Ever notice how it's impossible to find a page through which to make a complaint about shoddy goods or services on an average Australian company's web site? Or even to find the names of the senior management? If you're lucky you may find a "Feedback" link, on the other end of which some poor underpaid clerk can hit an auto-reply button telling you that "We take customer satisfaction very seriously and will take your suggestions on board moving forward, have a nice day!"

But if you get ticked enough, you may do some Google research, find out who the managing director is, and send them a snail mail. And thus did I do that with Dell Australia, after the battery in my notebook started fading fast at 10 months, was generating warnings that it was near the end of its life at 11 months, and by 12 months was giving me little more than 40 minutes of use between recharges. (And yes, I did all the usual tricks to reset the battery meter.)

Not only that, but I can't get a replacement from the retail store that I bought the computer from, oh no, that would be too convenient; I had to go to Dell. Don't get me started on what happened with Dell's last delivery. (To the receiving dock of another company, in the building that I work in. They got the right street; near enough is good enough.) Can you find the battery on the web page? No. You can find similar 6 cell batteries for a similar series for $AUD79, but apparently the one for mine is special; it has to come from a "different warehouse", and will therefore cost around $AUD200. And may last just as long as this one. Except that they weren't in stock when I called over a month ago. And still aren't.

So I'm left with a so-called "mobile" computer, less than 18 months old, which has separation anxiety when parted from the mains supply for (now) about 35 minutes and falling.

Yeah, that was worth a stamp. And would I recommend purchasing a Dell? Hmmmm...
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Edit August 2023: Of course the b@$t@rd never bothered to reply. Have I bought a Dell since then? No. Have I dissuaded others from doing so, including one who was in the market for a server? Yes. Have I cost them thousands of dollars in business over the last decade? Absolutely. Will I continue to both boycott Dell and give them bad word of mouth? Until Hell freezes over. If it saves just ONE person from the same experience, it's worth it. Just for the search engines: #DellSucks and #DellHell.