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Dell fined $6.5M after admitting it made overpriced monitors look discounted

arstechnica.com

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Re: Dell fined $6.5M after admitting it made overpriced monitors look discounted

#11

Post by SoftTalker »

bombcar wrote: post #10
robotnikman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's been my experience so far when getting electronics from costco. Seems like they do a decent job of curating decent stuff.

They have a simple trick - they make the vendor eat any returns. So vendors won't ship them shit, because they know they'll eat the returns. I'm sure they do additional curation on top of that, but making them stand behind the product probably gets 80% of the way there.

I would never have imagined there was any other policy in retail, at least for big-ticket items like TVs and appliances. Why should the retailer ever eat the returns?

Re: Dell fined $6.5M after admitting it made overpriced monitors look discounted

#12

Post by LazyMans »

bombcar wrote: post #5
stemlord wrote: post #4

The amount of research that needs to be done to purchase even the most basic stuff online is beyond paralyzing. I hate shopping irl but I think I hate online shopping even more.

This is how places like Costco can be worthwhile even if they aren't technically the best possible deal - I trust that if I buy something there I won't be terribly disappointed or overtly screwed over even if I end up paying a bit more than I absolutely had to.

Yup, and if it does end up being shit. They take it back no questions asked. Afaik, this may not always apply since people have been known to abuse the policies. You still hear of people returning dirty mattresses years later on reddit though...

Costco op.

Re: Dell fined $6.5M after admitting it made overpriced monitors look discounted

#13

Post by mkoryak »

> A Dell spokesperson told Ars Technica today that Dell is also paying customers interest and "taking steps to improve our pricing processes to ensure this sort of error does not happen again."

Sounds like my 9 year old "It was an accident!!"

Re: Dell fined $6.5M after admitting it made overpriced monitors look discounted

#14

Post by m463 »

userbinator wrote: post #6

I'm surprised this became a fine, since I thought that most people who've seen enough shady tricks like this have already been trained never to look at the "original" or "pre discount" prices, only the actual current price.

http://thumbpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/funny-marke...

Re: Dell fined $6.5M after admitting it made overpriced monitors look discounted

#15

Post by jackvalentine »

userbinator wrote: post #6

I'm surprised this became a fine, since I thought that most people who've seen enough shady tricks like this have already been trained never to look at the "original" or "pre discount" prices, only the actual current price.

Australian consumer law is a lot stronger than people even inside the country realise.

Re: Dell fined $6.5M after admitting it made overpriced monitors look discounted

#16

Post by kstrauser »

I won’t buy Dell gear again, at home or at work. I bought my kid a monitor for his gaming PC from Amazon. It was advertised as brand new. Dell shipped it in a brand new, undamaged, unopened box. Its HDMI port failed a couple of months later but with many months of warranty left. Then Dell denied a warranty claim because their inventory system had it listed as having been previously registered to someone else. I tried to escalate the claim but they refused it all the way to the top. Amazon was helpful: they let me swap for another brand and just pay the difference.

In before “how do we believe you?” I wrote this all up in a blog post, under my real name, with backing details. If I’m lying, Dell can sue me for defamation.

A Dell corporate sales person contacted me at work to talk about setting up a work account. It felt sooo good to send them a link to my blog post and explain that Dell was dead to me. I didn’t hear back.

Re: Dell fined $6.5M after admitting it made overpriced monitors look discounted

#17

Post by justrealist »

userbinator wrote: post #6

I'm surprised this became a fine, since I thought that most people who've seen enough shady tricks like this have already been trained never to look at the "original" or "pre discount" prices, only the actual current price.

This is actually worse because people could often buy the monitor standalone for the lower price. The bundled "discount" price was higher.

Re: Dell fined $6.5M after admitting it made overpriced monitors look discounted

#18

Post by m_0x »

bombcar wrote: post #10
robotnikman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's been my experience so far when getting electronics from costco. Seems like they do a decent job of curating decent stuff.

They have a simple trick - they make the vendor eat any returns. So vendors won't ship them shit, because they know they'll eat the returns. I'm sure they do additional curation on top of that, but making them stand behind the product probably gets 80% of the way there.

That explains why some products are there for a limited-time only. Maybe they were shit or simply had a bad experience at Costco (due to bad faith customers) and decide to stop selling there.

Re: Dell fined $6.5M after admitting it made overpriced monitors look discounted

#19

Post by dbetteridge »

yieldcrv wrote: post #3

Wait you can be fined for that? The state should make a bounty program, Prime Day and Black Friday are about to be the only times I work!

Australia

We have some very strong consumer laws especially around deceptive pricing and expectations of the life of appliances

Re: Dell fined $6.5M after admitting it made overpriced monitors look discounted

#20

Post by bombcar »

SoftTalker wrote: post #11
bombcar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a simple trick - they make the vendor eat any returns. So vendors won't ship them shit, because they know they'll eat the returns. I'm sure they do additional curation on top of that, but making them stand behind the product probably gets 80% of the way there.

I would never have imagined there was any other policy in retail, at least for big-ticket items like TVs and appliances. Why should the retailer ever eat the returns?

Because Costco takes returns way past the manufacturer's warranty/return period.

So if random brand X wants to keep selling those toilets at Costco, they will sometimes get a deduction from their invoice because a curmudgeon brought in a ten year old toilet that broke.

(Costco had to change this policy on computers and TVs because word got out and people began abusing the policy so much the vendors revolted.)

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