back to article Dell down under dinged for dodgy display discounts

Dell’s Australian arm will refund or compensate over 4,250 of its Australian customers, after offering them dud discounts for displays. Australia’s Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) took issue with Dell in November 2022, when it initiated court action for allegedly misleading buyers. “When a consumer selected a …

  1. ThatOne Silver badge
    Devil

    That excuse will be a hit in criminal circles

    > due to an unrectified error on our part, our web page misrepresented the level of savings consumers could achieve

    "Due to an unrectified error on our part, our hand pointed a gun towards consumers asking for their wallets"

    "Due to an unrectified error on our part, our moving team broke into consumers' houses and emptied them of valuables"

    and so on.

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: That excuse will be a hit in criminal circles

      "Due to an unrectifed error on our part, our child was born"

    2. jgarbo

      Re: That excuse will be a hit in criminal circles

      So, it's fraud. Who's going to jail?

      1. ThatOne Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: That excuse will be a hit in criminal circles

        The party who can afford the more expensive lawyer(s) won't, obviously, that usually leaves the other party...

  2. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

    I always wondered why religions werent legally obligated to declare the truth of their claims...

    Like Moses never exist and so on.

    Then again if Christians had to say the bible is bullshit and other religions did the same for their holy books i guess mpost believers woudl still believe...

    1. Bebu
      FAIL

      "i guess mpost believers woudl still believe..."

      Yes.

      Just have look at twittering Musk's delusional disciples for very contemporary example.

      Cults and many religion alter their followers' perception of reality and are consequently immunized against any contradictions thrust on them by everyone else's reality. (Note that I avoided the temptation to write objective reality.:)

      Not that I am comparing DELL with any of the above. DELL's kit is on the whole pretty decent but like most US companies who are unable to resist the temptation of using their very suspect American business practices in markets that have reasonably strong statutory consumer protection legislation, DELL has come unstuck.

      1. ThatOne Silver badge
        Unhappy

        Re: "i guess mpost believers woudl still believe..."

        > DELL's kit is on the whole pretty decent

        My mileage does vary: Lots of Dell kit, because I have to admit they're convenient, the configurator is a nice idea, and nobody got fired for buying Dell, but their kit is usually cheap and fragile, and will usually break down around the time the initial support wears out. My pet peeve are Dell laptop keyboards: On all Dell laptops (the more expensive models!) I've had or seen, the keyboards were manure, and often completely broke down after a year of normal use. Once the whole lab got Dell laptops, about exactly one year later the whole lab had (different) keys not working anymore, requiring replacement of the whole keyboard...

        Not to be compared with my two (similarly priced) Toshiba laptops, which kept going and going and are still in perfect working condition after 15-20 years of being lugged all over the world.

  3. Apprentice Human

    3 years of following a compliance plan?

    So 18 months of staying compliant. The state that the plan is no longer relevant. And in December 2026 the game starts again.

  4. FurrowedBrow

    Fessed up?

    So Dell admitted it...when caught?

    Then 'agreed' to abide with 'the law'

    Then promised to abide by consumer law for at least 3 years?

    I think Dell are giving the impression that consumer law is acting as a hinderance.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Big company problems

    Someone (I forget who) said something like 'Never attribute to malice what might more readily be explained by ignorance or stupidity'

    All of the commenters are suggesting that this was a purposeful plan to con the buying public. Having worked for several large organisations similar to Dell - the one thing they never set out to do is break the law - and dismissals etc are very rapid when employees positively choose to break the law. What they do have is a large quantity of incompetent people who make mistakes, and a massive beuaurocracy that makes fixing things hard and time consuming.

    1. Somone Unimportant

      Re: Big company problems

      I'd have to say "yes" and "no" to this...

      There are a large number of companies (ebay, amazon, iherb etc) that show bundle pricing at the bottom of their pages for products - stuff like "people who bought this also bought..." - with links to add both items to one's basket. In some of these cases, I have mistaken them to be discounted prices for bundled items, when in fact they are just the same cost as adding the items separately and it's more a push from the site to get you to buy more. I'm believe that is what the seller is trying to impart, if not imply. Nothing illegal, questionably immoral perhaps?

      But I grow weary of any strike-through pricing on any web site, especially if one really has to take the seller's word that the item once sold at the struck-through price. That is definitely not on, and in bricks-and-mortar world lands companies in hot water very quickly. Or at least it can in Australia.

      I do grow weary of sites that tout "you saved $0.15 on your $128.99 order" when checking out - iherb, I'm looking at you here.

      Just give me your best price up front - forget crappy discount codes that I can obtain by looking them up, or filling an order with a disposable email address to get the 20% "new to our site" discount.

    2. Vocational Vagabond

      Re: Big company problems

      Big Porkys ..

      Definitely disagree with that, I've had dell try to deliberately run down the charge back clock, on a dud XPS laptop, from their 'APAC' support arm... bought directly. For a "top of line" consumer lappy it was buggy and all this despite email proof their sales rep lied about it's functional capability in a technical pre-sale email query, asked before purchase, then it did not work as advertised when obtained.

      They tried it on. at the 48hr mark I charged it back. The return courier arrived in like 5th working hour after that. They can move if they need to , their practice is not to unless they have to.

      It's deliberate for sure, upon experiencing this, there was just too, too many similar tales when I went looking. They're just thieves and shysters in corporate guise. Not bought Dell since, and would only, if it posed a genuinely good product opportunity, and a non Dell middle man picks up said product, with a no questions return policy, between me and them.

      Period.

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