My home computer is also my work computer when I’m “remote” and while it has served me well for many many years, it wasn’t cutting it anymore. I would click to open a program – even something simple like Notepad – and it would grind away for a few moments before responding. And rebooting was a chore.
I saw ads that said both Best Buy and Dell were having “early Black Friday” sales and I checked both sites to try and compare prices.
Which wasn’t easy – it was a struggle to find laptops that matched, even among the same general specs.
Of the two, I figured direct from Dell would be easier and I’d be less likely to accidentally get a refurbished computer. (I had that with my chromebook and the screen was bad.)
So, off to Dell.com and their deals. It took me a bit to narrow it down and even mostly knowing what I’m looking for didn’t help much. I finally decided on one and added it to the cart – where I noticed that there was free priority shipping as well.
“Even better,” I thought, with a slight twinge of guilt for as I placed the order for a replacement computer on while using “old unreliable”
Except, no, even with the Free Priority Shipping box checked, I was still getting charged $55.00.
I considered switching to regular shipping and paying less for that – but I instead took a deep breath and clicked the chat. You never know which way that will go.
I got a response in a moment and tried to ask a question, but the automated system had half a dozen prompts before it routed me. I finally got to a person named Joyce – or at least a near-Turing equivalent.
I asked about the Free Priority Shipping and after a moment I was asked if I was a member of the loyalty program.
I rolled my eyes so hard that I accidentally saw what I was thinking. And it was not pretty.
There was enough of a delay in my response that “Joyce” realized a sale was in jeopardy. “She” popped back in with an offer for a coupon code to get free shipping. I copied the code out, thanked “her” for the code and politely stated my disinterest in a loyalty program.
“She” understood and asked if I would fill out a survey at the end of the chat. (I guess Joyce was a human after all.) I agreed to do so and continued on with the transaction.
I put in my credit card number and as I hit Next the screen connected to my bank to send me a text message to confirm. I selected my phone number, got a text a moment later, and entered the code.
Within a few minutes, I was through the transaction and got an email confirmation of my order. As I closed out the chat the survey popped up and I rated Joyce highly – and noted that I likely wouldn’t have made the purchase without help. Which is true – it was starting to feel like a bait-and-switch to me and there are a lot of ways to buy a computer.
I started to get back to what I was doing and my cell phone rang with an unfamiliar, but not recognizably spam, phone number number. I answered it and got the bank’s automated fraud protection system. It asked me to verify some info, then walked me through confirming my recent purchases – fast food, target, fast food again, and then the computer.
Okay, I get it – it was an odd-ball purchase and the verification was good – if a little tedious. Though, I would have thought the bank connection during the transaction would have handled that.
I finished the call and as I hung up I noticed that I had a text message from my bank as well. Same deal and verifying the same transactions. I followed the prompts and confirmed this again.
And I found it a little ironic that human beings have had to build all these computer systems to protect humans from other humans using computers to steal information – while trying to buy a computer.
The priority shipping wasn’t messing around. This was on a Thursday and I was expecting two business days later – Monday. I’d be working from home and would be around in the evening. Instead, I got notices on Friday that it would be arriving that day – sometime before the end of the day. Not knowing when that would be was a little worrying since we had plans that evening, but the computer showed up mid-afternoon before any appointments or plans.
Over the weekend I did some set up work and this past week I’ve been using both machines as I transfer my files between them.
It’s been well over a week since I’ve gotten the computer and yesterday I got an email and a text from Dell that my computer had shipped and was out for delivery. I had to check and make sure it wasn’t a duplicate order – but the online info confirmed it had been delivered in the past.
Odd.
So, I’ve got a shiny new Dell laptop and my inner geek (and my outer geek as well) thinks all is right with the world – even though it took some doing to convince the computers that I’m actually who I claim to be.
[Edit: I wrote this yesterday and just now got another Dell email and a text letting me know that my computer has been delivered. Sigh.]