Let this be a lesson for all you kids thinking about opening some online shop with a funky database: pricing errors can cost ya, especially if you're doing business in Taiwan. After
a couple of downright embarrassing
slip-ups on Dell's Taiwanese web store, followed by a failure to compensate those who got orders in appropriately, Taiwan's government has levied a NT$1,000,000 fine (that's just over 30 grand in Greenbacks) on the computer giant. The actual details of the penalty are somewhat vague, but it seems as if the fine will be imposed until Dell decides to "take consumer rights seriously." In other words, Dell's stuck paying up unless it flips a 180 real quick and honors the flood of purchases made at rock-bottom prices. C'mon Dell, do the right thing. Or write the check -- evidently it's totally your call.
[Via
Engadget Chinese, image courtesy of
AdRants]
posted Jul 30th 2009 2:15AM
i'm from taiwan and i'm ashamed by this, seriously no one is perfect, it's just a price mistake. those people that took advantage of that and even think they had the rights to ask for compensation is even more shameful.
conan o'brien hates my homeland :"taiwan, you're not even a country. you're China's bitch"
you are obviously not a very good Taiwanese. A retailer puts up a sign that says a certain item is selling at a certain price and the consumers go into the store only to find him/her saying it is marked wrongly on the ad, what would you do?
1. walk out of the store, disappointed or angry? or...
2. demand the retailer honor his advertisement?
How do you know Dell isn't doing this to generate interest?
Oh come on, they were expecting to buy a monitor for like $15, common sense says that the price is obviously wrong. They all saw the price and were hoping they'd get them dirt cheap before Dell realised.
$30,000 fine or $20 million loss due to selling the stock at that price. :\
So you're saying that it's ok not to double check anything and to set your prices at random. If I was Taiwan I'd have made it $3 000 000, not $30 000. Dell have whole departments dedicated to maintaining their website, I don't think anyone would have the balls or the stupidity to say that they didn't notice that something was wrong with the pricing.
Here in Australia, if you advertise at a price, you sell at that price, no matter if it's a mistake. The responsability is on the retailer to ensure their prices are correct.
This can be used to exploit people, eg: I am a customer of say Acme Computers, I always buy them, never would buy anything else. I see a price for a monitor listed on Acme's main competitor Emca Computers listed for $15 (the same product for Acme is $250) and feel it's too good to pass up, I ditch my regular supplier and buy a new monitor at stupidly low prices. I get a bill for $300, a full $50 more than from Acme. Essentially Emca stole business off Acme by using false advertising, on top of this I have paid $50 more than I would have normally.
So, no, it doesn't matter if it's legitimate or not, a company, at least under the laws in my country, is required to honour all pricing advertised, if not they are likely to get fines (much higher than the ones Taiwan gave out) and have to supply the item for the price advertised. If your sales & marketing departments can't get their prices right, might be time to get some new employees.
sortius, No one was charged the actual retail price. The orders were canceled and sent an apology. Way to build a straw man.
I walk into a store and I pick up an item and pick something off the shelf for 90 bucks, get to the register and it rings up 150. You know what the store does? They give it to me at the lower price. I'm commending Taiwan for putting their foot down and wish it was more stricter over here in the US.
Macbeth,
Your analogy is terribly flawed. The details really make there case here as the prices were so ridiculously marked that every single right-minded individual purchasing KNEW the prices were incorrect.
Rather, it's more analogous to you finding an HDTV at a big box retailer marked "3 for $1.00" and taking a dozen to the register expecting the price to be honored.
Seni: Except that Dell does this constantly in every country, and the price errors are not always ridiculous. Sometimes they look like they could just be blowout sales, but Dell just benefits from all the traffic- only to disappoint their customers once again. This is why they are being given a tiny fine- a slap on the wrist by the gov't to say "stop pulling this BS!"
@seni
This year alone Dell has cancelled 4 different orders I've place in their US site because they made a "mistake". I think it's time for Dell to start paying for their mistakes or paying attention.
See what I did there?
too many wrongs doesnt make it right.
the whole gov involoved this is because it took DELL over 10 days to respond they 1st error pricing, then it takes even longer to respond to the 2nd error.
it only takes 4hrs for them to respond the gov fine, how funny is that?
U've been treaded by what ur want to be treaded, so if u like to be a low life, plz dont say u r taiwanese, i feel sick when see/hear/stand with ppl like u specially when u r not even live on ur mother land.
sure, u can keep feel ashame of urself, but plz dont mark urself as taiwanese. u FOB.
@diver: at least read my comment carefully before replying. did i make a comment about how dell handle the situation? did i make a single comment about the government? i don't recall saying dell was right in my comment. and at least learn to speak proper english before using abbreviates, calling people names on the internet is just plain stupid. you want to know what's funny? it's funny how you asked other people not to be emotional, but your comments are full of them.
so only people who live in taiwan are taiwanese? which century do you live in? why dont you go out and see the world and learn some manner? this is a whole another issue that i'd like to ask you not to bring up, just like when you asked other people not to bring up economy. but really i dont care that much.
yes i'm still ashamed, ashamed of people taking advantage over other people's mistakes, and ashamed at people who think its right.
I'm from Taiwan too
and obviously you do not speak for everybody
not all taiwanese are like you
I strongly agree with the decision that the government has made
the whole price tag thing was a big scam!
Dell advertised its own company in this filthy way and walked away pretending nothing ever happened.
on the press conference it posed as an innocent victim who stood up and fought the "injustice"
providing the society such a terrible example how low graded a company could choose to be when it comes to making money without having to pay any price, I dont see any reason to let go of them just like that
the consumers were played around like a toy in Dell's hand
what a loser, dell
and you too, who stands on the side of this shameful crime
$30000 for advertising is cheap.
@peter: who said i sided with dell?
obviously i shouldn't say ashamed and taiwan in a same sentence, else people would just assume that i was talking trash, when i really was hoping taiwan was a better place. (please dont assume i said it's a bad place)
"plz dont say u r taiwanese, i feel sick when see/hear/stand with ppl like u specially when u r not even live on ur mother land."
You know what? I'm not British, Scottish, or Prussian either, because the people that came before me "not even live on...mother land".
Amazing how that works.
I'm not sure it's right to be ashamed. It is probably an expectation of government in every developed country to protect its constituents from deceit, bait-and-switch, and other bullshit tactics (imagine if it went like "hey we're sorry those prices were quoted but the real price is ten times that and they start shipping tomorrow; your cards have already been billed."
But for a giant like Dell, thirty grand is not really any incentive to prevent it in the future... And this is also probably right, because Dell reacted in the best possible way short of giving stuff away: they retracted the price and apologized, canceling orders.
God, I never thought I'd pay a compliment to Dell... Seriously this says "Dell handled its own blunder with dignity and grace."
Sounds like it'll be cheaper to pay the fine than to take the negative hit on all the orders.
Pretty snarky of Engadget to state that the "right thing" is to honor the price mistake. That was done by companies back in the 60's when the internet was fresh and new but hasn't been a common practice for years.
Except that Dell constantly pulls this BS. There's ALWAYS price errors on the Dell Canada website, where sometimes people wonder if it's a price error or just a blowout sale, and then they cancel everyone's orders. It happens way too often for it to not be intentional.
You had internet-based commerce back in the 60's? Cool, what planet did you live on (cause it wasn't earth)?
Pricing mistakes happen, but there are companies that intentionally abuse these pricing mistakes to gain publicity for their products as the "deal" goes viral on the net. Then a "oops" that item is discontinued notice.
SonyStyle for example had a supposed 50% off sale on games, except it was a pricing error, and only the least popular games that really weren't marked down in the first place shipped and all the popular ones did not. It also took Sony a week to come to this conclusion. First we received an email saying it was confirmed, then two days later an email saying our shipping was delayed, then a day later a "test - pricing error" notification that was supposedly just a test email accidentally sent out, then a day after that a real notification that it was a pricing error and our order would be canceled.
Followed by constant SPAM from sonystyle even though there was no option to check or uncheck to receive notice about new deals they have.
If there is even a hint of abuse or gross negligence and wasting of thousands of people's time, there needs to be a fine levied.
The price to pay of the people who ordered monitors is 2,100,000 and the fine is 30,000 What do you think they will do... Numbers from here http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/01/taiwan-orders-dell-to-honor-15-monitor-mishap/
Dell must be regretting from selling their products in Taiwan, with all the mishaps/mistakes/wrongdoing/etc.
It looks like Dell obviously does this on purphose for marketing reasons. I've never seen a company with so many price mistakes; I've been there it's all over deal threads and governments should have the right since people who hope for something eventually get it. NG Dell; you do it waay too often!
Have you seen lenovo's online store?
No matter how is lenovo's online store or other company's online store. If their pricing often make mistakes, they should be fined and make their online store system more reliable.
@darkmax: this happened to their online store.... and no i wouldn't know if dell did this on purpose, do you?
The amount should be closer to the amount that they have changed, perhaps 1 million USD. Why? Because it is a waste of someone's time and Dell has been doing this so many times it's like either fire your webmaster or get a new marketing plan -- or both. Dell is a bigger company too, 30 grand is like a CEO's lunch money.
I'm sick of the internet becoming a place of traps and gotchas and bullshit advertisements. It's bad enough that everywhere is chock full of these types of advertisements and pyramid schemes in order to get people to work for a 'free iPod.' True, there's no such thing as a free lunch, so QUIT ADVERTISING IT.
We know Dell would probably not sell a monitor for $15, but that's not our job to oversee that monitors are priced correctly. Seriously, did the guy just not proofread the site after changing/listing it? That's his job. He should be fired on principle alone. That's like someone going "Oh, I should wash my hands after going to the restroom?" that works a food service establishment. Duh.
Time is money, if they waste ours they should pay for it.
You just wasted my time with that rant.
Time to pay up.
Close shop in that country, establish in another country, sit and watch how the economy plays out.
I buy medical equipment from Medline that is manufactured in Taiwan........and I would say that in the 17 years I have been buying medical equipment, the Taiwanese stuff is the biggest pile of SH*T I have ever encountered.
There oughta be laws.
I dislike Taiwan with a passion.
Well, a simple solution would be to not buy from that company anymore...
You'd think it would be that simple, but unfortunately for myself I am limited to what Medline has to offer and crappy Alternating Pressure Mattress's from Taiwan are what I am stuck with. Since I don't have a say as to which vendor I get to use ........I lose.
Just because you dislike a single company in Taiwan is no reason to dislike Taiwan as a whole. You should just be glad you aren't getting this equipment from China.
then, maybe u should stop to use ur computer, wait... u can put the CPU on top of ur head with HDD in ur mouth and put 2 RAMs on ur ear and stick a power cord into ur a~ss to see if it would make ur life batter with less hate.
what a douche
I'd say "screw you Taiwan" with a capitol F. Doesn't Dell have some kind of print saying Not responsible for misprints? Fry's Electronics does this all the time.
Those disclaimers are oldest trick in the book. Just because a company says there not responsible doesn't mean they're not. 30 grand is just a slap on the wrist for Dell anyway. I think it's more of a message from the gov't saying: "get your stuff together, 'cause we're watching you"
Don't you think the reporter is a bit of idiot, do the right thing 2.1m vs 30k? Probably didn't even bother to do the research or he would have pointed out the cost differential. I have been on the winning side of a number of Dell pricing mistakes, they sell a lot of stuff and make some mistakes but the only reason they receive so much attention is that the deal sites immediately post them and point out that they are obviously errors. And then the people who try to take advantage of it are outraged and need to be "protected"! All these websites have those disclaimers like stores do about pricing errors. A better comparison would be a pricing sticker that was incorrect in a store, would we expect to get a 32" LCD TV because of an incorrect sticker? We would try but we would not be surpised if they told us they would not honor that price.
Dell should move to Hong Kong. I gets lots of cheap stuff from there.
I'm assuming you are from the USA. Maybe you should move to the United States so you learn a little geography.
Then you should be aware it already IS in Hong Kong.
The comment system strikes again... This was meant for mithinco
Woulda been good had it attached to the right comment.
This report has so many mistakes!
Dell fined $30,000 by Taiwan government wasn't only pricing mishaps!!
There're so many mistakes made by Dell, and Dell didn't wanna to face that.
Please watch your mouth! U don't like Taiwan it's U R business.
NOT all the American like U !!
Otto.de, on of the largeste online retailers had just 2 days a problem with offering MacBooks (Pro and Air) for just 49.95 Euro.
Source in german:
http://www.abendzeitung.de/geld/122181
http://www.scherzinfarkt.net/2009/07/schnappchen-shoppen-bei-otto-de/
Wow Thomas, U R from TOYS R US.
Seriously, Dell should just pack up and leave, Taiwan doesn't seem to want their business if they're going to try to scam them like that, they're so desperate, they'll pick up any little scrap of an excuse to get money as possible, this economy problem is world wide, remember?
actually... DELL never have retail store in Taiwan, so actually no need to pick up and leave, DELL does not have any retail/service center in Taiwan...
and, plz dont bring up the world economy thing on this, it got nothing to do with ur so call SCAM DELL, it only related to either ur got laid off or u r got no laid. so u can only speak with emotion.
I guess most ppl r quite low educated here, becoz they dont know how to protect their right.
got brain washed by Bush...
wow diver, full of hate as a taiwanese, are you DPP? ;)
Oh no, they are being fined $30.000, what ever shall they do now? They might as well shut down the whole company.
This has me legitimately worried about Dell. Bankruptcy, maybe?
Two things...
If you paid for something, and instead of say, a twenty, you gave someone a fifty, in Taiwan, the retailer should be able to keep the money, and not worry about making change.
Because you know, NOBODY has EVER made a mistake.
Also,
Dell should just stop selling in Taiwan. What's next in Taiwan, a ban on chewing gum?
we make mistakes, and we appologize and hope forgivness.
cant feel any of that from DELL. not even a sigle email to say " WE ARE SORRY TO MAKE THE PRICING MISTAKE...TWICE!!.."
so.. plz all u arrogant ppl, use ur brain more, and say less.
but, again, i cant find much detailed report from the US news, until today DELL got fined.
cant blame all u not so smart ppl, only have to blame the media i guess.
"plz all u arrogant ppl, use ur brain more"
Irony.
its not like the taiwanese government is going to walk around handing out that 30 grand anyways.
$1 000 000 is nothing for Dell.
I'm from Taiwan and in the beginning I thought Dell has made a mistake, but when you read into this Dell pricing issue you can immediately figure out Dell's marketing department is just stirring up interest. The prices after they "adjusted" the "incorrect" prices are very similar to what stores are selling at. No bargain either. Just bad marketing.
we punish its sin, not punish its rich.
Taiwan's minister of finance points his pinky finger at the corner of his mouth and says "thirty THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!! HA HA HA!" Assistant says, "umm....sir, they make thirty thousand dollars every 20 seconds."
(*12.3 billion in sales divided by the number of seconds in a fiscal quarter.)
for all u ppl live out side of taiwan, means u dont know what happened, so plz no need to use emotional words for things u dont know.
Too many wrongs doesnt make things right.
Most ppl here do not ask Dell to honer its price rather than a simple Appology in time, which DELL failed.
u ppl think we r too greedy, but, when the same item priced 1.5 time more than in the US, u think it is fair?
u want to be tread like sxxt, so be it, keep taking xhxt from big companies and think u deserved to be tread like xxit.
I love that sign. I see it every day walking in NY to my train.
@Capriskye
of course only ppl who lives in tw r taiwanese, whoelse we are? do we have to be on that topic?
it is Engadget, not Poligadget. FYI, I am currently typeing in my home, in Taiwan, and yes, I was stay in the U.S. for long time, so i guess my rudeness is not pick up from tw?? haha...-_-""
and... yah.. it is very funny that i use many motional words, even on my last post, which initinally to cool down, then I got lost... SORRY for that.
and the post in between... hum... I am only try to clear thing??!!
again, most ppl were not asking DELL to honor its error pricing for twice. ppl r mad becoz DELL holding those orders' money without giving a word twice. that's the point to make ppl mad. put urself in the same situation, if u r one of them, back in 6/26, after a week and u still got no words from DELL and u've already paid, what would u do?
People, plz tell me what would u do?
so.. since u r not living in tw, and assuming u not holding the green-gold passport. If my assuming is correct, Again I recommand u, dont call urself taiwanese.
if my comment made you think i was talking trash about taiwan, my mistake. but this topic isn't about patriotism, so i wont get into that. there are plenty of comments to show your patriotism, you obviously already knew.
when i said "so only people who live in taiwan are taiwanese?", i did not say people who live in taiwan are not taiwanese. you misunderstood the question, if not, are you saying during the time you were outside of taiwan, you didn't consider yourself a taiwanese?
if you dont like a company so much, you dont deal with it and walk away. i will never put myself in that situation because im smart enough to know it's a mistake and they will likely not honor the price. if its a publicity stunt, and they succeeded, who's fault is it? i dealt with dell before and they did not honor the price quoted (not a price mistake, just a good deal that got way too many orders), i did not ask for compensation, i canceled my order and promised myself to never deal with dell again. its that simple. they do this long enough they will go out of business without you doing anything.
obviously my comment made you angry as hell, so i will quote my comment again, with only the thing i meant to say,
"those people that took advantage of that and even think they had the rights to ask for compensation is even more shameful."
you assumed right, i dont live in taiwan, but i am a taiwanese.
I think what diver was trying to say, was that, if you were born American, and you happen to live in Taiwan, you are no longer American. are we understanding this correctly, diver?
DELL has SCREWED around the world, and I dont know why people still allow this kinda company to survive and keep get screwed.
So, I think the DELL got fined isnt necessary bad, at least we have to find out a way to stop companies SCAM CUSTOMERS in any other way. So it all depends on how u see it.
u cant always make the same mistake and say "oooooops, my bad."
once is mistake, twice is incautious, more than 3 times is purposely done. I cant believe ppl now would say..."oh~ we all make mistakes..." yah, same mistake uncountable times!!
finally, back to the stay in tw or not... u have not answer my question, which passport u have?
at the end...
i dont care the whole DELL thing at all, and it has been tons of moral discussions in taiwan already, but tell u the truth, ur initial post really made me have the urge to say something. Actually, I dont care if u r taiwanese or not. But If u r truly a taiwanese, plz be proud of who u r and make ur ppl proud of u.
good talk, good talk, if we were talking to face to face, i would raise the glass and and say cheers.
gladed i havent been marked negative yet.
late here, should go to bed. u guys have fun.
i hold a US passport, but what does it matter? now you are talking politically. you dont know me and dont know why im here.
show me that dell did this on purpose and i will say i am sorry. just because dell has done this before doesn't mean they did it on purpose, it's not run by one person. but again, i can care less how they do business.
i am proud of who i am, read my comment to peter. not once did i say you are not taiwanese, whether i am or not is not for you to decide.
you know what, I hate the way you type
*notice I spelled "you" instead of "u"
I don't ask for perfect grammar or spelling, as I don't have that either (I'm from Taiwan too)
but at least attempt to use proper spelling, it's very distracting and easily make you seem childish
taiwanese companies like acer and asus make better pcs than dell, why would they buy dell's products anyway? gotta be the dirt cheap misleading price online.
Because Dell's customer service is impossible to beat, and Acer's/Asus' products are not necessarily better than Dells. However, Dell's do tend to cost a tad more (when there isn't a glaringly obvious misprint).
On the last used dell laptop I purchased, Dell replaced a WUXGA screen and a battery outside of the warranty period for free thanks to special programs replacing faulty devices. The keyboard was also replaced for free as a bonus during the screen repair, which was completely my fault for my violent gaming style. Would Acer or Asus ever admit and replace faulty parts *outside* of warranty? I doubt it.
I am technical enough that I will go with whatever is cheapest when I buy a new/used machine and repair issues myself. However, when an extremely busy or non-technical person asks me what to buy, I will always tell them to go with Dell, without hesitation, so I don't end up being the one fixing their computers.
@ Bill
thanks for ur explanation...
just realized again the whole poligadget things gets me again, then i have to retype things since i just responded i dont care the nationality question.
so.. let's stick witht the DELL topic here... wait... I just responded I dont care as well...
nothing left to talk so... go to sleep
and with u have a great...day/noon/afternoon
I just love that the editors used this photo. The first time I saw that shop walking around the financial district in NYC, I broke into laughter right on the street and my wife pretended not to know me.
At least, I *hope* there's not two shops in the world with that sign.
A lot of interesting comments. I thought I'd chime in.
While it is true there are things we can't speak to yet, we all feel it is important to speak to those we can.
Pricing errors did occur on the Taiwan site, but once those errors were discovered, they were corrected, and we began proactively reaching out to those customers whose orders were affected. A toll-free number was provided for those with questions, and discount coupons were offered to customers who had their orders cancelled.
We can't yet comment on the government actions taken, but we can say that we are working with the government of Taiwan to reach a fair resolution for all parties involved.
And BTW-
Lionel Menchaca just posted a blog about the situation:
http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/archive/2009/07/30/what-s-going-on-in-taiwan.aspx
He's confirmed for me that billing occurs the day an order is shipped, so no one was billed for these cancelled orders.
Slight correction:
I was just informed that some customers *were* billed with the incorrect price. Where this did take place, we are contacting the customers to issue a refund.
I am American, and I feel damn shame to have such a stupid a American corporation, with stupid, lazy bum American workers, that can't even do their own advertising properly. At the same time, these same redneck, idiotic bums would keep foaming "cheap Chinese this," "cheap Chinese that" out of their mouths while jumping at the first chance to grab something, anything, either on sale, free after coupons, make-money after rebates, or anything with a price mistake...
It's about time somebody do something to slap these American crooks in the face to stop them from spreading their White crockeries all over the rest of the world.
$30K fine is peanuts to these bait-and-switch manipulators. Pay up! Then move out! And don't come back. Ever!
No Americans call themselves yankees... busted!
If you're gonna use that pic, you gotta tell us where we can cop Aldens on sale!
Proves that dell doesnt give much about the online community....otherwise their double checking department would be a lot more effective.