Slashdot Log In
In AU, Dodgy Dell Deal Faces Consumer Backlash
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Nov 17, 2008 04:22 AM
from the you-advertised-it-now-honor-it dept.
from the you-advertised-it-now-honor-it dept.
Ben Seberry writes "It appears Dell has been caught red-faced by yet another pricing mistake on their Australian website. Many customers thought they had spotted a fantastic deal when they came across a 55%-off offer. Dell later denied that this was a valid special and telephoned customers to offer them a choice of the standard price, or a cancelled order. Dell's senior manager of corporate communication came out and apologized for the mistake, promising processes would be reviewed to prevent it from happening again. In the days after the original 'incorrectly priced' offer was fixed, Dell made a different error leading to an even cheaper price being advertised. This time, on many user forums and blogs, users are debating Australian contract law as it applies to this matter — it is not as clear-cut as many originally believed."
Related Stories
Submission: Dodgy Dell Deal faces consumer backlash by Anonymous Coward
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Too good to be true? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about US economic laws but in Switzerland, if something is obviously too good to be true and there has been a mistake, the company can actually declare any contracts made invalid.
Or if it's a real life product in a real life windows with a hilariously low price, the sales people are not obligated to make the sale at that price.
So if it's too good to be true you'll have to expect it to actually BE too good to be true.
The tough question just is: Is 55% off unrealistic?
Re:Too good to be true? (Score:5, Funny)
Here in Oz we routinely get ads for rug stores with 90% off.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Is there a similar day to our Black Friday?
Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving (last Thursday in November) in which darn near every business has crazy rock-bottom deals. I've seen 200$ laptops before netbooks, free computer equipment, and god knows what other stuff.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, we also have the rush to the stores the day after Christmas too. We also have the "Christmas Season" rush that happens on the day after Thanksgiving. Many retailers make note that is the beginning of the "Christmas Season".
Same phenomenon too of crazy lines, rude people and rock bottom sales.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for actually noticing ^_^
Yeah, I thought about trying to get a hold of one, but they were 1GHz, 256MB ram, and 1 minute battery life (heh well, more like 1 hour). And the stores that sold them had perhaps 2-4 at best... When there's a hundred people in line waiting for opening, good luck getting one.
Re: (Score:2)
I call bullshit on that. Dell is routinely cheaper than:
Lenovo
HP
ASUS
IBM
Sun
for almost anything, and hence why their hardware is occasionally a bit dodgy. The only manufacturer that is cheaper (and nastier) is Acer. *shudder*
Disclaimer: I actually don't mind Dell, especially their servers, but they do occasionally ship you a lemon. You get what you pay for I guess.
Re: (Score:2)
I priced out some gaming machines about 6 months ago before deciding to build myself. Dell was significantly more expensive than HP and several white box vendors on every set of specs I checked out.
Re: (Score:2)
(Additionally, Dell and Apple seems to be the only one offering US keyboards in I
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I priced out some gaming machines [...]
Well, there you have it. Dell's gaming machines, either their high-end XPS systems or Alienware, do not qualify for their "cheap" parts. They actually use high quality parts for these machines and make you pay for it.
I speak as a Dell XPS owner who bought there lower-end of their high-end XPS system just before they acquired Alienware and compared prices between the two. Alienware was fairly more expensive for just about the same specs at that time. Though, now that they own Alienware, they're trying no
Re:Too good to be true? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Not only that but it used to be cheaper than Silicon Graphics and Cray too !
Re:Too good to be true? (Score:5, Informative)
And you pay for what you get. All my dells (all laptops, all inspirons, all 3 of them) have died within a year of my buying them, and every month or so after that. To be fair, i always got the warranty so for medium-low reliability it works great: every time it breaks, Dell fixes it in a few days.
Eventually I got sick of a few days downtime very month or so on my primary system and just forked over the cash for a thinkpad.
It was a wise decision. I still see TPs around from six or seven years ago, still in working condition.
Then again, my usage profile is...nontypical. I don't drop it but I do carry it from place to place a lot. I wouldn't say I abuse it, but I do use it quite a bit. Inspiron is consumer grade, thinkpad is corporate grade.
Dell desktops, on the other hand, I've never been disappointed by.
Parent
Re:Too good to be true? (Score:5, Insightful)
This includes Macbooks, HPs, Dells, and IBMs.
Pretty consistently the business lines are decent, but you pay an extra couple hundred (worth it) spec for spec often.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
My fiancee and I wanted a cheap laptop option for the end of our college days, and picked up the $400 Acer special at WalMart. Two of them, one for each of us.
Two years later, their screens have both died, their hard drives were on the way out, and their batteries are both half dead.
Do they manufacture these fucking flaws in or what?
Re:Too good to be true? (Score:5, Interesting)
I would normally say "it's an Acer", but if you do a little research, you'll find something interesting about WalMart products. Virtually every product in WalMart, is made specifically for WalMart. They are made slightly cheaper so WalMart can lower the final cost and always undercut their competition.
I found this out with Sony HandCams. One place I worked had about a dozen of them for live web broadcasting (make assumptions, you're probably right). Two broke, so we went to a Sony authorized repair shop. He looked at them, or more specifically at the model, and heard our complaint. He then told us "I can't fix that". He wasn't trying to be difficult, so he explained that this model was a WalMart model. The broken component was something that breaks very quickly. He can't get replacements for it. If it had been another model from another retail outlet, he would have been more than happy to fix it, but it probably wouldn't have broken anyways.
We had saved $50/ea on them. If I recall correctly even though they were simply sitting on tripods, attached by RCA cable to digitizers, 90% of them had some sort of failure within a year. I took one of the few surviving ones, just because we retired all of them. I left it charging on my desk, and one day it just started opening the tape door on it's own. I could close it, and sometime in the next few days it would just open it like someone hit the eject button.
If you want something that will survive, don't buy it at WalMart, even if it looks just like the item being sold somewhere else, and only has a very subtle variation on the model number. WalMart makes their money selling crap at a price lower than the other stores can sell their slightly better crap. They know when it breaks, you will probably go back to WalMart and buy another one, blaming the manufacturer, not WalMart business practices.
Read this story about Snapper discontinuing business with WalMart [fastcompany.com]
or this Business Week piece on lower quality Walmart products [businessweek.com]
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Well, three rights make a left...
Re:Too good to be true? (Score:5, Insightful)
So they get to continue to falsely advertise as much as they want, as long as the discount is low enough?
Now first time, sure its a mistake. Second time though? And only days later. They didn't double check and make sure it was right?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know about US economic laws but in Switzerland, if something is obviously too good to be true and there has been a mistake, the company can actually declare any contracts made invalid.
When I started with my current (UK) employer, I had a fairly standard probation period. The salary on that contract was £XX,000 per hour. I think they owe me about £19m pounds. More with the 7 years of interest that they've accumulated too. I've often wondered about the "...but it was **obviously** wrong" defence. What's the point of a contract if, if there is something wrong, you can just annul it? :)
Any UK lawyers want to try it, no win, no fee?
Re: (Score:2)
You can't get away with that in the U.S. If you advertise something as one price, and some sort of agreement is already made, i.e. you paid for it, it has to be honored.
It happens all the time, especially at gas pumps. They make it 20 cents a gallon instead of $2.00 a gallon. They have to eat whatever losses they incurred during that time and fix their mistake so it doesn't happen in the future.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not precisely. When you buy from Dell, it's not a purchase it's a "sales contract". The laws you mention govern implicit contracts, eg posting a sign, money for product, etc. Dell explicitely states in the contract you sign at purcahse that they have the right to cancel it if it was found to be in error.
Re:Too good to be true? (Score:4, Informative)
The same applies in Belgium. If it is obviously a human error, then there is no deal. This can happen if you forgot a 0 at the end and the car is only 10% of the value. It must however be blatantly obvious. e.g. a car for 5.000 instead of the standard 50.000 is obvious.
55% would not be seen as obvious and in Belgium they would be forced to deliver the PC at that price. There are sometimes PCs that are end of stock and can be had had reduced prices. Also you can not sell at a loss in Belgium unless it is the sales period, which is fixed.
Here you must even have a reasonable stock of said items. So you can not say 2EUR for this PC and then only have 1 PC just so you hope people will buy something else. This is what you get in a communist country where the law in principle sides with the people not the companies.
Parent
Is 55% off unrealistic? (Score:2)
Well in Germany we have the same law but it must be an obvious and honest mistake like a moved decimal point or reversed digits.
i.E. advertising a 55% off when you meant a 5.5% off. Or â150 you meant â1500 (that would be a 90% discount).
Mind you, with the current "SALE - SALE" Zeitgeist I don't think 55% off is unrealistic and I think in Germany and Switzerland Dell would have to bite the bullet here.
Martin
Re:Too good to be true? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually the laws governing this are state determined by state government legistlation.
In NSW (where I live) it _used_ to be the case that retailers were obliged to sell at the advertised price, this was changed a decade or so ago.
Unfortunately, the consumer protection laws were comletely watered down; I can see the argument for a mistake in an advertisment, but the laws covering warranties are now effectively non-existent. If you have a problem during the warranty period the retailer can pass-the-buck onto the manufacturer or distributer and of course when they inevitably turn out to be in another state or country the only recourse you have is to file a civil suit.
I found this out the hard way, and was told by the NSW dept of consumer affairs (or whatever they call themselves these days) that they were unable to do anything other than contact the retailer on my behalf, the retailer told them to get stuffed, so they said the only way forward was to sue.
In Australia the retailer is obliged to honour any published price, even if the price is a mistake or a typo in the printing of a catalogue. Failure to do so will leave the retailer liable to legal action if enough people raise complaints to the ACCC.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
In Australia the retailer is obliged to honour any published price, even if the price is a mistake or a typo in the printing of a catalogue. Failure to do so will leave the retailer liable to legal action if enough people raise complaints to the ACCC.
Not correct.
In most states in Australia the retailer can honor the published price or withdraw the item from sale.
If there has been a mistake in the publishing of the price the retailer would be expected to advertise a correction notice in say a newspaper and also have the notice at the point of sale.
heres a link to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission website (ACCC) explaining.
http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/322984
the ACCC will step in if enough people complain and there ha
Mmmm... this goes well... (Score:2)
...with the Australian dollar near an all-time low.
Ubuntu Offers? (Score:2)
Was this on any machines running Ubuntu?
Btw, what happened to the Dell+Ubuntu offers that I can no longer find on their site?
Or am I looking in the wrong place...
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, I checked the Japanese site (live here), and while the base computer's the same, the upgrades are all about twice as much as the equivalent US page. Guess I won't be going through Dell, after all, especially after (this) yet another fiasco.
In the news at 10.... (Score:2, Funny)
Global financial crisis worse than thought
Dell hardware cheap, but there may be some fine print
Paris Hilton shows her bits accidentally
My experience (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:My experience (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Depends (Score:2)
Not True as per English Contract law (Score:4, Informative)
As per English Contract Law(which australia must be following), a publicly displayed advertisement for a product/service displaying a price for the same becomes a contract when it is accepted by anyone who pays for the same product/service to the advertiser.
In short, Dell has signed a contract with each one of the paying customers to provide the advertised product at advertised price.
If Dell fails to do so, it is in violation of the applicable contract law and as such the counter-party to the contract may sue Dell for violation and subsequent consequential damages.
The fact that Dell claims it is a mistake is not relevant and is not the customers' responsibility.
All a customer has to do is to swear in front of a magistrate or sign a letter thathe acted in "Good faith" that the advertisement was genuine.
Dell Customers Australia: If you have placed the order, do NOT back out and accept a refund. Write to Dell to fulfill its contract and threaten it with a lawsuit. Am sure 200 lawsuits in 200 courts is not a small matter for Dell.
The law is on your side for a change.
Parent
Re:Not True as per English Contract law (Score:4, Interesting)
a product/service displaying a price for the same becomes a contract when it is accepted by anyone who pays for the same product/service to the advertiser.
I guess it all hangs on whether Dell accepted the money from the consumers at the time of ordering, or if it was to be debited when the goods shipped.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
All that needs to have happened is for Dell to have accepted "consideration" - in other words, a promise and means to pay, whether now or later. If they did so, which I imagine they did, then there will likley be a contract in force at that point.
55% off would NOT normally be considered unreasonable or an "obviuous" mistake - such as something priced at £0.02 instead of £200
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What? From what I have learned - Hong Kong law, which is still based on English Contract Law...
Advertisement is not an "offer." (Made by a case in 18xx IIRC).
The case was something like someone saw a product advertisement on newspapers, then go to the store but unfortunately the product went out of stock. The customer sue the store for not able to fulfill the contract, even if the customer can pay to accept it.
The case was held that advertisement does not consider as an offer. It's the customer who "offer"
English law is revelant how? (Score:2)
Makes me think of a story... (Score:3, Interesting)
Me and a friend called BS on his story, and he was quite insistent that it was real. We were just on our way from one bar to another at the time (a little inebriated perhaps) so we went into a Hungry Jacks store to test his theory. He ordered a Whopper as a "Two for One", and sure enough they gave it to him!
Mind you by the time he got to the front of the queue he had 16 drunk football (australian rules) players chanting "Two for one" so perhaps they just gave it to him to make us leave....
But if it was *genuine* makes you think that maybe us australians are pretty serious about keeping companies honest about their marketing.
Sometimes right, sometimes wrong.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think whether or not this is wrong depends entirely on whether or not money as changed hands at the time the error is noticed.
For instance, we would not consider a car dealership to be contractually bound to sell cars for $3000 a piece if a typo caused a zero to be left off the price in an advertisement. An advertisement or coupon simply does not constitute a contract.
In that same vein, I would argue that making an internet purchase is not a contract as well, or rather, at least not initially. Giving a company your credit information and clicking "Purchase" is not the same as handing another person cash and shaking hands, as that credit information must first be authorized and processed before money is actually transferred. Until that is done, the transaction (and hence, contract) has not been completed, and you the consumer aren't entitled to anything. Consequently, if an error is found at this stage, I see nothing wrong with a company cancelling the order in question.
If money is transferred, that is a whole different ball of wax. The deal is then done, and a business should be held to whatever price they stated. At that point they have taken your money, depriving you the use of it for anything else, and it is not acceptable for them to cancel the order simply because of their incompetence, anymore than they can call you up a month later and demand more money for an item you already purchased.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Handing over your CC details, and the website accepting them, is consideration and would normally constitute completion of a contract.
this is exactly the same as handing a CC instore, where not all are authorised there and then - it is still consideration for the goods, which is all the is sufficient. duration is not considered in this - otherwise buy now pay later would not give a contract untill the "pay later" part!
Latitude D-Series (Score:2, Informative)
Dell Makes Lots Of "Mistakes" (Score:2)
One day, I was window shopping Dell's web site for a Mini 9 (Inspiron 910), setting up a tricked-out system. I saw that there was a $250 off coupon that was applied to that system. I immediately bought the system, stopping only to make sure that I put in all the features. I expected the order to be canceled because the coupon was for a Studio laptop and this was a Inspiron netbook. Well, the order got canceled, but because the Dell Preferred Account had issues. I called and placed the order again using my A
This happened in Chile, twice this year (Score:5, Informative)
This has happened here in Chile twice during 2008. In both cases Dell backed out of all sales, to great outrage. The second time it happened, I thought it was rather fishy; now that I see the same thing going on in Australia, it is starting to look like a corporate "marketing" policy.
Dell give away too good deals all the time... (Score:2)
Here in the uk, there is a certain website that is red hot on picking up what are obvious price mixups (moneysavingexpert.com). I once got a Dell 2400 for less than 30% of the real price. Also picked up a celeron for less than £100 all in to make a little profit. They usually honour the screwups, but the current climate must be biting hard for them to not honour it. They may well cave as the adverse publicity is worth more than a few machines at cost(ish).
Having said that, if you spend big, there is
Laws? What about goodwill? (Score:4, Interesting)
My mom worked in retail during the 1930s and 40s, eventually rising to the position of buyer in Bloomingdale's. She said that retailers were not legally bound to honor misprints, but that the policy of Bloomingdale's (and its competitors) was to honor them, without question, because they would rather take a one-time loss on a single item than lose a customer.
This is not about the law, this is about decency and keeping promises and doing the right thing by customers.
I know that there is currently a management fad to try to identify "bad" (i.e. lower-profit) customers, and deliberately annoy them in hope of losing them. As the bad economic times start to bite in, I think they will find that treating customers as easily-replaced disposables is not a good idea.
Attn: kdawson - please do your job (Score:2, Insightful)
WTF?!?
Who thinks that an article that is over 3 years old is "News for Nerds, Stuff That Matters"?
You must be new here.... (Score:3, Informative)
Its a Silly Slashdot Story time...
Around here we praise Linux, disagree on Apple and bash Dell. Its the way things are. Don't let facts get in the way of a good bashing...
For what its worth, the first link in story refers to the original time this happened (I assume in '05) - while the current mistake is what the story is about and is referred to as "yet another pricing mistake".
-Em
Story Poorly Worded, but 2nd link is 2008 (Score:3, Informative)