Changing account email address wipes everything out?

Hi,

Thank you for contacting Dell.

We really do apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you. We have sent you a private message with the information.

I was thinking of changing my email address too. It is an old yahoo address and they do not protect it well. Can you let everyone know the answer.

@kfel617​ Yes, I can share what they said. Basically, they said they're sorry, but that's how it works. I've asked for some more details about exactly what you lose. It said you lose "device registration history," what does that mean for support?

I don't have any "subscriptions" (I'm not sure what kind of subscriptions this refers to) or software licenses from them, but if I did it would seem like a problem to lose them because of changing my email address. It seems kind of astonishing that their system works like this.

To add what they said about support, I had asked if my computers would disappear from the "My Products" page, which is where I would normally start to get support for one of them. They said that yes, they would no longer appear there, but that I could, and I quote, "try to add the service tag numbers on [the] my products page and you will still get the support." I'd like a little more definitive information than that I could "try."

So amazingly silly.  Well that settles it.  I need support for my i9-13900k so I can't wipe my order history.  I've been buying Dells for years, have 2 alienware computers in my home right now and more.  But the fact is I'm moving away from the google ecosystem and am changing my gmail out for something else.  It's frustrating that something so silly would be the line but the fact is if customer service hits a wall due to something as simple as an email address then that's it.  I can't imagine what would happen if Chase Bank or Fidelity made such a bold and unnecessary rule.  Ford Motor?  I can't even begin to conceive of why this is the way... but it is what it is.  Can't say whether I'll buy more computers through Dell at this point but I will say that if they are willing to make such a silly line in the sand that I will definitely explore other options first.

To be quite frank, it sounds like the reason for this rule is that the people who made their system were incompetent and didn't consider that users might need to change their email address. They mentioned to me that the records would still be there, but associated with the old email address. So it sounds like the reason for this is that these records are indexed by the email address in their database, rather than by some identifier for your account. So when you change the email address, they're still there, but the email address in your account isn't the one associated with them, which "breaks the link," making them inaccessible. I asked them what the practical difference is between the records being deleted, and them being there but you're unable to see them in any way, but they just ignored that question.

I don't think I'll buy anything further from Dell. Any reasonable person would find the way this works unacceptable, but they seem to think it's just fine. Not to mention, I had ordered a computer recently and waited and waited for it to ship, until finally they just cancelled the order because "the item is no longer available." But you could still get it on their site, so I placed the order again for the exact same thing, and this time it shipped immediately. This has all given me a very bad impression.

It does sound like something odd.  I can't imagine changing my email then closing my google account.  Would mean that the email couldn't be reused.  I would never get a confirmation if I changed it back to the old one.  I mean it's not like they claim to be constantly on the cutting edge of the computing technology industry or anything like that.  Not as if customers shouldn't expect odd system glitches or 2k clock like bugs (oh, wait they actually fixed that one prior to the year 2000, never mind).  Well they are a hardware company, not a software company, so there is that...

My kids are due for new laptops here.  Perhaps I'll just go the Costco route, or New Egg if I'm feeling it.  They already updated my email with no problems.  But definitely somewhere that makes me feel more confident.

This is truly pathetic.  It is always a toss-up for me between Dell and Lenovo, but this pretty-much will have me going with Lenovo in the future.

Can't change email address?!