A California law firm has slapped Dell with a class action lawsuit charging the computer giant with "systematically deceiving" its customers.
The suit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court on 14 February, seeks class action status in California and accuses Dell of "bait and switch" practices, false advertising, fraud and deceit in sales and advertising, and breach of contract. The law firm behind the suit, Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins, publicised it on Wednesday.
The case centres on the allegation that Dell advertises low prices for its computers, but people who try to purchase a machine at the advertised price find it's no longer available for that price. Often those customers wind up with another computer, the suit said.
One plaintiff is a San Francisco nurse who said she bought a Dell notebook computer listed at $599 along with an $89 printer, but was billed $1,352 for her order. Another plaintiff said Dell shipped him products of lower quality than the ones he had ordered from the company's Web site. The Round Rock, Texas-based PC maker then resisted his efforts to resolve the problem, he said.
The suit also said that Dell and its lending partner CIT Bank change without notice financing packages promoted as "easy" and "preferred", to include much higher interest rates and hidden charges.
Lerach Coughlin Stoia said on Wednesday that it has reviewed hundreds of complaints.
"We got quite a few complaints. We also saw quite a few complaints online," said Reed Kathrein, an attorney at the law firm. "The theme appears to be a bait and switch, where what Dell does is attracts you with one ad and then substitutes."
A Dell representative declined to comment, saying the PC company does not publicly discuss pending litigation.
Dell sells more personal computers than any other provider on the globe, and it's on a growth spurt. The company, which increased shipments by close to 20 percent in its most recent fiscal quarter, expects to rake in nearly $60bn in revenue this year.
The suit alleges that Dell has violated numerous California laws and codes of conduct, including the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act, the California Business and Professions Code and the Untruth Act.
Talkback
2 weeks waiting, 6 1/2 hours on the phone, inter continental call centres (India/Ireland), passed from customer service, finance, sales and back again...... eventually received an email with a finance document attached....Advertised as 0% interest for 12 months, received a 29.9% interest over 3 year document. Another 2 hours on the phone trying to get someone to send me the right document.......
Given up now due to the lack of sanity and life expectancy!!!!
DO NOT BUY FROM DELL
We have an account with Dell through our company. We lease only 3 computers but they call daily to say we are in arrears. Actually we have a credit. I have sent them letters documenting this and spreadsheets. I received there latest bill and thought this of interest. The top portion of our bill states a current amount due of 73.05 and overdue amount of 73.05 then in the center of the bill it shows our payment if 73.05 and even shows the check number. They credited me an amount that has no relationship to the invoice and labled the 73.05 I sent in an"overpayment" and " unidentified funds" I think you should look into where these "unidentified funds" go...they charge late fees and I can prove they had the money on the date due. Also the chit that you send in with the payment overstates what is due often .If someone is not completely on top of it , they will pay the inflated amount and it will go oto the limbo land of "unidentified payments"
I was happy to see that I'm not the only one who has been frauded by Dell, but I am sad for the terrible experience & also angry that I have to pay for shipping the Dell computer & monitor back to them when they are at fault! I ordered a computer, finally received it, looked online for my rebate, which was no where to be found, discovered that they were charging me $407 more than the price quoted to me, & after 2 hours of being on the phone tonight with them, I was offered a $250 rebate, when I was overcharged $407 on credit card, their Dell card! FRAUD!! I;m not going to let this one go. I'm contacting everyone that I can think of about this issue.