Dell Laptop Burns House Down 405
Nuclear Elephant writes "The Consumerist is running a story about a house burned down by a Dell laptop. 'My 130-year-old former farm house was engulfed in flames, with thick dark smoke pouring out of the windows and roof... Hours later, after investigation the fire marshal investigator took me aside asked me if I had a laptop computer. Yes — I told him I had a Dell Inspiron 1200.' It was determined that the laptop, battery, or cord malfunctioned after its owner left for work, leaving the fire to spread through the entire house. All attempts to contact Dell have failed. 'I have tried to call Dell to at least notify them of my problems, but each time I have called I get transferred into an endless loop of "Joe" or "Alan" all speaking a delectable version of English I presume emanates from Bangalore. I have been outright hung up on each time I get someone who speaks a reasonable version of English, or sounds like they might be in charge of something. Promises of call backs have gone, of course, unreturned.'"
Slashdot fixed it! (Score:5, Interesting)
So before everyone starts ragging on Dell, remember there are at least a couple of good apples there.
Re:First post?? (Score:1, Interesting)
No surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
5 years ago, 6 out of 100 of our new 17" Dell monitors went up in flames, over the first 3 months. This was fortunately an office building with very high ceilings, so there was little risk. I've long imagined just how bad that could have been in a private home, with a low ceiling, and wall nearby. That experience alone stopped me from ever buying anything from Dell.
All the articles on Notebook fires are very old news. Dell's been having fire problem with their entire product range for about the past 10 years. Passing it off as Sony's fault ignores Dell's long history of similar ocurances with all of their machines.
Since it happened to me, I've been wonder when I'd hear about a class action against Dell, but it's never been forthcoming. I guess residential building fires can cover up the evidence pretty well. Sooner or later, it's going to have to come out.
Re:Dell Laptop... or Sony Battery? (Score:3, Interesting)
Dell records the serial numbers on every single item they send out - computers, power bricks, batteries, software bundles - it's all there on their pick lists. Why is it that consumers have to contact Dell to find out if a particular item is under Recall status, why aren't Dell actively contacting them?
Re:Slashdot fixed it! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Too Bad, So Sad (Score:3, Interesting)
Is this real or a hoax? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Agent for service of process (Score:5, Interesting)
Indian tech support doesn't have to be this way! (Score:2, Interesting)
Good luck! (Score:3, Interesting)
I chased the thieves two blocks before they were able to give me the slip. The whole thing was on security camera (in daylight), and the police informed me that they had a clear picture of the entire incident.
When I reported the incident to Dell, they replied to me the next day via e-mail and said that my claim was rejected because there was no sign of force to the premises. I was stunned, and so went to read the policy. Yes, it said that "Theft of attempted theft not accompanied by forcible and violent entry" was excluded. I then noticed that the policy on the Dell website was somewhat different to the policy provided to me via hardcopy, but they both had a similar clause.
Finally, I decided that if they wanted to get technical, I'd do the same. After carefully reading *both* policies, I noticed that they both had wording similar to "CompleteCover Service is only available with the purchase of a Dell Latitude or Inspiron portable computer, or Dimension or Optiplex or Precision desktop computer, or Axim PDA (The "Product") but is not necessary that you purchase CompleteCover Service to buy a Product from us."
So what did I purchase? Obviously they had no document explaining exclusions for my XPS, since it appears they didn't have a valid policy!
At one point, I was verbally informed that XPS was a Latitude. When I captured many screenshots of the website as evidence against this, Dell denied that this was ever stated.
There were a few other arguable points I could have made, but in the end Dell just wouldn't listen. I only ever spoke to call centers in Asia where the accent was so thick it was hard to understand. I had one e-mail admit there might be a problem with the policy and they will try to fix it in the near future, and many apologies, but every e-mail always quoted "There was no theft of attempted theft not accompanied by forcible and violent entry". E-mails were sometimes hard to read due to invalid sentence structure.
I have been advised not to try and fight this. I am quite broke (my wife is out of work, I am on a small income and only just paid the stolen laptop off), and feel powerless to do anything. I feel the best I can do is encourage people not to purchase anything from Dell. It sure seems like I'm not the only one with a bad experience.
Re:Pshaw! (Score:3, Interesting)
Switch it off! At the socket. (Score:2, Interesting)
It used to be the case, with old mainframes that used large tape or disk drives, that it would be more energy efficient to leave them on all the time as the start up phase used up so much energy. This simply isn't the case any more.
When you've finished with your gadgets, switch the buggers off, It's not hard to do.
Tim.
Re:I see the future (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be quite easy. IIRC, the UK website allowed you to just enter the service tag of your laptop - they could tell from that what serial number battery it had been shipped with, and whether or not it was affected.
They also know who was shipped what laptops, as if you check the invoice for any recent Dell purchase you'll see it lists the service tags of the items you bought.
It therefore follows that Dell could quite easily figure out the addresses of everyone who was shipped faulty batteries and write to them. Yet they didn't.
Re:Agent for service of process (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How is that INSIGHTFUL??? (Score:2, Interesting)
It has been stated countless number of times that the purchasing power of India is not too different from the "rich" western nations. Welcome to ECO101, you price depends on how much money your potential customers have (and want to spend). May be majority people don't earn as much money as average European or American, but it is better than not doing anything.
Say Hello to your ignorance. India has never invaded other country including Pakistan. Both Pakistani and Indian government know that they cannot attack each other. Any issue (Kashmir) is alive because of Pakistan's flaky democracy and rise in Islamic fanaticism. And America has more responsibility in promoting it than anyother country, because they stand for the statements of 'founding fathers'. There are more terrorist organisations aimed at USA than any one. America for the whole world including Europe, stands just for hypocrisy.
Hmm... you come up with ideas but don't have anyone to execute it. We have people but don't have any money to buy food, they will think about food than intellectual property. We do business. Big deal? Welcome again to ECO101.
Not putting up any point but giving facts to point out how people are inferior because they are from East India, and then calling them racist. Are you surprised when you don't get the 'respect'?
By the way, what product USA produces? America is rich because they sold weapons, NOT intellectual property. You have money and WE have product. That is something you said yourself.
You sir, are ignorant and intolerant of other cultures. You are too keen to point out vices of other cultures. Did you forget then times when you were riding horses? Did you forget when slavery was the norm? Did you forget when women didn't had the right to even vote? Did you forget that all this was accepted by government and was 'lawful'? Did you forget it was not more than 100 years ago?
Indian government bans killing babies. It is banned to check the gender of an unborn baby. Bias on the basis of cast is banned. We had out prime-minister as a women. When was the last time it happend in USA? Let me think... never.
India will cleanse of its vices. It needs time. But you are too busy calling them racist because they don't speak English in the same accent as you, and still take jobs that you would like to do, but are too arrogant to accept the terms at lower salary. This all because you have never been poor and hungry. How long did you think you would ride the benefits of renaissance?
Re:How is that INSIGHTFUL??? (Score:3, Interesting)
That wasn't what I was talking about. I was talking about the chance that neither India nor Pakistan will be around in 10 years.
India and Pakistan have more than once nearly launched nukes at each other. Heck, they've been trash talking and engaging in some downright puerile nuclear penis waving for quite a while.
Now, let the facts speak for me. And no, nothing in here contradicts what I just told you. Let's cut off that avenue of weaseling out now before you try it.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/south/01/08/ pakistan.india/ [cnn.com]
You keep referring to Econ 101. NEWS FLASH: humanity is more than the sum of its capitalist rhetorical skills. You passed neo feudalist rhetoric regurgitation 101 but you flunk out on the concept of seeing anything beyond dollars and cents.
For instance, America has plenty of people to execute our ideas. When we come up with ideas, we start them here, with American workers, and thanks to the corporate statists who should be swinging from trees by now, we fire them and send the work overseas.
America is one of the most productive nations in the world. Few nations top us even in per hour stats. Even the Chinese recognize that: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-09/01/con tent_260191.htm [chinadaily.com.cn]
We execute our own ideas, and we're darned good at it. Kaboom goes another one of your America-bashing arguments.
Now what's next? Let's see...
I didn't say you were inferior.
That's the whole point. We've sold out to globalism and put factories around the world instead of employing our own people to make it here.
I say we bite the bullet and go back to producing our goods here in America. We can do it, and we have been doing it for a hundred years.
We mass produced (for you semantically challenged trolls out there, mass produce != invent) cars, computers, the internet, everything we consumed, we made here. Until the globalists came along and put our collective economic gonads in a pickle jar.
Sorry, dude, but it won't be the end of the world if you embargo us and refuse to produce for us. In fact, I and future generations of Americans would clamor to go back in time and kiss your stinky feet if you did that to us. The nation which mass produced airplanes, cars, computers and which invented the internet, would go right back to providing for ourselves. The job explosion would be utterly miraculous.
I'm sure you could manage without our import money. Yay you.
Hint: America taking care of its own for once, doesn't qualify as hating you or attacking you.