As a follow up to http://cybercjh.com/blog/2008/02/05/15-tb-of-external-storage-89-off-dells-price-mistake/, I have filed the following complaint with the Florida Attorney General.
I write to you today to file a complaint against dell.com, a website selling computers and related items, run by Dell Inc., One Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas 78682. I believe Dell participates in deceptive trade practices and false advertisement to obtain personally identifiable information about current and potential customers that they then inappropriately, and possibly illegally, use to their advantage. (Background Info…) In order to purchase an item from Dell’s website, you must enter personally identifiable information, including, but limited to, your full name, shipping address, billing address, telephone number, e-mail address, credit card number and expiration date and/or banking account routing number and account number. Dell then uses this information to, not only allegedly complete your transaction and ship what you ordered, but also to compile detailed statistical sales reports and to send advertisements for their products and services. (Complaint starts here…) However, Dell consistently prices items incorrectly on their website and only after the customer completes the online request to order that item and has entered their personally identifiable information does Dell then refuse to complete the transaction by shipping the item ordered. This practice has gone on for quite some time. As far back as 2003, Dell was selling a PDA on its website that normally retailed for $379 for just $79. After potentially thousands of customers placed an order for this PDA by going to dell.com and divulging their personally identifiable information to Dell, Dell refused to ship the items unless the customers agreed to pay full price. Otherwise, their orders were canceled. But, Dell kept the personally identifiable information of those customers even though they did not use it to complete a transaction. Another example of this practice by Dell includes an incident from 2007 involving a FujiFilm FinePix S700 digital camera where Dell was listing them item for sale on their website for $29.99 when the actual price was $299.99. Again, after potentially thousands of customers entered their personally identifiable information, Dell canceled the orders unless those customers agreed to pay the higher price. And again, Dell kept the personally identifiable information of those customers even though they did not use it to complete a transaction. Another more recent example of this practice by Dell includes an incident from this week where Dell was selling a SimpleTech 1.5 TB External Hard Drive for $67.99 when the actual price was $599.99. Again, after potentially thousands (or perhaps tens of thousands) of customers entered their personally identifiable information, Dell canceled the orders unless those customers agreed to pay the higher price but kept the personally identifiable information of those customers even though they did not use it to complete a transaction. A simple search on the Internet would lead you to many, many more examples of this deceptive practice.
To summarize my complaint, Dell …
(1) consistently and methodically prices items on their website well below their manufacturer’s suggested retail price, knowing that by doing so will generate a huge interest in that item, but does not have any intentions of actually shipping said items at the incorrect price, in order to obtain personally identifiable information about potential and current customers, and then
(2) only after the customers have entered their personally identifiable information, cancels the orders for those items unless the customers agree to pay a higher price for the item (notwithstanding their purported disclaimer that they are not responsible for such errors), and then
(3) does not give those customers the option of deleting their personally identifiable information from Dell’s servers, records and/or databases, and then
(4) uses said personally identifiable information to compile detailed statistical sales reports that are then used for their own gain and to send unwanted advertisements for their products and services.As you can see, the complaint is not that Dell refuses to complete transactions when they incorrectly price an item. The complaint is that Dell keeps the personally identifiable information, even if the transaction was not successfully completed, and then uses that information inappropriately and possibly illegally, for their own financial gain.
Update 4/21/08 … Due to spam, the ability to comment on this post has been disabled.
