Time for another dose of Ev’s philosophy.  This time I’m blogging about big companies versus small companies.  I recently decided to trade in my small netbook for a new laptop to replace my ailing tower and monitor and actually tone down how many electronics I have in my small place.  So I did get a new laptop from Dell, bought it during the MA tax-free weekend, and love it!  Now, the plan was to return the netbook and get enough money to almost pay it off.  So I scrambled to return it, got it there on time, and that’s when everything turned sour.  The Techforward people who supplied the buyback program told me that the information they got from Dell about what I originally bought in 2010 was totally different from the netbook I returned.  So when I registered the thing online and saw a refund of $274, I saw the wrong thing because Dell gave the company the wrong information from the getgo.  By the time Techforward figured out my refund it came down to a total of $96.  Far cry from $274.

Then Techforward wanted to send me a gift card.  My plan was to pay down my original bill with Dell.  You can’t do that with a gift card.  They told me they could only send me a check if I bought something else.  I told them I did!  Then they told me they couldn’t send a check since they already started processing the gift card it would be “too confusing” to reverse that and issue a check.  What kind of people are we talking about here?  Too confusing?

So now, in a nutshell, I am still paying on a device I no longer have, I owe Dell more money, and I have three gift cards I can’t use.  That is how this deal went south.

Now, I feel Dell should never force people to buy anything they don’t want or issue gift cards people don’t want.  And I have been emailing with them a long time now.  And guess what?  Dell won’t budge.

I teach private students.  I’ve been doing this 25 years.  I have had to be flexible so many times I can’t count already.  And every time I am flexible with a student it usually means I lose money.  I am not asking Dell to do anything for their client (me) that I would not do for mine.  In fact I’m asking them to do less.  I am asking them to cash in those three gift cards and issue me a check so that I can pay down my bill with them, with absolutely no loss of money on their part.  They won’t budge.

Well, I’m not done yet.  I am not counting on them being noble but miracles do happen.  One thing I know is that Dell is out of the computer picture for me for some time.  I actually like apples…maybe an Apple the next time?  After all, I wouldn’t want to confuse anyone!

Update as of December, 2011…this situation actually DID work out!  I ended up taking a customer service manager’s advice and returned the new laptop, and bought it again!  ha!  He combined all three gift cards into one and I was able to buy my laptop “again” using the combined cards.  So it all did work out and I am happy, even though it was a pain to return all of this and start over.  So I guess the moral of the story is to stick to your guns, as long as you’re being honest, and a situation CAN work in your favor.