That's just the thing, isn't it? They're following a script. I have never owned any Dell hardware and thus have never had this particular experience, but it's actually quite widespread, I think.
A couple of years ago I was travelling around the US and needed temporary net access so I decided to take advantage of AOL and their free sign-up plus x-number of free hours offer. At the end of the trip I rang them up to cancel, as per the rules. Jeez-Louise. The woman I spoke to was pleasant enough but by golly she stuck to that script, trying to get me to not cancel. It took about 15 minutes of insisting before she would give me a cancellation number. Had I known that getting out was going to be such a pain in the arse, I never would have gone in in the first place.
cheers,
Henry