ARRGGGHHHHHHH Dell
UPDATE/CORRECTION: See the update here. Dell, your call centre still sucks, but the hardware is fine. Just like normal.
Usually Dell are great to deal with. They ship good quality products quickly, sell at good prices, and produce fairly standards-friendly and sensible hardware with few or no weird vendor extensions and quirks. If something goes wrong with a machine, they'll often post you a replacement part without demanding the old one back first, or will send a tech out on site next day to swap it. They don't make too much fuss about verifying faults either - if I say "this HDD is dead - the S.M.A.R.T self test reports uncorrectable bad sectors" they send me a replacement no questions asked.
Then, sometimes, they screw up properly. At this point, you descend into a screaming nightmare of call transfers, department blame games, and utter bullshit.
Take, for example, my present issue. I ordered a Dell Studio XPS 16 laptop for the POST's photographer. Gorgeous machine - kinda pricey and heavy, iffy battery life, and normal spec (2.4Ghz, 4GB, 7200rpm disk) ... but it has a display to die for. 270cd/m2 brightness and 100% Adobe RGB gamut coverage ... drooooooooooool.
It also has built-in wireless broadband. And here's where the fun starts. The part in question, the "Dell 5530 Wireless Broadband (HSPA)" card, is sold with a Vodafone SIM. Fine, no problem, right? After all, the dell FAQ on the product¹ states emphatically:
Q If I buy the card from Dell is it SIM Locked?
A No, however the card is only tested certified and supported for use on Vodafone's network
In other words: It's not SIM locked, but we don't support use on other networks.
Fine, no problem.
Or, that would be the case, but the card I received is SIM locked. Dell say they have no unlocked cards. My XPS M1330 came with a 5520 that was not SIM locked, and given that the dell site says the 5530 isn't SIM locked you'd expect that, well, it wouldn't be. They say they have no way to obtain or generate the master/network unlock code required to unlock the card. They seem to have difficulty understanding why telling a customer they're buying a network-unlocked part and supplying a network-locked part instead is unacceptable.
I've wasted five hours running around in circles today. Tech support insisted the card wasn't network locked, then EVENTUALLY concluded that, er, the Three networks SIM wasn't working because, well, the card was network locked. No, we can't unlock it. No, we can't replace it, the replacements are locked too. Parts dept confirms (eventually) that all 5530s are locked. We'll put you through to "customer care".
After about an hour and three reps, Customer Care was eventually made to understand the problem, and convinced that transferring me to tech support would not help, because tech support had sent me to customer care when they concluded there was nothing they could do. Customer care ummed and aaahed for a while, floundered, talked to supervisors, etc, then came up with the bright idea of seeing if maybe Vodafone (the provider the card is locked to) might tell them the unlock code. Wow! Gee, I didn't ask about that at the start, no sir. Said they'd call back in half an hour.
An hour passed, I called them back, and found they'd given me the wrong extension. Ridiculous runaround ensued as I tried to get the correct extension or a transfer to them. Then someone in the switchboard said that "customer care has now closed, they close at 6pm sydney time. Call back tomorrow.".
I sit here frothing with rage and frustration. The real pain of it is, I'll keep on buying Dell's gear because (for my needs and most of those I work with) it's almost infinitely better than the garbage HP/Toshiba/Apple/Lenovo/Sony etc make in even vaguely similar price ranges, and often better than anything they make AT ALL. I just wish they could sort out their communication and issue resolution properly.
¹ Yes, I know that FAQ talks about the 5520. However, it's what you get linked to when you click on "more information"/"help me choose" on the "mobile broadband" page of the configurator when building a Studio XPS 16, and it's the only information on locking. The product description doesn't show it, there's nothing in Dell's generic T&C, etc.