Dell engaged in misleading business practices, says NY judge

According to a state judge in Albany, New York, Dell and its financing arm "engaged in deceptive business practices related to financing promotions for its computers and technical support." The decision, which was just released yesterday, contained quotes from NY State Supreme Court Justice Joseph C. Teresi stating that the Round Rock mega-corp dabbled 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." The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo last year, and while Mr. Cuomo was understandably delighted with the outcome, a Dell spokesman made clear that it didn't agree with the decision and it would be "defending its position vigorously." As for potential restitution for NYers, we won't know any of that until further proceedings are held.

[Thanks, Nate]

[gad get @ May 28th 2008 4:53AM]

Youch!

(Insight is my middle name.)

[chickenator @ May 28th 2008 4:59AM]

viva dell

[ReggieXuk @ May 28th 2008 5:11AM]

when have we ever known humans that never took advantage.

filthy lol

*yh im copy and pasting*

[Pepsipoint @ May 28th 2008 5:50AM]

is this our "look forward to reading your cut and paste for every post" warning?

[roflercopterer @ May 28th 2008 6:00AM]

I thought this was going to be about a subpoena

[David @ May 28th 2008 6:28AM]

OH BABY!
I love that picture, is that an original modification there engadget?
I want to see this at least once every month

[Jherez @ May 28th 2008 3:04PM]

I see you're new here.

[Ian @ May 28th 2008 7:16AM]

Dell Finance can rot in hell. Those fuckers took my money, then said I never paid them. THEN they sold my 'debt' to a creditor that will NOT leave me alone... 4 years later. I've showed them that Dell was paid, but they keep insisting that they paid Dell and bought my 'debt'. This has been on my credit report for FOUR GOD DAMNED YEARS and is still considered an open collection. Ugh... fucksticks.

[d3bt collect0r @ May 28th 2008 2:32PM]

im in ur credit score, deleting ur pts. give meh monehz.

[Big Al @ May 28th 2008 7:16AM]

Wow you mean another company that only cares about profit and once they have your money they don't care about you. That doesn't happen! this must be some mistake.

[John @ May 28th 2008 9:25AM]

If you pay enough for a product in the first place (you're actually considering quality instead of just how much you pay), you'll get what you pay for in service.

Just look at what happens when you buy a used car instead of a new car. You get no warranty, the dealership cuts all ties with you when you drive off the lot, and your car is usually littered with little issues that end up costing you tons of money. Buy a new car from a dealership, and those people will treat you like royalty. Free rentals when your car is getting repaired, complementary service for a certain number of miles, warranties on all parts, technicians that know what they're doing, etc.

I've commented on Dell's business practices before, and they really are a crappy company despite their generally cheap computers. They won't even allow you to talk to a service representative if your warranty has expired (they check your serial number and see when you bought the computer), and instead require you to call a pay-per-minute hotline or browse their heavily-moderated forums (threads get deleted on there when Dell realizes there's a problem with their hardware). I also have a friend who was guaranteed that the extended warranty covered her battery as well, then when her battery died (under the warranty period), she was informed that the battery required a separate warranty.

I urge people here to consider paying a little more for their products. You'll end up saving money in the end.

[Big Al @ May 28th 2008 7:18AM]

Who finances a computer thru the manufacturer anyway?

[Jeff P. @ May 28th 2008 9:59AM]

I do. A few months back Dell offered a 12 month free financing deal. Well, what the heck, I'd rather leave my money sitting where it was earning interest for a while so I took them up on it. My wife, on the other hand, doesn't like to carry any debt (I don't either but this was an exception) so she paid it off after a few months using our "Economic Stimulus Check". Never had a bad experience with Dell over the past several years both personally or with my company.

[frankXchange @ May 28th 2008 8:25AM]

If they would make CEO's responsible for the actions of their corporations, these sleazy business practices (aka the norm) would disappear overnight.

Ian, if you have the proof you need to sue Dell. I'm sure you could get extra damages because of the negative impact it's had on your credit rating.

[Elkin @ May 28th 2008 9:09AM]

finally!

[JKT @ May 28th 2008 9:10AM]

Couldn't happen to a nicer company. I recall I bought a Dell for my employer a few years ago and when it was received we found the ethernet didn't work reliably--it would drop off our network with annoying regularity. Upon calling Dell support, I was told "We don't support the computer if there is an ethernet cable plugged into it." I swear they said this--I could not make that up. In the long run I bought a 3rd party ethernet card and the PC worked fine from then on, but Dell absolutely refused to make good on the fact that their ethernet port/chip/hardware was faulty on that PC. I've never bought a Dell since, and since I'm in a purchasing capacity for my employers, that has meant lots of lost $$ for Dell.

[The Other White Meat @ May 28th 2008 9:54AM]

I'm typing this on a Dell XPS laptop and I use a 24" Dell monitor on my desktop system. The laptop was purchased using my Dell account because they had 12 months free financing (already paid it off). My company has purchased more dells than I can count. I've never had ANYTHING but a positive experience with Dell. Anytime a company gets mega-big people start popping out of the woodwork complaining that they're victims. The big bad company was mean to them. Come on people.

[Rand @ May 28th 2008 11:29AM]

I'd agree, that yes once a company gets mega-big people come out of the woodwork complaining. However, its not all frivolous whining. When a company grows as big and as fast as Dell there is no way every person they hire is top notch. Doesn't excuse bad behavior. But look around you at the general population...how many times are you frustrated by total dipsticks who seemed overwhelmed by the simplest of tasks. I worked at Dell for over 20 years...yes I worked there when there were 30 employees. Its a shame but the company is a shadow of its former self. Not necessarily because the employees are evil....but because a large percentage of them are stupid, refuse to think, and/or just don't care.

[saq @ May 28th 2008 11:40AM]

Having dealt with Dell for many years (both as a VAR, and as a competitor) I can say that this kind of attitude runs deeply through every single department of the entire company, its part of their culture. Its never going to change until there is a serious change of upper management (that includes saying goodbye to Michael Dell and friends) who will force the change in middle management, which will then start to change the majority of the companies ethics, because as of right now, Dell has none.

[Tyson @ May 28th 2008 1:10PM]

I guess the new commercial for Dell consumers will say "Dude your gtting a check"

[Tyson @ May 28th 2008 1:10PM]

attempt 2 with my eyes open this time ..:I guess the new commercial for Dell consumers will say "Dude your getting a check"

[UHUH @ May 28th 2008 3:23PM]

Dell sucks. Maybe Sprint will buy dell

[DHV217 @ May 28th 2008 4:56PM]

Sprint buy Dell?

Why they both suck and have caused enough users heartache and loss, alone why would having them merge bring any benefit?

[deb @ May 28th 2008 9:41PM]

i agree!! sprint/nextel and dell are on the same low level!! dell outsources their product to build and uses CHEAP PARTS (because the lowest bidder gets the job) I would never buy another DELL or subscribe to sprint!!

[jamesFF @ May 28th 2008 9:19PM]

Dude! You got....

[Joe @ May 31st 2008 12:26AM]

Has anybody noticed the similarity of the the E in Dell to the E in Enron?

Maybe not a coincidence after all

[Scott @ Jun 2nd 2008 4:53PM]

When my desktop finally gave up the ghost a couple years back I was going to just build another one. Before I started ordering parts I went to Dell's website out of curiousity to see what they had in the way of laptops. Well, after configuring one for kicks I noticed there was a link to apply for free financing for 18 months on the system I had configured. I followed the links & ended up with an $1800+ laptop and presumably no interest. It wasn't until I got the first bill that I found they were charging me 27.99% interest. Calling Dell was useless as was contacting the BBB, so I paid it off in full. Needless to say (but said anyway), I will not buy another computer from Dell.