Dell Outlet - How bad is "scratch & dent"?

[somms]

Dell Outlet Sent Me A Barf-Covered, Gum-Filled Refurb Laptop - The Consumerist

New Dell outlet category: Scratch & Barf!

[lightningrodbob]

I'm probably going to be purchasing from the Dell Outlet soon, I was going to just get a refurb but if the scratch-and-dent is really extremely minor I might roll the dice on it.

Aesthetics are important to me, but if its just a completely un-noticeable scratch somewhere and it knocks $500 off the price, I'll take that any day.

It would be nice if they described exactly what the damage was on the Outlet site.

[JayLo]

I recently had some issues with an XPS 17 and M6600 purchased through the Outlet store.

The first shipped with the wrong screen (non-FHD) and was butchered by the local contractor Dell uses in my town (Unisys). They gave me a full refund and did not charge me any shipping.

The second was an M6600 unit (i5 2520m, Quadro 4000m) I bought from eBay as Certified Refurbished. It came with the Dell seal intact. I transferred ownership to me without issue. It ended up having a bad motherboard and/or video card.

The same Dell onsite tech (Unisys) damaged the touchpad cable. Sending it back to Dell to get that fixed netted me missing screws and a note saying the hard drive was defective as well. I was livid.

I wrote Michael Dell and copied several other executives. A lady from the executive customer support team promptly responded. She sent me a replacement machine with the same specs. It arrived with scratches on the screen and body. After letting her know, she apologized and asked me to spec out my machine as new on their website to get it replaced.

I sent her a screen print of my i5/4000m speced as new. She sent a reply back asking me if I would take the following certified refurbished machine as a substitute:
CPU: i7-2960XM, Quadro 5010m, 16GB DDR3 1600, 750GB 72000RPM, DVD-RW, Full HD screen, 6250 WiMax, webcam, FIPS fingerprint scanner, Win 7 Ultimate
My jaw dropped to my desk. They overnighted it to me last Friday. It arrived in near flawless condition. I am still in disbelief.

Long story short, Dell isn’t perfect. But when they make mistakes, they will treat you right. It pays to be persistent.

[amj1627]

JayLo is correct Dell Wants all their customers happy.
scratch and dent is usually a very small scratch, like on the bottom. but if you do think it is to much, ask them and they will replace the part if not the full system.

(source: worked Dell XPS tech support)

[Robin24k]

I purchased an E6220 scratch and dent, and it certainly lived up to the description with both scratches and dents on the LCD cover. Then I opened the bottom cover...every single screw was damaged from being overtightened, a couple screws were missing, CMOS battery was apparently dead, system automatically powers on when the AC adapter is plugged in (could be related to the CMOS battery, it happens when the battery isn't installed), and the keyboard wasn't backlit (standard now, but apparently was an option before).

After going through a terribly long list of parts that needed to be replaced, tech support and I agreed that it would be better to exchange the system, so customer care sent me a replacement E6220 and everything's good now.

[pita]

Its usually not so bad I heard. Some even find theirs without any obvious cosmetic damages.

[Crimsoned]

Scratch and dent on my sisters V13 was non existent. 0 scratches or dings anywhere.