Monday, July 06, 2009

The quest for an AC Adapter for my Dell laptop (Part I)

The AC adapter for my laptop from Dell recently had its cable severely twisted so as to stop charging the laptop. The adapter is marked as belonging to the PA-9 family. I called Dell technical support and explained the problem to a technician. I gave him the serial number of my laptop which identified both my laptop and the buyer (me). He said that they could ship a replacement adapter forthwith. I asked the technician several times to confirm that item he was sending me was a PA-9. He said that it was indeed, and that I had nothing to worry about.

A few hours later, I received a written confirmation for my order. Lo and behold, the order was for a Kensington 450-11303 an adapter for the cigarette lighter of a car. I immediately wrote back to cancel the order. When Dell support wrote back, they claimed that the order had already shipped and could not be canceled. Moreover, Dell was not willing to take any further action, such as recognizing their error, before the shipment arrived. I am afraid that their strategy for dealing with this issue will be to drag it on until I give up. Anyway, time will tell.

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