Dell has been found guilty of 'numerous negligent and abusive practices'
Dell guilty of fraud and false advertising
/v3-uk/news/1961700/dell-guilty-fraud-false-advertising
29 May 2008, Iain Thomson , V3
A court in New York has found Dell guilty of false advertising and fraud.
The company engaged in abusive debt collection practices, misled consumers about the financing terms for which they had qualified and failed to provide consumers with promised rebates, according to court papers.
The case arose after hundreds of complaints about Dell and its finance arm Dell Financial Services.
Dell now faces the prospect of a huge damages claim, and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has asked consumers to register their complaints at a special website so that damages can be assessed.
"Huge companies like Dell cannot continue to walk all over their customers and get away with it," said Cuomo.
"All consumers who were left on hold for hours, promised 'onsite' repair services only to be pressured to take apart their computers themselves, and subjected to numerous other negligent and abusive practices should register their complaints at our website so we can ensure the Dell is held accountable for its failed promises."
The court found that Dell and Dell Financial Services had deceived consumers as to the real cost of their PCs.
The company offered complex financing schemes, sold people onsite repair warranties and then refused to honour them and left customers waiting for literally hours on the Dell helpline, according to court papers.
The 26-page summation is a damning indictment of the two companies' practices, and represents a major image problem for Dell as well as a potentially huge damages bill.
Justice Joseph C. Teresi said in his decision: "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."
Dell has not decided whether it will appeal, and has blamed the situation on a small number of customer complaints.
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Do you agree?
New York seeks to topple Dell
I find it amazing that NY wants to destroy Dell, Microsoft, Intel, etc. by seeking to destroy their name, their reputation and their financial stability.
It seems to me that NY is jealous of Dell's success and wants a piece of the "financial pie" and to "put them in their place" as if they are of no "real" value.
This is unjust and Dell should appeal the ruling.
Posted by LBlair, 30 May 2008
this attorney journal is fake
hi..this attorney jourmal justs wants to be famous and earn money.all copanies have to survive..and all companies are doing the same thing.and dell has millions of customers..its very easy for a so called attorney journal to convince a bunch of consumers to file a law suite against dell.i underestand the consumers are right but dell should enquire the matter.why should he play millions in claim/???totally unfair.even i work with Dell in India.i have a dell laptop too.its fine if one or two times they dont show up.Man its a busy life..give space and time.this attorney journal seems to be jealous of michael dell's success.
Posted by dipin dhingra, 30 May 2008
Dell Fraud
Good,I'm glad they were found guilty. Companies like this should not be fined,they should be put out of business for shamefully ripping off customers.
Posted by Andrew, 31 May 2008
electronics home section
i ordered a sony a700 camera from dell.com on 9th November told before i ordered its about 1-2 weeks for delivery. Now after the 3rd date change of estimate delivery time its now 24th December. Dell can not supply this item but have debited my account and now i am waiting for the forms from credit card to get my money back as Dell ignored my emails and keep me on hold for unaceptable times.
Posted by raymond worthington, 09 Dec 2009