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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

#61

Post by varispeed »

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.

You are assuming that people see through this, but they don't. Furthermore, from my observations, I can tell you they are people who _like_ these kind of tricks. They kid themselves they got such a massive discount, feel happy about it and sometimes even think "Oooh I got $1000 discount, maybe I can treat myself and buy something else with that "saved" money?" Their mental accounting tells them they suddenly have a windfall that they can spend frivolously on something.

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

#62

Post by varispeed »

Prickle wrote: post #24

I have a DELL laptop. Probably the worst purchase I made. The one saving grace is that SupportAssist actually works, and does make post-crash/post-windows-death recovery very simple and easy. But that's the thing. I can tell that they put effort into this OS recovery tool, explicitly because this Laptop is a disaster of a product. Temperatures? Burning. Fans? Locked down. Freezing? Constantly. Crashing? Commonly. Blu…

I remember the boot roulette with my XPS. The laptop randomly just wouldn't turn on. I learned that biggest chance for it to turn on was to disconnect power, plug it back in and quickly press the power button and hold. Sometimes it took half an hour of this dance. Eventually it stopped turning on.

The "good" thing was that when this happened I bought a cheap post lease Thinkpad and just put my XPS's nvme in. I could resume work straight away it just worked.

I paid £100 for that Thinkpad and it was miles better than then flagship XPS.

That being said, I decided to take a plunge and bought M1 Max. This think is next level and smokes any laptops I had before.

But Dell in comparison is just complete junk and that company should be banned from making laptops.

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

#64

Post by xtiansimon »

doix wrote: post #31
kstrauser wrote: post #16

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…

FWIW, it could be an Amazons fault. Someone bought the monitor, used it, decided they didn't want it and returned it. The seller looked at it, decided it looked good enough, and put it back in his inventory at Amazon as new. You'd have no way of knowing. People used to (maybe still do?) buy expensive graphic cards, take them out and put back a cheap one with a flashed ROM. Then shrink-wrap the box again and return it…

> “…it could be an Amazons fault. Someone bought the monitor, used it, decided they didn't want it and returned it.”

While this may be true, it’s Dell’s lost opportunity to honor their product warranty in a generous way. Obviously it’s turned this customer into a permanent antagonist.

What’s more, the product Dell has in their warehouse should cost Dell less than the advertising, or marketing costs to get new customers.

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

#65

Post by Retric »

harry8 wrote: post #54
Retric wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, companies warranties start to expire from the point of original sale not whenever you happened to get it. What you’re complaining about is no different than expecting a used car to still have the original manufacturer’s warranty, that just not how warranties work. The real moral of this story is to never buy electronics from Amazon. Amazon sold you a fraudulent product and you’re blaming Dell for Amazon’s failure…

I strongly doubt the warranty period expired from first sale. I strongly doubt there was a previous sale. More likely Dell screwed up their warranty database. But sure, Amazon suck very hard. Dell are at least as bad. Who do you talk to /when/ they make a mistake in their favour. Much easier to tell people to f.off when they're not standing in front of you in your shop holding the crap goods. Amazon and Dell both pus…

> More likely Dell screwed up their warranty database

Amazon is well known for this exact kind of issue due to intentionally commingling products they frequently can’t separate returns from new products. It’s so bad everyone I know well that shops at Amazon has run into obviously used Amazon items sold as new, but not for any single brand.

Dell messing up their completely automated warranty database on the other hand requires an extraordinary series of events.

There’s no way Dell is more likely to be the culprit.

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

#66

Post by tstrimple »

Prickle wrote: post #24

I have a DELL laptop. Probably the worst purchase I made. The one saving grace is that SupportAssist actually works, and does make post-crash/post-windows-death recovery very simple and easy. But that's the thing. I can tell that they put effort into this OS recovery tool, explicitly because this Laptop is a disaster of a product. Temperatures? Burning. Fans? Locked down. Freezing? Constantly. Crashing? Commonly. Blu…

My last attempt to switch back to non-Apple laptops was a fully loaded XPS 15 right around the time I wasn't willing to commit to an M1. I was excited to get back to a dedicated GPU and the vapor chamber cooling design allegedly worked very well and the screen was supposed to be better than Apple's. I'd definitely put it up there with the worst purchases I've made. As you mentioned, the vapor chamber does nothing. Even at idle the laptop was HOT. For some reason the combination of Microsoft / OEMs still cannot make a laptop which just sleeps when you close the lid. Throw the laptop in a bag and when you get to your destination and the laptop is literally too hot to touch because it's been doing something in there the entire time despite being closed. That fantastic screen was also completely ruined by Windows / Dell drivers and software. Dark scenes, which HDR is supposed to excel at instead were crushed down to muddled greys with heavy banding. That's not a laptop I would have kept if it cost me $500, never mind close to $4k.

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

#67

Post by harry8 »

Retric wrote: post #65
harry8 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly doubt the warranty period expired from first sale. I strongly doubt there was a previous sale. More likely Dell screwed up their warranty database. But sure, Amazon suck very hard. Dell are at least as bad. Who do you talk to /when/ they make a mistake in their favour. Much easier to tell people to f.off when they're not standing in front of you in your shop holding the crap goods. Amazon and Dell both pus…

> More likely Dell screwed up their warranty database Amazon is well known for this exact kind of issue due to intentionally commingling products they frequently can’t separate returns from new products. It’s so bad everyone I know well that shops at Amazon has run into obviously used Amazon items sold as new, but not for any single brand. Dell messing up their completely automated warranty database on the other hand…

I think your prior about the probability "dell messing up" needs some adjusting based on experience there.

If Amazon are crapping on dell's brand that is 100% Dell's problem to solve. As soon as they see the receipt they should honor the warranty fully and then go hard on Amazon because they look bad. But they do not care at all about their customers seems to be a common conclusion based on experience. Whether amazon suck does not make dell's conduct any more acceptable.

Dell are known for their total contempt of their customers.

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

#68

Post by Retric »

harry8 wrote: post #67
Retric wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More likely Dell screwed up their warranty database Amazon is well known for this exact kind of issue due to intentionally commingling products they frequently can’t separate returns from new products. It’s so bad everyone I know well that shops at Amazon has run into obviously used Amazon items sold as new, but not for any single brand. Dell messing up their completely automated warranty database on the other hand…

I think your prior about the probability "dell messing up" needs some adjusting based on experience there. If Amazon are crapping on dell's brand that is 100% Dell's problem to solve. As soon as they see the receipt they should honor the warranty fully and then go hard on Amazon because they look bad. But they do not care at all about their customers seems to be a common conclusion based on experience. Whether amazon…

Read up on first sale doctrine. First this guy isn’t a Dell customer. Second, Dell doesn’t have the option to do what you’re suggesting.

Not honoring the warranty is they only defense here as it forces Amazon to fix the issue or risk being charged with fraud.

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

#69

Post by harry8 »

Retric wrote: post #68
harry8 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your prior about the probability "dell messing up" needs some adjusting based on experience there. If Amazon are crapping on dell's brand that is 100% Dell's problem to solve. As soon as they see the receipt they should honor the warranty fully and then go hard on Amazon because they look bad. But they do not care at all about their customers seems to be a common conclusion based on experience. Whether amazon…

Read up on first sale doctrine. First this guy isn’t a Dell customer. Second, Dell doesn’t have the option to do what you’re suggesting. Not honoring the warranty is they only defense here as it forces Amazon to fix the issue or risk being charged with fraud.

Yup the only option they have is to treat customers like dung and aren't they committed to it? It's impressive. No other possible legal choice.

That's a new one you're not a customer because middleman so can be no issue with warranty ever. Dell's PR would love it if they cared, which they clearly don't because why bother.

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

#70

Post by Retric »

harry8 wrote: post #69
Retric wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read up on first sale doctrine. First this guy isn’t a Dell customer. Second, Dell doesn’t have the option to do what you’re suggesting. Not honoring the warranty is they only defense here as it forces Amazon to fix the issue or risk being charged with fraud.

Yup the only option they have is to treat customers like dung and aren't they committed to it? It's impressive. No other possible legal choice. That's a new one you're not a customer because middleman so can be no issue with warranty ever. Dell's PR would love it if they cared, which they clearly don't because why bother.

“go hard on Amazon because they look bad”

Not an option.

As to PR, you should buy a 500$ used car and then take it to the manufacturer I am sure they would be happy to make warranty repairs because that’s just great PR for them…

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