One of our accounting staff, Cindy, had to contact Dell Financial Services (DFS) because they sent us an invoice with 4 months of lease charges due on a leased server I?d returned last April. They were claiming we hadn?t returned the server; this in light of the invoice they?d sent in July charging us for a hard drive they said was not with that server when they received it. Cindy kept asking, ?So was there no hard drive or did you not receive the server?? The ?receivables rep? kept saying she didn?t have this information.
The rep did keep demanding a proof of delivery. Our shipper has sent us one that I will make available to Cindy. As the contact for all communications IT, I never received word from Dell that they did or did not receive the server, nor did I receive any word about a missing drive. We simply got invoices months later.
What was most astonishing was the more Cindy pressed for information and resolution, the more the Dell rep refused to provide information saying, ?I?m just Account Receivable, you have to talk to Customer Service.? Getting no where fast, Cindy asked for the Customer Service number. Cindy hung up and immediately called Customer Service (now here?s the kicker), Cindy recognized the voice of the Customer Service rep, who asked for our account number. When Cindy gave it to her, the rep paused, stuttered and said, ?Oh, I just spoke with you. After you hung up I talked to my supervisor and we found that you are supposed to get credit for the missing hard drive.?
First, there was not enough time for the rep to check on anything between phone calls, and then there was the rep?s prior claim that she was only Accounts Receivable.
Cindy got through the issue of the lease billings for the returned server and before hanging up asked for a confirmation number. The rep responded, ?We don?t provide confirmation numbers for these kinds of transaction.?
I cannot see the logic in treating a customer this way. We’re not a big company, but we spent about $100,000 on our leases over the past three years. Do they really think we’ll do that again after treating us this way?
Dealing with DFS over the past 10 months is probably the most frustrating customer service experience I?ve had in my 15 years of working in IT. Is this just my experience with DFS, or is this SOP dealing with these large computer manufacturers?
Besides walking with your wallet, how do you handle this kind of behavior from your vendor? What is the consensus out there?