Customer Service Hell

Two bad incidents in one night:

1. My wife and I are planning on taking the kids to DisneyWorld this fall. We scheduled a flight on US Airways and carefully picked seat assignments so each of my children would have a window seat and would be boxed in by ourselves and grandparents, who are going with us. When we submitted our order, the computer just changed all of our seating arrangements around, so first we were scattered across the plan, and then so we were sitting in a row all the way across the plane.

   We called and finally spoke to a customer service rep and got the situation rectified, or so we thought. My wife checked today, and our seating arrangements had been changed AGAIN! Worse yet, the seats we had so carefully chosen were given to other people. WHAT THE HELL?

   I called and spoke with someone and they tried to help me as best as possible, but apparently they can bump us at will, but not these other people.
   



2. 
   I bought a Dell last year for work when I started my new job. All was good. In the last 3 months, the laptop's fallen apart. The left control key fell off and won't stay back on. The battery keeps complaining that it can't charge anymore, so I get maybe 30 minutes of battery life when sitting idle, the volume controls on the front of the laptop act erratically, and NOW...my fucking power brick is broken. I don't know if a fuse blew, or what, but I can't charge my damn laptop, and I have no batter power. Awesome.

   AWESOME.

   And I discovered this a minute after the Dell customer service line closed. So I have to wait until tomorrow to call them.

   The next computer I'm getting will NOT be a Dell.
   

UPDATE:I've been on the phone with Dell and my warranty's already expired, so I'm having to jump through hoops to get some assistance, but everyone's been really nice. I will say that I've been speaking Hindi to get some additional help and that seems to have worked so far, but I'm certainly not out of the woods yet. Here's hoping Dell's feeling charitable.

As for US Airways, I still have to call and speak with a manager and complain. Unfortunately I have a harder time understanding their customer service reps. As you can see from above, I don't have an issue with dealing with people from India, and I work with desi all the time, so it's not that fact that the call center is overseas that I'm frustrated with, just the quality of the people on the phone. Dell clearly works hard at getting their reps to speak English clearly (though with an Australian accent) but I can't place the accent of the people from US Airways, understand it clearly, and worst of all: they're so quiet on the phone.

UPDATE 2:
Dell finally called me back and their offer was: you pay us $19 and we'll tell you your shit is broken, and then we'll offer to let you buy new components from us.

I declined the offer. I told them I was going to buy a laptop from someone else, and be done with this one. But to no avail. They said the $19 was a discounted price already, but I figure if it's been broken this quickly after taking possession of it, they'd help me out further. Nope.

Kudos to their customer service people though. They are very nice and professional.

FINAL UPDATE:
I got in touch with a very nice lady at US Airways. She explained that their computer system will just move people around at random whenever they:

1. Change the schedule


2. Change the plane you're on

But they don't have to tell you when either happens, so you could reserve a flight and pick your seats and then show up at the airport and find out that your time has changed AND your seats have been moved. Tough luck for you pal.

I don't understand that policy, but that's what they have.

The rep at the corporate office did make a note on my account that we should be called if this happens again, so that makes me feel better, but still, now I'm paranoid about our seating arrangements.