Dell Could Face Fines For Recent Price Errors

[Marcus Yam]

Those 'fine' deals could cost Dell.

Dell Could Face Fines For Recent Price Errors : Read more

 

[nekatreven]

ouch. I'm sure someone got fired for this one...

 

[mikepaul]

I realize there'd be NO Internet shopping if all websites had to conform to "no backing out of a bad price" rules, but the sheer gall of these companies just blythely going "ooops, sorry, order cancelled" hundreds of times a year with no adverse impact makes me happy to see some payback...

 

[nekatreven]

@mikepaul
Every Dell site I've ever been on has that disclaimer warning they'll cancel orders that result from pricing errors. I know what you mean though...they probably hide behind it. I think the coupon idea they did in this instance might actually be perfect. At least it costs them a little something and the customer gets a little credit

Heh...I've always wanted to find a pricing error and then order and see if I could talk around the disclaimer.

"No, no... you see my order didn't arise because of the pricing error, I was going to buy the thing anyway! This was just a, a bonus, that appeared when I went to check out..."

 

[doc70]

[citation][nom]mikepaul[/nom]I realize there'd be NO Internet shopping if all websites had to conform to "no backing out of a bad price" rules, but the sheer gall of these companies just blythely going "ooops, sorry, order cancelled" hundreds of times a year with no adverse impact makes me happy to see some payback...[/citation]
my thoughts exactly... but they'll work out a deal sweet for them and not for the costumers...

 

[chaohsiangchen]

[citation][nom]mikepaul[/nom]I realize there'd be NO Internet shopping if all websites had to conform to "no backing out of a bad price" rules, but the sheer gall of these companies just blythely going "ooops, sorry, order cancelled" hundreds of times a year with no adverse impact makes me happy to see some payback...[/citation]

I'm from that shitty little island and I can tell you that, well, internet shopping is quite different there. People still mostly use cash there, and money is paid to delivery man rather than via commercial banks. The amount of fraud and scam is so high, that people don't trust credit system in general. Price error is almost impossible on online stores run by Taiwans themselves, since they know that's exactly what's going to happen.

Online shopping is definitely will not take off in Taiwan. It doesn't matter anyway. The island is so small that you can find nearest computer store within 30 seconds of walk.

 

[Nakecat]

First, PC World was right at 3000 NT coupon, but later Dell Changed their mind to 20000 NT.

Second, the 20000 NT coupon will only be valid if you buy the same model E4300, sounds good for 69000-20000 right? Wrong, because Dell over price the laptop. People can buy the same laptop from retail at around 40000 with discount, so dell is trying to play the game while make a lot of outrage people.

Third, Dell doesn't care about Taiwan branch since it's small, which make people so mad in Taiwan. Dell paid way much better when the same thing happened in china a while back, because that's where the cash cows are.

 

[Platypus]

[citation][nom]doc70[/nom]my thoughts exactly... but they'll work out a deal sweet for them and not for the costumers...[/citation]
Is it Halloween yet? Why would Dell worry about the costumers?

 

[velocityg4]

I think the Dell should have to honor the price. In the US if you go in a retail store and a piece of merchandise is clearly priced they must honor that price. So I do not see anything different from an online store nor catalog for that matter.

It's not like a screwed up ad in the newspaper or a magazine. Which has to go through a third party for printing making the reseller not liable for misprints.

 

[velocityg4]

I think the Dell should have to honor the price. In the US if you go in a retail store and a piece of merchandise is clearly priced they must honor that price. So I do not see anything different from an online store nor catalog for that matter.

It's not like a screwed up ad in the newspaper or a magazine. Which has to go through a third party for printing making the reseller not liable for misprints.

 

[techtre2003]

I think this type of thing happens more than many people realize; and not just by Dell. I don't do that much shopping on the internet and I've had 3 orders canceled. One was by Amazon, one by the Discovery channel store, and the other by a big PC components company (don't remember which one). One of those was a price error and the other two were great sale prices that I ordered multiple quantities of; neither site had a limit posted. In only one of those cases did I even get an email that my order was canceled.

 

[acecombat]

Even if they are fined the full NT$25m they would be better taking that then shipping the units at the reduced price.
NT$69,000 - NT$18,500 = NT$50,500 loss on normal sale price
NT$50,500 x 40,000 orders that were placed = NT$2,020m loss

 

[Guest]

The Taiwan Consumer Commission looks pretty toothless frankly. Looking at the paltry maximum fine they could face, I think Dell would prefer to take the hit of being fined rather than be forced to sell 40,000 laptops at over US$1,500 below retail each! For comparison the maximum fine the Commission can impose (assuming the article is correct) works out to be just $18.95 per cancelled laptop order, far less than the coupons they've already given out

 

[jerreece]

Dell obviously has a SERIOUS problem with posting their prices on their Taiwan based website. I think the commission ought to come down on them pretty heavily to force Dell to correct whatever problems they're having in their numerical conversions.

Without forced change, apparently Dell is going to keep posting ridiculously erroneous prices on items.

Though I'd love to buy a $2,000 laptop for $600 (if it was really worth $2k).

 

[Wayoffbase]

[citation][nom]nekatreven[/nom]ouch. I'm sure someone got fired for this one...[/citation]
you would think they would have been fired the first time...

 

[Silluete]

Anybody else think taiwan dell web has hacked? or just me...

 

[ohim]

I don`t understand why is Dell supposed to pay any fines ... how retarded this world has come to realy belive an LCD will sell for only 30$ and a 2k $ laptop will sell for 500$ ... is the world filling with morons and we need some organisation to help them in their daily life ? Is the global IQ dropping that rapid ?

 

[yao]

Why does Dell make such a stupid mistake all the time. It happened on Dell US before. fortunately, they don't need to honor that.

 

[computabug]

If Dell wants to stay in business, they better fulfill every single on of their orders, even the ones with incorrect prices.

Working with the commission? What's there to work on? Just ship out the products to the customers like any trustworthy company would do...

 

[kal326]

[citation][nom]computabug[/nom]If Dell wants to stay in business, they better fulfill every single on of their orders, even the ones with incorrect prices.Working with the commission? What's there to work on? Just ship out the products to the customers like any trustworthy company would do...[/citation]

It probably has something to do with the $61,517,600US loss they would incur by shipping the laptops alone. The vast majority of the 40,000 orders for the laptop would probably all people that were only purchasing the laptop because it was roughly 25% of its original price and most of them probably found out about it because of some deal site.

If 4 or 5 people that were legitamitly going to purchase the machine at full price ordered before Dell realized the error I would say honor the error similar to an incorrect sign in a retail store. But when 40,000 orders are placed to expliot an error it is a vastly differant scenario in my opinion. If 40,000 people showed up to a store in a few hours to purchase something with an incorrect price the issue would have been resolved within a few, if not one transaction.

 

[agentbb007]

I totally agree with kal326. You cannot compare a huge online retailer to your neighborhood best buy. If you local best buy accidentally posts a $2k laptop for $500 they will find the error after the 1st laptop is sold and are only out $1500 not a big deal. But when 40,000 orders are placed that's completely different and a company shouldn't be required to sell any of those units.