The closure of Dell's popular Customer Care message boards last week has some Dell users fuming that the company, once the darling of PC buyers for the quality of its service, is now whittling that quality down. Dell says it shut down most of its nontechnical message boards on July 8 in order to streamline service to customers seeking after-purchase help. However, some users of Customer Care--a collection of about six message boards that have provided friendly moderated forums for canceling orders and checking on rebates, among other after-purchase concerns, since 1997--are crying foul. "Home customers are now left with no domestic support alternative," complains Mark Kelm, an IT professional who says the forums helped him order hundreds of Dell desktops and servers over the years for his publishing house. "I'm saddened that new Dell customers will not be able to take advantage of the top-notch support that longtime Dell forum moderators provided to literally thousands of customers and potential customers each year." Read the article at PC World
