[jlgaddis]

The rep may be limited in what s/he can personally do and/or authorize, but I'm guessing it's not Dell policy that they a.) tell the customer that they are the manager and there's no one else, higher up, that they can talk to or b.) respond to legal threats with the equivalent of "come at me, bro".

[tunap]

I had a rep tell me a), they were the final arbiter and nobody to escalate to, quite a few years back. Was before they reorganized Dell Outlet... scratch & ding was a separate choice from refurbished. I chose the former and received the latter, a 2 years used tower. After his declaration I ran data recovery and started sharing my findings and quoting the rep with random operators when I called back and they asked for my ticket number. First couple forwarded me back to my miserable operator, but through persistence the 'right' person was found and I had a brand new replacement overnighted the next day. If memory serves, there is no longer any designation to choose, if it's from Dell Outlet you may(probably) or may not(less probable) get a refurb.