it, so I can't buy it on line. So I go to Dell online chat, tell them I want to order it. They chat back and say no problem, give us your phone number we will call you and place the order. Does anyone see the irony, I can't call them and order it but they can call me and let me place the order. Well after all of this they give me the price with sales tax. I ask what sales tax? Why West Virginia sales tax of course. They still have my WV address from the service tag that I gave them. So I let him know that my address has changed, fully expecting to be told I can't use a VI address. He isn't phased, so I start out with the new address, PMB as in Private Mail Box, "we don't deliver to mail boxes", well I went on to explain that it really isn't a mail box but a mail service with a fiscal address, oh that's OK. So I give them the credit card info, he places the order and the card is on it' s way.

Jay

More on the laptop

Well, we tried hooking up an external monitor to the laptop to see if it was just the LCD that went bad, but that didn't work. I didn't think that was it because when you boot up the computer, it displays the Windows splash screen, but then that goes away and just goes to black. We are running Windows XP and Dell didn't send the XP disks. It came with some restore software and said you didn't need the disks. Well, we ran the restore and it did nothing. We ran all the bios tests, hardware, screen, etc and everything passed. So I guess we get to spend the evening calling Dell help desk.....that should be fun. Any other suggestions before we burn a whole evening on the phone?

At least I finally got my new work laptop (it only took 2 1/2 months), so I'm going to start bringing it home every evening.
Deb

Dead Dell

Dead Dell, originally uploaded by captainjay.

We don't know what went wrong but the laptop has died. We ran Dell's
restoration software that came with and all we get is a black screen
on start up.
Jay

The Internet Connection is Working

We actually had it working on Saturday. We really don't know why it went out originally but I prolonged the outage by hooking it back up wrong after a hard reset that I did on the modem. We had shut it all down, unplugged it and reset it all. Then when I hooked it back up I reversed a few wires and that cost us a good 24 hours of outage before I was smart enough to check all of the connections.

Deb is working on a new driving video coming down the mountain from Sib's to the water front. She had hoped to have it today but it is two long and will have to be broken into two segments to fit on the server. The video soon come.
Jay

Island Internet

Island Internet, originally uploaded by captainjay.

This is an iPhone post as the Innovative DSL has been out since yesterday afternoon. There should be four lights on this modem working. That is life on the rock.
Jay