Now emailing Dell was clearly ineffective so I decided to try another tactic.

I emailed BBC Londonlive's lunchtime programme.

They contacted Dell's press office and, what a huge surprised, I received 4 calls that very afternoon.

I was given a very nice customer service person called Andy to sort things out for me.

Andy arranged for the PC to be picked up and repaired so I waited at home for another day so that I could get the PC repaired. Andy said that the PC would be back with me within 3 - 5 days. He then had to call me back to say it would be within a week. What the hell? At least my PC would work.

I waited and waited and waited.

Eventually I called Dell (in Ireland) and asked where my PC was. They called me back to say that it had been shipped and that someone should have got back to me to tell me (oops). Anyway, I arranged to be at home so that the PC could be delivered.

I had to chase Andy when it didn't show up on time and he chased things up for me. When the PC did arrive I took it out of the box only to find that Dell had not even attached the side panel to it.

Things were getting worse. Click here for how things got worse