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General discussion

Our Experience w/ Alienware

Mar 5, 2005 3:45AM PST

I just was scanning my CNET email when I saw Alienware and jumped into reading ALL the posts before responding. My son begged for a laptop by Alienware for graduation(2003)---I was hesitant because of price and the fact I had never heard of them. I insisted on the longest warranty they offered (3 years) since he was going to be in college for at least 4....

The purchase process was the worst. We ordered and waited...and waited...and waited. No computer, no contact. My son finally called--what's up? Where's my machine? They said they couldn't verify my credit card!!! Everything went through fine and we didn't get any errors but I had to FAX a copy of my credit card AND my driver's license to them. Finally it shipped but we still didn't get delivery!!! So we called again! Where's the machine? Sitting at the Fed-Ex distribution center in our city. I finally had to DRIVE there to pick it up-----The Alienware shipping department neglected to put THE STREET NAME IN THE ADDRESS!!!!!! I called them again, demanding refund of shipping charges (I didn't like the fact they ONLY offered FED-EX). They refused...after much arguing with a guy that didn't speak very good English, I was able to get a 50% refund of shipping.

I do have to say that my son had to send it in for a repair--good thing we saved the boxes. It took over 2 weeks and I can't speak to what the repair was as I don't remember but can't say that I'm real impressed with them. Any new purchase my son makes will be on his own!

I am responsible for purchasing machines for my company and I've run the spectrum on brands and have settled on IBM. Have only had one problem with a tower that the mother board kept blowing--they've replaced it twice (blew again!) and I did finally go through the formal complaint process to demand a new machine to replace it. It has taken almost 3 months and replacement machine is supposed to be on the way.

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