Dell Slapped with Lawsuit

[General Zod]

This might be more appropriate for G&C, but I find it to be delicious.

NEW 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. Video Watch Cuomo detail the complaints »

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.

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."

It's about time Dell's shitty support and services got smacked like they deserve.

[Glocksman]

It's proof that YMMV, I guess.
My experience with Dell has been pretty positive, both in terms of tech support/services and in dealing with Dell Financial Services.

The only real negative, and it's one shared by a lot of tech companies is that their phone support for non business customers blows unless you speak Hindi.
I'm hard of hearing anyway and when you couple that with an Indian accent so thick you can cut it with a knife, it makes for some pretty frustrating calls.

Before I closed the account, my DFS interest rate was 7.99%, which wasn't that bad at the time the account was opened back in 2003.

[FSTargetDrone]

It's proof that YMMV, I guess.
My experience with Dell has been pretty positive, both in terms of tech support/services and in dealing with Dell Financial Services.

The only real negative, and it's one shared by a lot of tech companies is that their phone support for non business customers blows unless you speak Hindi.
I'm hard of hearing anyway and when you couple that with an Indian accent so thick you can cut it with a knife, it makes for some pretty frustrating calls.

Before I closed the account, my DFS interest rate was 7.99%, which wasn't that bad at the time the account was opened back in 2003.

I'd only ever dealt with the tech support side. Once I bought a laptop and when I first turned it on, I noticed the screen was defective. I boxed it right back up and then sent me a replacement within a week. I also had a continuing issue with a desktop system that turned out to be bad RAM. They sent over 2 people to look at it, the second of whom replaced the power supply, CPU, and RAM sticks. No problems since then and it was a few years ago.

As regards to the phone support, both times I called, I got someone who actually had English as a first language, but maybe I was just lucky.

[Kanastrous]

I've had very positive experience with Dell notebooks, everything from the hardware to the customer support.

Pays to be lucky, I guess.

[TheFeniX]

I've had very good luck with Dell's hardware, but I advise anyone who asks to stay the Hell away from the financing side. But, that goes for all PC manufacturers. I'd rather take the hit on my credit card than deal with some of their draconian financing policies. My buddy had his setup where the interest was pre-calculated. So, he didn't even bother paying it off early.

Other than that, I've only dealt with their business support, which was top-notch once they brought it back state-side. I wouldn't even bother calling home-user support unless it was hardware related and I already knew what part I needed.

[Beowulf]

What experience I have had with them has generally been positive. They don't require you to ship back the entire laptop if you just need a keyboard replacement, for example. So instead of a week downtime on my wife's laptop, we had about 15 minutes as I replaced it.

[Jaevric]

My experience with Dell customer service was entirely on their home-use side, where they sent me a bad stick of "Dell-approved" RAM and I ended up being juggled between different departments and representatives for 3 hours before one of them started screaming at me in another language & hung up on me. He'd just said he was going to transfer me back to a department I'd already been transferred to twice, and I'd responded that I'd already spoken with them, and could I please speak with a supervisor.

When I called back it still took me half an hour to get to a supervisor who was willing to do the return. That was when I swore up and down I would never buy anything Dell or Dell-related again. At risk of sounding "racist," tech support that you can't actually communicate with effectively is worse than useless.

[FSTargetDrone]

I think the two people Dell sent to my house were freelance guys who they contract to do local work as approved Dell repair service people. I am not sure about the first guy, but the second guy was definitely freelance. He even gave me his card. Anyway, he came with boxed (and sealed) hardware (CPU, RAM, Power supply and now that I think about it, also a mother board) that must have been shipped to him by Dell.

[TimothyC]

I say this is a good thing. Four Motherboards in three years is not. Once I got the local guy I was happy, but the fact that he started to not have to ask were I lived did not increase my happiness.