He spent... well, almost a full work day (!) on the phone, arguing with one rep or another, convincing them that something had broken, before they sent a tech out (to their credit, it was fixed then).
I spent... 10 minutes. I called, told them about the problems I was having, asked for a repair-via-mail, was promptly granted it, gave them my address, and was on my way. Yeah, it took 4 days longer than his method, but I saved myself some pretty major aggravation.
From my experience you can also ask to speak with the Gold tech support guys who are local to your country (that's the case in Australia anyway).
This is regarding Dell support, btw.