Leeked information about a Dell conference? WWJD?

[Vindicated]

The largest PC manufacture, Dell, has hundreds of little Dell Direct Stores (actually their Kiosk) located in malls across the country. They been really successful and a few friends of mine are former employees. When they would get off work we'd all gather and drink and of course share stories. Since there was about 4 of them who worked for Dell in the malls, the conversations were usually work related. I'd always here them talk about how they ripped someone off or how their lead (manager) ripped of an old lady and was boosting to her district manager.

At least once a day someone would sell a $3,000 gaming system to an elderly or dim-witted customer who wanted to lightly surf the internet. It was a big laugh between my friends. Someone comes to the kiosk and says they want a cheap basic system, but the sales people would get them to finance the system (often with a credit limit of over $5,000) and would lie and basically trick the person by talking about "low monthly payments of $80" or a "basic to midrange PC." Some of the PCs would get canceled, but many wouldn't. And customers only had 21 days to cancel and would have to pay high shipping charges & 15% restocking fees if the pc was just to much for them or if they simply had a change of heart.

Its not just the salespeople either. Their pressured to do it. Those who don't "Sell Like Dell" very quickly find themselves out of a job. And that's exactly what happened to one of my friends. My friend make the highest sales in his areas, but management didn't like his selling style. He was to use only key marketing phrases and push particular products, called bundled. Basically anything you see in the back of a magazine or dell ad was considered to low of a profit they you would get in trouble for selling them. You were required to turn the sale and get people to buy the pre-approved over priced bundles.

So when my friend got fired for not selling like dell he got pissed and ranted about it on his myspace. He even went to go so far as to post a screen shot of the weekly conference call call details. Giving anyone who views his myspace blog the time, phone number, and security code to login to the nation dell sales call. I've been on one conference, most of the people put the phones on mute and the call in from cell phones or mall phones so Dell can't possible manage or detect who is who. And the dell stores have an insanely high turn over rate (actually it's a high rate of employee terminations because no one manages to quite.. they get terminated the second their performance drops or word gets out their looking for a new job) so basically no way for you to get detected on the call.

My question for you guys is... should this information be kept a secret or should it get posted on digg? Check it out and you tell me... no where in the email does it actually state the call is confidential or its for dell employees only. In fact it was sent to the employee 4 months after he was terminated.

Link to Photo: 

[Shaun]

I don't know, but there's something terrifying about the slogan "UNITE-EMPOWER-SUCCEED". Also, what's with the top Google ad on the right?

[SomeoneE1se]

The largest PC manufacture, Dell, has hundreds of little Dell Direct Stores (actually their Kiosk) located in malls across the country. They been really successful and a few friends of mine are former employees. When they would get off work we'd all gather and drink and of course share stories. Since there was about 4 of them who worked for Dell in the malls, the conversations were usually work related. I'd always here them talk about how they ripped someone off or how their lead (manager) ripped of an old lady and was boosting to her district manager.

At least once a day someone would sell a $3,000 gaming system to an elderly or dim-witted customer who wanted to lightly surf the internet. It was a big laugh between my friends. Someone comes to the kiosk and says they want a cheap basic system, but the sales people would get them to finance the system (often with a credit limit of over $5,000) and would lie and basically trick the person by talking about "low monthly payments of $80" or a "basic to midrange PC." Some of the PCs would get canceled, but many wouldn't. And customers only had 21 days to cancel and would have to pay high shipping charges & 15% restocking fees if the pc was just to much for them or if they simply had a change of heart.

Its not just the salespeople either. Their pressured to do it. Those who don't "Sell Like Dell" very quickly find themselves out of a job. And that's exactly what happened to one of my friends. My friend make the highest sales in his areas, but management didn't like his selling style. He was to use only key marketing phrases and push particular products, called bundled. Basically anything you see in the back of a magazine or dell ad was considered to low of a profit they you would get in trouble for selling them. You were required to turn the sale and get people to buy the pre-approved over priced bundles.

So when my friend got fired for not selling like dell he got pissed and ranted about it on his myspace. He even went to go so far as to post a screen shot of the weekly conference call call details. Giving anyone who views his myspace blog the time, phone number, and security code to login to the nation dell sales call. I've been on one conference, most of the people put the phones on mute and the call in from cell phones or mall phones so Dell can't possible manage or detect who is who. And the dell stores have an insanely high turn over rate (actually it's a high rate of employee terminations because no one manages to quite.. they get terminated the second their performance drops or word gets out their looking for a new job) so basically no way for you to get detected on the call.

My question for you guys is... should this information be kept a secret or should it get posted on digg? Check it out and you tell me... no where in the email does it actually state the call is confidential or its for dell employees only. In fact it was sent to the employee 4 months after he was terminated.

Link to Photo: 

if you went to the doctor and he said your heart's dead you need a new one it'll be 60K and because he knows more then you, you pay it.  It's just about the same thing.

[elmer]

Yay for the pee-pee teepee!

[unasoto]

Dells sales practices are not much different than any other company, compare that to buying a car or TV from a big store. A sale is a sale. How many little old ladies drive big SUV? Don't you want the power everything and the sports package with that. If you get the satellite radio well give you the first years subscription free. The problem is not the sales person or the company it’s the uneducated customer. You make it sound like Dell is the big evil corporation. I would never buy an expensive widget with out doing some research first consumer reports and/or a friend who is knowledgeable about the widget.