You can buy an R11 from bestbuy with an estimated arrival before Christmas.  They are prebuilt and ready to ship. When you order them from Dell they aren't built yet so it is prone to delays.  Bestbuy and amazon buy them in bulk, so they are in stock and ready to go. The downside is you can't customize it, you need to choose from what they have in stock.

I don't know that Dell outright "lied" about availability. But it has seemed like there are unexpected parts issues at times recently. And their systems and customer service can seem to be all over the place. Heck, people still get "shipping" notices days before the carrier actually has the item, Dell still counts its warranty from invoice date instead of delivery, etc. 

Anyway, it could be worse. They could have rushed you a junk machine with parts not clearing quality control, or similar. Then once you're beyond your 30 day return window the machine ends up sitting in the repair shop forever.

For what it's worth, I think many people also have placed orders only to see a machine ship weeks earlier than expected, too. 

It's the reality of ordering from the manufacturer vs from retailers. By ordering from the manufacturer, one could have a new product earlier in the cycle and often cheaper. By ordering from a retailer, one could have a more reasonable return policy and receive much better service (especially for matters like defects and delayed shipment).

I hear ya - mostly just venting..... but when I asked specifically about the accuracy of the shipping times - he said "yes".  That was a good opportunity to say, "not always".

Oh well.

That exactly mirrors my experience.  Ordered Dec1 for est ship date was 10th. I asked the sales guy over and over if that was accurate.  Over and over he said yes.  On Dec 12, it had not entered production so I inquired about it.  The same day, I received an update that the est ship date was now Dec 30.

The simply answer - they do anything they can to get you to place the order, even lie about it.  Yes some things change and times are hard right now but they should absolutely say "maybe" about the delivery times - that would at least be honest but they choose to LIE.

This was my first pre-built ever and I also loaded mine up pretty good (3090)...but after this, it's cemented in my mind how bad this experience is.  Unfortunately for Dell, they also own EMC and VMWare, both of which I am a decision maker regarding their consideration and purchase.  Dell went down a few notches.

They are obviously taking orders and giving unrealistic delivery estimates likely due to not actually having the parts inventory to produce the systems.

THey did the same thing to me - I cancelled my order. Even any promises they are making you at this point should be suspect.

Yep - same thing here.  Ordered Dec 1.  Never left Confirmed state - never went to production - finally they sent an update about it being delayed (after I sent a status request) - Dec 29th.  Honestly, I think even that date was BS - they are just taking orders like mad and pushing the date back and back while they wait for inventory.