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Dell Refunds Vista/Works With Two Emails
look@thealternative.ch writes "Although many people have asked for pre-installed Linux, and Dell seems to have listened, some still think that buying a naked PC won't be easy. But what about stripping it naked after you buy it? I managed to get Windows Vista (and a bit more) refunded from Dell Germany last week. The process was surprisingly simple: 1) After delivery, ask Dell Support for refund by email. 2) ??? 3) Refund!!! Read the full email conversation in the original German or my English translation. For the impatient reader: The refund is €77.54 for Windows Vista Home Basic plus Works 8.0 (that is 15% of the total amount I paid). The whole process took 2 emails, 2 more to say thank you, and less than 48 hours. The money is already in my account. Kudos to Dell Customer Care (esp. 'Veronika') for being efficient and customer-oriented!"
Isn't it wonderful when the hot/nice telephone operator helps you out with your "problem" in an efficient manner. It's like this little relationship you're having you where she's completely at your service there making your life so so so wonderful.
But then she goes and does it with the next guy too. Dirty girl.
77 for Vista OEM is acceptable. Now, make that not an accident but a regular refund, and explain hos to do it elsewhere than in Germany, and I'm sold.
We're talking about a 1-800 number, not a 1-900.
Dear Vista Hater,
As you do not want the Windows Vista operating system, we will refund you the purchase price you paid for it (ca. 42.29 Euro gross). I would like to ask you to send me your bank details that I can mark the payment in our system. I need:
your name:
bank name:
city (of bank):
bank code:
account no:
The money should be paid back within one week.
Yours Sinfully,
Ajabaili Sakilikulu
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
back in the day, after buying two computers from them and having generally bad support experiences.
This makes me want to give them another chance.
I wonder if they could automate the process the same way you track the shipment of your PC.
Enter your order ID. Enter your Vista key.. and then a refund is processed. The Vista key could be submitted to Microsoft such that it no longer authenticates copies of Vista on Dell PC's (XP/Vista activation and WGA knows the difference somehow, somewhere) and Dell can have the money sent to the user without tying up their customer support line.
Microsoft might be concerned that they don't get their money for this, but then again it would be against the law for them to do anything like force Dell not to do it, or insist that users do not get a refund anyway (the EU would have a field day and think up some higher billion dollar amounts for fines).
I bet it costs more to process it through 'Veronika' than clicking a website button would.
The uptake on this? I dunno. Maybe a lot of people would use it.. but a far higher number would not give a crap and carry on running Vista. I think shipping a naked/bare PC is extremely user-unfriendly and it also gives Dell a burn-in-test nightmare (how do you burn in a laptop which is supposed to have never had an OS installed on it? Do you then perform a military-grade disk wipe after you put the burn-in software on there? I dunno..). Putting the most popular, most needed for most people OS on the system (Vista I guess) is an okay thing to do. But I do think if you don't actually want Vista, you should be able to go through and click the Refund button..
That sounds nice an all, but it's in Germany. How about other places? Is German Dell an anomaly here?
This sig is neither interesting, nor humorous. Including meta-humor.
For almost 10 years, the lock on OSes to hardware with companies like Dell has not been mandated by MS, and finally we see one of these companies stepping up to the plate and doing the right things.
The Windows and or OSes tied to hardware are for pure support cost reasons at this point with companies like Dell/HP/etc.
Even prior to the dissolving of MS only contracts, any hardware company had the choice to not buy into an exclusive package from MS and pay the $5/10 bucks more per copy. And even though MS took the flack for this, it was not an uncommon model in the software/OEM industry and it was also something that the greed of OEMs were eager to take advantage of to the loss of their customers.
I was part of a fairly large OEM company during this timeframe, and we chose not to save the $5 a copy on OEM Windows, and still maintained a great relationship with MS even still we sold naked and *nix preloaded on many systems.
Sure we could have signed a bundling deal, just like we were offered by Corel and even IBM in the early years for OS/2, however saving a couple of $$ per Windows system was less important than providing our customers what they wanted.
So Kudos to Dell for finally stepping up and taking responsibility for the product they are selling...
So far as I can see, the guy could take the money and still be using vista. At least, I don't see anywhere any verification of the non-use was requested. so how does this work? what's to stop someone lying to Dell and getting 77 bucks
some still think that buying a naked PC won't be easy. But what about stripping it naked after you buy it?
Doing things that way always gets me waaay more in the mood. Gotta do it slowly though.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Since IANAL, do any of you know of differences in consumer laws/regulations that may have made it easier for the German or European customer? Previous slashdot stories suggested that a Windows refund have been a mess for US customers in the past.
Maybe charge PC vendors a "Gates" fee that is equivalent to 99% of the revenue of the OS, then charge $1 per Vista copy. So Dell can only refund $1 to the customer, but still pays about the same amount of what it would have sold in a year (assuming all PCs pre-installed with Windows).
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
...trust. For now, anyways.
There was a debate over what to name the new Germany everywhere in Europe except Germany.
In Germany the debate was over what to call France.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Note the following line:
Vista did not manage to recover from the aborted install process the previous day and got lost in an infinite loop of reboots. (I wonder what people do with a power outage during install as there was no such thing as a Vista-CD delivered...)
And I've noticed that some OEMs aren't setting up a "recovery" partition (basically, a second partition which can be booted directly from the BIOS which reinstalls the OS) any more. Not good at all. Heck, I took delivery of a PC only last week where there was no hardware fault from the factory, but there was something wrong with the OEM Windows install and it was stuck in a reboot loop. Didn't bother me as we've got a Windows site license so I could rebuild from our own media anyway, but that's not really the point.
That was EU77.00 for Vista and 00.54 for Works.
Sounds about right.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Step zero is to buy from Dell in Europe, not in USA. European consumer protection is far better than in USA.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
So how do they know you really formatted it, and aren't using Vista Home.
Don't expect it to be so easy anywhere else, Dell gets a lot of subsidy from Microsoft for the 'Linux' games it plays. Bullshit. There is no such law here in Germany.
Everybody on the world has this right; just read the damn MS-EULA the next time you reinstall; it's in there.
You took a perfectly good Windows computer(...)
Is there such a thing?
I'm impressed to hear you got the crud Works refunded too. I didn't realise that was possible. I bet if more knew/could be bothered Dell and the like would be issuing loads of refunds. I bet less than 10% of users ever use Works.
... but here in Austria you can order Dell Workstations with Linux (RedHat) preinstalled. Also, about a year ago, I ordered a Dell Precision 380 workstation without a preinstalled OS (It came with a FreeDos partition containing drivers and docs IIRC). YMMV
The Firefox Web Developer Extension has an option to uncheck all radio buttons. I wonder what happens if you click that on dell's site. I Run off to dell.ca. I am amazed they sell vista desktops with 512 MB of Ram. Well, even if you uncheck all the radio buttons, it still thinks you chose windows vista. It doesn't even report any errors. I think i'm going to email dell and tell them about the bug.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Dell: How can we help you?
Mr. Vista Free: My DVD burner exploded.
Dell: Right-click on the DVD drive and click "Properties".
Mr. Vista Free: I'm using Ubuntu.
Dell: Right-click on the icon please.
Mr. Vista Free: My friggin DVD drive exploded!
Dell: Please download the updated Vista drivers.
Mr. Vista Free: I run Ubuntu and besides I don't need drivers! I need a fire extinguisher!
Dell: Well please go to Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs and uninstall Ubuntu. That might be causing the problem.
Mr. Vista Free: LISTEN YOU DAMN CU... (head explodes)
Really any PC system can run Linux or *BSD Unix, you don't need Mac hardware for that.
The only reason for buying a more expensive system like a Macintosh computer would to be to run Mac OSX on it. Otherwise you can buy PCs with the same hardware cheaper from other vendors sans an OS and install Linux or *BSD Unix whatever on it.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
That's not quite what the law says. Dell are allowed by law to only sell PCs with Windows if they so choose. What the law says is that the "OEM" version of the software may be sold without any accompanying hardware, and that Microsoft is explicitly forbidden from making versions of Windows which are tied to (only run on) specific machines. You can see this article (in German) for an overview; the judgement itself, from 6th July 2000, is typed up here (also German). This law is also the reason that people in Germany can legally sell their used OEM Windows software on ebay, even if the EULA says that the software may not be sold separately from the machine it came with.
It has also been hinted at that extra conditions of use (eg: in the EULA) on boxed software that were not visible on the outside of the box prior to purchase may be counted as null and void, but this has not yet been confirmed by a court of law - in Germany, or AFAIK anywhere else in the EU.
The situation in the States is, of course, an entirely different kettle of fish. As far as being a consumer goes, it's the land of the not-so-free.
-- Steve
Judging by the emails, they didn't want to see any proof that you had uninstalled Windows, or even that you had actually bought a Dell machine.
Is this offer of free money available to everyone? Or did they check more than you show in the emails?
I read "Dell Refunds Vista" and "Works With Two Emails" separately and then parsed the second phrase as a Native American name, akin to "Dances With Wolves" and "Stands With a Fist".
How would a Native American get the name "Works With Two Emails"?