Dell deceived customers...

[PlaceofDis]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/27/dell.lawsuit/index.html

EW YORK (CNN) -- Dell Inc. deceived customers in a massive "bait and switch" scheme to increase sales of its computer and electronic products, a New York state judge ruled Tuesday.

State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sued Dell in 2007 on behalf of hundreds of customers who claimed that the electronics company lured them into buying products with promises of attractive deals and promotions.

In reality, the lawsuit alleged, most customers were denied or misled into believing that they had been approved for low interest or financing rates.

The lawsuit also accused Dell of depriving customers of technical support that they were entitled to, in some instances, by pressuring them into performing repairs on their own or subjecting them to long wait times on the phone.

In a 26-page decision, Supreme Court Justice Joseph C. Teresi found in favor of the consumers.

"Dell has engaged in repeated misleading, deceptive and unlawful business conduct, including false and deceptive advertising of financing promotions and the terms of warranties, fraudulent, misleading and deceptive practices in credit financing and failure to provide warranty service and rebates," Teresi said in his decision.

The court will hold further proceedings to determine how much restitution Dell will have to pay its customers.

Dell said it disagreed with Teresi's decision.

"Our goal has been, and continues to be, to provide the best customer experience possible," spokesman Jess Blackburn said in a written statement to CNN.

"We are confident that when the proceedings are finally completed, the court will determine that only a relatively small number of customers have been affected," Blackburn said.
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Cuomo hailed the decision in a statement Tuesday.

"For too long at Dell, the promise of customer service was a bait and switch that left thousands of people paying for essentially no service at all," Cuomo said. "We have won an important victory that will force Dell to live up to its responsibilities and pay back its customers for profits that were pocketed but not deserved."

 

[gkarris]

Another wonderful Dell thread...

Michael Dell has given the US (and now Canada) "the finger" and has upped and moved to new growth markets in China and India...

He'll pay some small portion back in "Dell Gift Cards"...

"There's a sucker born every minute" - I'm not a Dell one anymore, at least.(though I would like the thousands of dollars I spent back...)

 

[Artful Dodger]

I just read that article and have to wonder how Dell went from really good (that is according to some people I know) service to a free-for-all. Maybe they had a meeting with Walmart Anyway a friend had purchased a Dell laptop back in 2004 and got screwed with their payment hike method, i.e. $49 a month for 36 months with some crazy low interest by also placing $200 down. Well two months later he gets a new billing statement issued for month #3 and it becomes $79 a month for the remainder of the finance period
Enter stage left a lawyer and the paperwork, Dell asks for the return of said laptop for a "wipe the slate clean" and a "great credit report" in return. He was less than pleased but his work offered to supply him a laptop from another vendor instead of buying one and having to supply it himself. All ended well but I can't say this of others who would just pay or not know what to do about such issues.
Yeah, I can see Dell passing out vouchers "Band-Aids" and doing little to nothing to actually fix the problem at hand.

 

[David G.]

"Our goal has been, and continues to be, to provide the best customer experience possible," spokesman Jess Blackburn said in a written statement to CNN.

They can start by having every single one of their call in support center employees be located in the United States. A less than 5 min. average wait time would also be good. Get going Dell.

 

[ZiggyPastorius]

*sigh* Just more reason for me to hate Dell. I used to not have a problem with Dell, but the quality of their computers is so bafflingly atrocious that I've pretty much had no choice but to say "No." I don't know...my friend Tyler is a big Linux guy and he loves Dell computers, and they work fine for him, but I bought an $800 Inspiron about a year and 3-4 months before I bought my Macbook. Besides being horrible to look at, extremely heavy, and the fact that it became so slow it was almost unusable after about 4 months, it became impossible to go a day without it crashing about 11-12 months after owning it. It's not my only bad experience with Dell computers...I've had small problems mounting all over since I've started using them, and while our old desktop was a bit better, quality-wise than my Inspiron, it still runs so slow it's not even used anymore. So, anyways, there came a time when I just refused to use the Inspiron, so I flat out gave it to my mom. I reformatted it and said "here." and saved up for my Macbook. Fortunately, my mom is nice and she paid me $500 for the Inspiron since I had bought it originally, and it works for her, since she doesn't use it very much. Although, my run-ins with Apple's customer service, which have always been wonderful, as talked about a bit here have caused her to tell me that she thinks her next computer will have to be from Apple didn't take any convincing, just experience. Needless to say, if you've ever tried fixing an issue with Dell, ugh...Dell's customer service leaves something to be desired, most definitely.

 

[alphaod]

Bought a pimped out Dimension XPS 1st Gen., when they redesigned it in that big blue chassis and it was targeted for gamers; I called technical support, no hold to their special XPS department, but their agents knew nothing about computers. Didn't buy another Dell computer again. I do buy their monitors though. I paid 3 year protection and the computer only lasted me a year before I decided the lack of proper support for the sub-par machine wasn't worth it.

 

[ayeying]

*sigh* Just more reason for me to hate Dell. I used to not have a problem with Dell, but the quality of their computers is so bafflingly atrocious that I've pretty much had no choice but to say "No." I don't know...my friend Tyler is a big Linux guy and he loves Dell computers, and they work fine for him, but I bought an $800 Inspiron about a year and 3-4 months before I bought my Macbook. Besides being horrible to look at, extremely heavy, and the fact that it became so slow it was almost unusable after about 4 months, it became impossible to go a day without it crashing about 11-12 months after owning it. It's not my only bad experience with Dell computers...I've had small problems mounting all over since I've started using them, and while our old desktop was a bit better, quality-wise than my Inspiron, it still runs so slow it's not even used anymore. So, anyways, there came a time when I just refused to use the Inspiron, so I flat out gave it to my mom. I reformatted it and said "here." and saved up for my Macbook. Fortunately, my mom is nice and she paid me $500 for the Inspiron since I had bought it originally, and it works for her, since she doesn't use it very much. Although, my run-ins with Apple's customer service, which have always been wonderful, as talked about a bit here have caused her to tell me that she thinks her next computer will have to be from Apple didn't take any convincing, just experience. Needless to say, if you've ever tried fixing an issue with Dell, ugh...Dell's customer service leaves something to be desired, most definitely.

Crashes and unusability isn't dell's problem, its microsoft's problem. Their systems aren't bad, its the software they use that usually causes every single problems users are frustruated with.