DELL Accused of Misleading Customers With Fake Discounts

DELL is facing litigation in Australia over misleading customers with fake monitor discounts which is mostly unsurprising for the majority of us familiar with DELL.

DELL Misleading Customers

As reported by TomsHardware, the Australian Federal Court has shared information surrounding recent litigation that DELL Australia faces surrounding fake discounts on its monitors. The argument is surrounding the add-on monitors that DELL provides alongside its pre-built systems, specifically, it’s Alienware systems which were used as an example by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in their press release regarding this issue. The argument is that the add-on monitors feature a strikethrough price which was inaccurate and made to mislead customers into thinking they were getting a good deal when purchasing as an add-on. Liza Carver of the ACCC even revealed that in some cases customers had paid more for the “discounted” add-on monitor than they would’ve if they had bought the monitor on its own. The Court has ordered Dell Australia to pay full or partial refunds to customers who have paid more than $2 million for these monitors between August 2019 and December 2021 which it has done so for some customers and is working on contacting others.

Are We Surprised?

It’s no secret that DELL’s Alienware PCs are viewed as overpriced, proprietary e-waste by the DIY PC building community so the fact that they’ve attempted to swindle more money from customers by creating false discounts is entirely unsurprising to me. I’m glad they are facing the consequences of their actions but I’d also like to point out that this is only for Australia and I think an investigation needs to be done for Dell’s other locations.

Have you ever bought a DELL pre-built? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.