New AW Convert?

This is going to be an on-going review of my entire process of ordering my new MJ-12m 7700.

Well, I've gone and done it. I've been researching new laptops for a while. I have had a Dell Inspiron 8200 for... like almost 3 years now. I've used it as my desktop ever since I got it, but my needs now, are warranting more of an actual desktop system than what my trusted Dell can handle. Especially at the present time. With things I have going on, time is going to be a major deal. The quicker I get my system, no matter where I get it from, the better.
I've looked at AW, Sager, Hypersonic and Dell. I had narrowed it down to just Dell and AW. It was really tough because both had a few smaller options that the other didn't, and in the end I tried to go with Dell, just from having my Inspiron 8200 for so long and no problems (of my own) with their support. If it wasn't for some of Dells billing/financial policies, I would be writing this in the Dell forum... but they pissed me off haha so here I am.

My new system specs...

[1] MJ-12m 7700

Warranty: 3-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support with Onsite Service Bundle with AlienAutopsy and Respawn
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional with Service Pack 2
Case: Alienware® MJ12m 7700 Case with 17" WideSXGA+ 1680 x 1050 LCD Display with Built-in Camera - Xeno Grey
Motherboard: Intel® 915P Chipset Supporting PCI-Express
Processor: Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 530J w/ HT Technology 3.0GHz 800MHz FSB 1MB Cache
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 533MHz - 2 x 1024MB
Graphics Accelerator: Alienware® MJ12m 7700 NVIDIA Quadro FX Go 1400 with 256MB of DDR memory
Hard Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 80GB 5400 RPM ATA100
Primary Optical Drive: 8X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24X CD-RW Combo w/Software
Floppy Drive: USB Floppy Drive
Modem: 56K Modem with V.92 Technology
Ethernet NIC: Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet NIC
Wireless Network: Internal Wireless 802.11b/g miniPCI Card
Digital Audio Hardware: Intel® High-Definition Audio (24-bit, 192Khz) with 7.1 surround sound
Optional External Displays: No Monitor
Optional Mouse: Microsoft® IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 - USB - Space Black
Bluetooth: Belkin® Bluetooth™ USB Adapter
Free Alienware Mousepad: Free Alienware® Mousepad

[1] Special Financing Offer; 90 Days Same As Cash Financing with the Alienware Credit Card
[1] Free Shipping Mail-In Rebate; on Alienware systems excluding peripherals - Continental U.S. Only
[1] $600 Instant Rebate; On Select Notebooks!

SubTotal: $4,157.00
Shipping: $99.00
Discount: $600.00
Tax: $0.00
Order Total: $3,656.00
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That is actually even a bit more than I put out for my Dell back when I bought it 3 years ago... Now this is the most I've spent on a computer! Damn the changing times haha.

Ok well Here's how this goes...

I called and placed my order on Thursday 4/28 and am told I'll receive stuff in the mail and also email confirming what I ordered...
I know that I would have to await some financial papers to be mailed to me because I was financing part of it. No big deal I thought. Once I get it, I will just mail it back Next Day Air to keep it from being 10 days total turn around before the building phase.

I receive the papers on Tuesday 5/3 but couldn't send it out untill Wednesday 5/4. No big deal. Next Day Air is a wonderful thing. Any how UPS delivers the forms 10am Thursday 5/5.

Nothing needed from me but to start the Waiting game...

Just to make sure everything is indeed in order I call back the Financing Department on Friday evening 5/6 to find out what the status is and my paper work was filed ok, and I get told that it hasn't and they can't find any confirmation that they ever received my papers, nor did I ever receive any kind of email confirming my order, and that the Service Rep. would have send out an email to the necessary department that would handle it and it would be a 24 hour turn-around.... um Ok fine let's see how that goes. (The person that time was able to email me my confirmation/list of my system.)

Monday 5/9... No update online, telling me my order # or my email is wrong, so I call in. The Service Rep. tells me there's been no response from the email that was supposedly sent last friday, and that he'll have to send in another email for verification, this time including the UPS Tracking # with all of the delivery information there... and it'll take 1 to 2 hours for a reply. I tell him I'll call back in 3 hours to check up.... time passes and I call back as I said... and there is no update and I am told by a new Rep., Laura, that the last Rep. gave me incorrect information and that for a reply back about the email will take another 24 hours, not 1 to 2. At this point I requested to speak with a supervisor. After holding for 10+ minutes I am told that I cannot speak to a supervisor at this time, but that her super., Veronica, has been given my information and what I'm complaining about and would be contacting me with-in 24 hours via email or by phone. Umm... ok fine. I'll wait and expect a call/email in the time I was told I would get one.

Tuesday 5/10... No call. No update. Fine. I call back. Rodney the Service Rep. answers and after giving my information and requesting a supervisor he puts me on hold and comes back saying that they do have my paper work but that they need to verify my billing address still and I had a different shipping address. --This is true as no one will be home to receive it so I am having it shipped to my work-- I don't understand what kind of verifying they need to do since, 1. they have a scan of my drivers license, 2. they have the info I gave them when I orderd it, 3. same info on the financial papers, and 4. it's the same billing address attached to my debit card which they had no problems charging $700 when I first ordered it... all of which have it.
I've been calm till this point, but I was really starting to get annoyed.
I asked for a supervisor, and he tells me that "they will just tell you the same thing as me!!!"... that is NOT what you say to a customer that is requesting a supervisor. I tell him again and get put on hold for 10+ minutes. He comes back telling me a supervisor had been made aware of my problem and was actively working on my complaint, and then asked again if I really wanted a supervisor. Yes please! After another 15 minute wait, I get told a supervisor will be with me in a moment, but he didn't know the name of who I was going to talk with, because no one specific was picking up. I ask for Veronica since she was originally who I was told would be contacting me and he tells me no she's busy. After another 10minutes he tells me that she will pick it up and after more waiting, I finally get ahold of her.
She is the most helpful person I've had to talk to at AW yet. I explain what the problem is with my paperwork and give her the tracking # again. She calls over to the Finance Clerks and comes back telling me they say the problem is with my photo id, and that it doesn't appear to be a valid Texas drivers license because my signature on top of my picture wasn't legible? Apparently they use some picture id photo booklet to weed out fake id's, which is all well and good... if they are sure to be using a book that is UP TO DATE! The signature above my picture, is NOT mine, it is the Director of the Department of Public Saftey of the state of Texas... and it even says DIRECTOR right next to it clearly. My signature is signed underneath where my, valid, name and address is printed. I was issued it 3 years ago and it doesn't expire untill 2010. Their book is not up to date.
She puts me on hold to call back, and then eventually comes back saying because my signature is not above the picture they say they can't be sure. There is really not much more I can say than "Yes! It is a legal, valid, drivers license!" She asked to see a copy if I had one... and praise be to Gmail I did. She saw it, called the clerk back. I waited. She came back saying my account is being updated today, apologised and not to worry. Ok.

Wednesday 5/11... Now we have one last issue... Compensation. Like I said in the begining, Time is a factor. I know that it takes roughly 6 days to build and they don't work on weekends. Then it will take another 5 days to mail to me. We're already 5 days into the time since they received my paperwork back, and the building should have begun last week. She said she would put a "rush" and "epidite" my order, but can't give me a delivery date untill sometime today when she is supposed to call me back. I don't know exactly what goes into the build process, but after reading reviews here and there, I would rather they take the necessary 6 days time to build and test my machine properly, and have it delievered to me with no lose connections, or anything faulty due to a "rush" job. Build it in the normal time, but just Next Day Air it to me when it is done, seeing as we've already wasted the 5 days it would of taken to ship it anyways due to them misplacing my papers, and then the rediculous billing verification and then telling me my license is not real.

So as it stands now, I've emailed Veronica what I think would be fair, and I await her call today. What I thought was going to be a quick painless process when I started the order... has turned out to be quite the opposite. I'm glad she's made the necessary calls to get my issues addressed. Hopefully Veronica will come through for me. I've worked in a call center for 5 years as a supervisor and am now in a commercial support/network operations dept. and I know what it is like to deal with alllll manner of customers from happy to atomic-head-explosion-irate. From the reviews I've seen I have read more happy reviews than unpleasant. I hope that once I've gotten my machine I will beable to have a zero-problem-happy-time with it, because right now it's all just frustrating.

More to come when I get updated.

Thanks red. I'll be calling back in an hour. I think what bothers me most about any of this is that the only reason I have heard ANY of this is because I had to spend 30 minutes one day and an hour and a half on the phone, and 1 hour of that was with a supervisor. I never got any email or call telling me there was a "problem" verifying anything.
The also said they updated my email so I'd get them right, yet I still have to use the incorrect one they put in, to check my status online.

All of my patience is used up in my job heh so that I have little to none in the outside world. I hate the wait... :P

5/11... Update...

Still no call from AW... So I called them.

Mary tells me that Veronica is on call with another customer, an that's why she's not called me today. I would of liked at least a response from my email to her. Once again, information I would not have known (but should have) had I not called in.
She did say that my email about compensation has been forwarded to HQ to be looked into.
They don't have a delivery date for me yet... an should tomorrow.

I'll most likely call closer to the end of the day to see if there is an update.

5/12... Update...

Well last evening when I called I was told that Veronica was still busy, but that my machine should be done and shipping by friday. They didn't have an estimated delivery date yet and to call back today. Afterwards I check online and see I'm in Phase9... that's a plus!

Today online I saw my laptop was in Phase13 today... that sure made me happier still.
I call back and while Veronica is still busy... I asked to verify the shipping because of the troubles in the start and that I never heard any response from Veronica about the email I sent her asking for Next Day Air and my rebate added to my finance credit... put on hold for verification... the Rep comes back telling me to expect my laptop with-in 24 hours! Sounding better and better!

They didn't have a tracking # yet but said I could call in later and check to see if their systems had been updated.

I call in, and this part kinda made me snicker, I got the initial Rep that was pissing me off back on monday. I wasn't a prick-customer or anything to him, I just thought it was ironic hehe. He tells me it was picked up by Fedex but they didn't have the tracking # yet, and said they would send out an email once their systems got updated. He said I could call back closer to the end of closing when all of the sudden... I have email.... and it's from Fedex no less!!! They have my package, emailed me my tracking # and everything! Hooray Fedex! That call ended shortly there after, and then I got an email from Alienware stating my box was in Phase13 still heheh... oh well. I've noticed the AW emails don't get sent out untill just after 5pm (central time) each day.

While I was never offered any kind of update to my problems at the start of this ordeal, nor anyinfo in reguards to my email request... right now the excitement of getting it tomorrow is pushing the bad to the side for now. I still wasn't told if I was paying for the Next Day Air, or if it was free, or if they kept the mail in rebate and covered the difference or what?

Either way, I got it on the way!

Tomorrow I have off work because I'm moving to a new house, so while I won't be here when it does... I will drop whatever furniture I am holding and haul ass up here to get my box when I get the call from my co-worker!

Update and pics to come soon!

Grrrr! I say!!!

I suppose I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. It seems while my build was expidited, and I was told that I should expect it in 24 hours... It will NOT be here when they say, because it was shipped via GROUND and isn't scheduled for delivery untill 5/17!@#$

So sayeth the Feds of the Ex.


Seems I have to make yet another call back to AW tomorrow.

Due to how Alienware has shipped my laptop, nothing can be done about upgrading the shipping. Nor has the Customer Service Department, been of any help on offering any kind of reasonable compensation for all of the rediculous ammount of difficulty during my order. Losing my papers and magically finding them 5 days later, ZERO contact from anyone at AW concerning my issues, being LIED TO about the status of my order and being offered a gift certificate to Amazon.com is all they can offer?

I hope that someone from AW reads these forums and can maybe do something. As it stands now, I've gotten as far as I can with "Nick" who is a supervisor in the Customer Service Dept.. Now I have to send an email to "president@alienware.com" and feedback@alienware.com, cross my fingers that someone will actually read it and contact me back.

The problem is that I only have it 'as scheduled' is because I had to take the initiative and call every day to make sure anything was being done. They lose my paperwork and then find it after I call in 3 times! I get told rediculous things such as my drivers license not being a legal ID because their books are out of date! Again had I not been a hardass about it I would have been stuck even longer in the waiting game. Then I get flat out lied to by a rep. who never got up and talked to the supervisor I had been dealing with. This entire time I have had to follow up on everything to make sure that it is done, even after being told by different reps and 2 supervisors multiple times that someone will "contact you back". Maybe you see all of this as irrelavant and acceptable for you, but this has been the poorest display of customer service I have expierenced.

My complaints with AW has nothing to do with the phase game. Having patience is not an issue in any way. I was perfectly content with the estimated wait. My problem is that I'm only getting it now close to schedule because I had to follow up on every little thing that has happened. They lose my papers? It takes 3 days to find. They say they can't validate my billing address? They have it 4 places and it's the same everyplace an were able to charge my card just fine. Then they say it won't happen because my drivers license is "invalid", because their ID book is out of date. With no updates comming from supervisors who say they will personally call me to update me, and then getting lied to about what is actually going on, is what has made me "edgy".
From a Customer Service point of view, if a call escalates to the supervisor, then it becomes their responsibility to follow through with the issues the customer has brought to their attention, make sure they get resolved, and keep the customer updated as things progress. This has not been the case with AW. This is what frustrates me, not the phase game.