Rant, transferred from Today I've mostly... Please feel free to ignore this.
Short synopsis:
two and a half hours on a "immediate help line" being transferred from pillar to post with departments who don't appear to know their ar*e from their elbow...
My laptop, which I got LAST MARCH has had a recurring problem where it suddenly starts shutting down. Last October it happened and then wouldn't start back up. My friend ran all the Dell diagnostics on it, and rebuilt it and reinstalled it to factory settings. He also phoned Dell and asked them for suggestions / advice. Their advice was that it MUST be a software problem (and therefore not covered on the warranty). Well, the problem has recurred in total about 5 times to varying degrees. So I decided to ring Dell. THAT was 2 and a half hours ago.

I went through all the things which had been done with it, including the fact that the Dell Diagnostics had been run AGAIN yesterday, and that it had said that there wasn't anything wrong.

The lady I spoke to couldn't speak English clearly, which didn't help, and she insisted that I ran the diagnostics again. She then said "it must be a software problem. I will transfer you to software". The man in software said that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES could this be software and transferred me back. (Now starting to FUME).

Man in hardware (again with thick accent) said that they could get someone to pick it up (I would have to wait in for them, any time between 9-6), they would take it away and keep it for 10 days, then I would have to be in between 9-6 for them to return it, and they couldn't guarantee to fix it. So would I like to pay £120 for three year warranty to get someone to my house to fix it?
At this point I went into orbit, loudly, and for a very prolonged period.
Oh look, now they can send an engineer "as a gesture of goodwill" on MONDAY to my house and waive the cost.
Amazing.