I ordered a Dell desktop online in 1999 to be shipped to my apartment. I filled out everything including an evening phone #, but not a daytime #. A week later no shipment so I call Dell and they say they need a daytime #, so I give them my company #. Another week goes by and no desktop. At this point I am needing to use the desktop. I call Dell and they say the company I worked for (the daytime # they demanded) was a little behind on payments so they decided to take my money in recompense and not ship me a computer. I had to go to the CTO of my company and have my company repay me. Incidentally, the Dell's we used as servers with Red Hat would freeze up all the time.

So yes, I have avoided Dell since then. I have been relatively happy with their competitors, so why go back? My only personal experience with them was a bad one. Other sysadmins I have worked with would go to the trouble of migrating from a Dell server environment to an HP one, when new machines were needed, because they felt HP servers were superior to Dell, and it certainly seemed that way. I don't know what their desktops are like as I was never shipped one. There is a reason their stock has sunk and they are going private. Yes the market has shifted, but they did not shift with it - Apple and other companies have.

I have a System76 Ubuntu laptop. As I have a tablet and desktop, I don't need to use it much. The one problem I have had is battery life. I have been too busy to really look into it, I don't know if that's normal or if I can tune something.

If this story is true you should contact your state attorney general or state consumer protection authority.

That is extremely illegal. I would have also immediately issued a chargeback.

I have my doubts about your story; but that's only natural. Did you have this statement by Dell support about "late payments" by your employer as cause for taking your funds illegally in writing?

I placed the order online, but I was told about the fund holding over the phone when I called support. One advantage they had over me was they had put me two weeks behind schedule so I was running around dealing with that instead of dealing with Dell.

I remember Apple recalling all of them and apologising.

When people moaned at Dell on their community voting page (Dell IdeaStorm) Dell basically said "we aren't changing, this is a business decision."

And it is. Dell releasing several new incompatible PSUs every year and over-charging for them is very much a "business decision" therefore I choose to take my business elsewhere.

Point of fact: There are several companies I refuse to do business with because I don't like how they operate. Dell is one of them.

The difference is that the problems are much, much worse with some brands. For instance, I have ordered three Dell computers for myself and I have never taken delivery of a single one. In every case Dell screwed up the order and I ended up canceling before the computer actually arrived.

At the same time, I used to buy Dell machines for my employer. We were a large customer, so we got relatively good service and I never experienced any significant problems.

So the moral of the story, to me, is that Dell is fine for corporate purchases, but I'll stick with Lenovo for my personal purchases until Lenovo screws me over and I go looking for a new vendor.