Oh--to have a working computer again...

My computer came home today! Yay! It sounds like a lost puppy dog doesn't it?

Anyway--here is the story of how it FINALLY got fixed--

So you all know it was broken, and I had to send it back to Dell for fixing. Well, before I did that, I thought my warranty had expired because when I called Dell--the automated system told me it had. (My computer is just over 2 years old, and I thought that I had possibly purchased a 3 year warranty, but I wasn't sure--so I believed it when the system said it had expired) So I took my computer to a local guy, who immediately looked up the warranty and told me that I had in fact purchased a 3 year warranty. I still had 325 days left on it! He also told me what he though was wrong with it, a few pieces needed to be replaced--but he said it was no big deal, especially since it was still under warranty. And he told me that Dell would give me a hard time, but not to let them get away with it.

So I called Dell, and got an Indian guy (no disrespect--but that's pretty much all you get when you call. And all they want you to do is pay money) and the first thing he tells me is that I have to pay $300 in order to update my warranty. I corrected him and told him that my warranty had not expired yet.

And he says "Well, your hardware warranty has not expired, but your software warranty has",

and I said "How do you know that my problem is software and not hardware?"

"Well" he says "because you told me your computer shut down, so that is software"

I fought with him some more- "but you haven't even seen my computer yet, so how can you be sure?"

"I know because of what you told me, so you must pay me the $300"

Well, I was furious at this point--so I said to him "you know, I took my computer to a local repair guy today"

"Oh"-pause-"you did?" he says

"yes, and he told me that, this, this, and this are the problems most likely" (except I explained the problems)

"oh" he says

"so tell me, is that a hardware problem, or a software problem?"

"its a hardware problem"

"so then I don't owe you any money, do I?!"

"no ma'am you don't. Let me transfer you"

Success! I did finally make it to someone who was actually helpful and not just trying to rob me of $300. And they did in fact fix my computer--at least, as of lunch time today it was working...one can only hope that it will continue to work.

I do still plan to buy an Apple this summer--so I'm just hoping my computer does just fine until then. It'd better--I don't want to go through this fiasco again. It is ridiculous how dependent you become on this hunk of metal held together by nuts and bolts...and scary what type of information is stored in it that anyone could get their hands on.

In case anyone is worried...I did keep my hard drive, so all of my business and customer information remained in my hands the entire time--so that was never at risk. I wasn't about to let them have my hard drive.