Adding Dell to the list of companies I will never again do business with

As you may know if you've been reading this blog for a while, I have zero tolerance for incompetence. Especially when it comes from large corporations that allegedly want my money and my business. So far, eBay and PayPal have both demonstrated themselves so incompetent that I will never do business with them ever again.

Today, we can add Dell to that list.

Here's the story of what they did to get me this angry and why I don't think anybody should do business with them ever again.

This past Friday evening, my wife and I had a discussion and we decided we needed to buy her a new computer. We did a lot of searching and found a really great Dell laptop. Configured the way we wanted and including a 27" monitor, the total price came to about $2600. I logged on to the web site using the account I'd used many times in the past and placed my order. I got a "Verified by Visa" text message from my bank, which I provided to the Dell web site, and the order was completed. I also got a confirmation text from my bank because an expensive charge like this needed additional confirmation. I texted back that confirmation, assuming all would be fine.

Three hours later, I checked my e-mail to find a message from Dell that the order had been canceled. No additional information, just canceled. And all of the phone numbers provided to deal with the problem were closed, because it was now the weekend and nobody will be available to take any calls until Monday morning.

Suspecting that there was some problem with the confirmation from the bank (maybe I took too long to confirm the charge that Dell's order system timed out), I called my bank. They said both charges (one for the computer and one for the monitor) were approved and at no time did they send any kind of rejection to Dell.

I asked the bank if they would request additional confirmation again if I placed the order again. They said probably not, but they would add a memo to my account, to make sure it will clear smoothly this time around. I thanked them and went back to Dell's web site to place the order again.

This time around, the order transitioned to a "confirmed" state after a few hours and my bank's web site showed two pending charges for the new order - so the charges were clearly approved. I assumed the order had cleared whatever hurdles Dell had set up.

I could not have been more wrong.

Saturday afternoon, the monitor shipped and I got a FedEx tracking number. Woohoo! But no status change for the computer.

Monday morning, I get an e-mail saying that the computer order has been canceled. Lovely.

So I wait until Dell's phone numbers open up (7:00am Central time - which is 8:00am Eastern time, where I am) and call to ask. I am told that it was canceled by Dell's "Verification Team" and that only they can say why. Of course, that office doesn't open for two more hours. So I wait and call the direct number to the Verification Team I was given at 10:05.

I quickly get through to a very nice person who, unfortunately, isn't able to do anything more than apologize. She doesn't know why the order failed verification, even though she's allegedly working in that department. She says that she'll take my number and have someone call me back with an answer.

An hour later, still no callback. I call again at 11:00. I get the same response. Lots of apologies, but absolutely no clue why the order was canceled. And she lets me know that because there was a verification failure, I will not be able to buy anything using my credit card ever again - it has been flagged and will no longer be accepted by Dell.

I asked explicitly if they suspect fraudulent activity. Nope. The bank accepted everything just fine. It's one of Dell's internal security policies that has flagged my credit card. But she doesn't know what the policy is, so she can't tell me. And she can't put me through to anyone who does know. But she asks for me to verify my name and address and phone number and then says she will quickly call me back (in order to verify the phone number) to place the order now that my information has been verified verbally. She then hangs up.

No callback happens.

An hour later, at Noon, I call my wife at work and let her know that she's not going to be getting the computer and I don't think Dell is ever going to sell us anything ever again. At this point, I am extremely angry and tell her that we'll go to Costco or some other retail store to buy her a computer because I think all the big companies are going to give us the same runaround.

I do eventually get a callback from Dell at 12:15 - over two hours after they first said they would call. She asks me for an alternate e-mail address, different from the one on my Dell account. This sounds pretty fishy, but I give her another one that I use. She thanks me for it and then asks if I want to place the order a third time.

I tell her that it is going to depend on why the order was canceled in the first place. At this point, it's not enough to just buy a computer. I want to know what it is that set off all of their alerts because I don't want it to happen again. After a lot of back-and-forth, she finally tells me that it's because the e-mail address doesn't include any part of my first or last name in it.

That's it?!?!?!

Millions of people have e-mail addresses that have no relationship to their real names. That's a reason to automatically suspect fraud? As if no legitimate person has ever used anything else in an address? And as if fraudsters are incapable of making throwaway first.last@your_favorite_freemail_service.com accounts? Yep. That's the reason. Nothing more than that.

But, she assures me, that won't be an issue this time around because I was able to read her my real name, address and phone number, and give her the name of an e-mail account that does have my real name in it. Which is complete and utter BS. Anybody can create a free mailbox with a real name in it, and I already gave them my real name and address on the web form when I placed the order.

So this leaves one of two possibilities. Either their security is so completely brain-dead that a blind squirrel with dyslexia could hack it, or they are still lying to me, refusing to provide the real reason for rejecting my order.

Either way, I now believe they are completely incompetent. I might expect nonsense like this from a small garage business, but not from a multi-billion dollar company. Unless they simply don't care about individual customers at all and are only interested in bulk purchases by other large corporations.

And I never received any kind of message at the alternate e-mail address I provided them. So for all they know, it could have belonged to absolutely anybody. They have absolutely no way of knowing that it's my mailbox - to confirm that, they would have to send me something for me to read back to them over the phone.

At this point, I told the operator that I am no longer interested in buying this computer, and I will never buy anything from them ever again. I can understand companies being careful about possibly fraudulent orders, but I have absolutely no tolerance for businesses that repeatedly lie to me and give me the runaround when I try to figure out what in the world they think they are doing.

And so Dell joins the list of companies I will never again voluntarily do business with.

And I have no idea if I'm actually going to get that monitor that allegedly shipped on Saturday. After doing a lot of Web searching, it appears that Dell's Verification Team is also in the habit of telling shippers to return packages for the same capricious reasons that they cancel orders. But at this point, I really don't care anymore.

Update: I did receive the monitor two days later, as scheduled. I think it says a lot about Dell that I honestly did not believe I would receive it even after receiving a FedEx tracking number for it.