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Gateway Customer Sues to Get His PC Fixed
prostoalex writes "The Sacramento Bee tells the story of an El Dorado resident who had to go to small claims court to get his Gateway PC fixed: 'Right out of the box, he says, the computer displayed scattered graphics and wouldn't work properly. He says he called a Gateway salesman five times and sent him an e-mail to get an authorization number to send the computer back, but his phone calls and message were never returned. Then, over the course of months, Sheehan said he called Gateway technical support dozens of times.' Gateway insists that by clicking 'Accept' on a customer service EULA when the computer was first booted, Mr. Sheehan has waived his rights to sue the computer manufacturer in United States courts. The Gateway EULA states that conflicts must be resolved via private arbitrage. Sheehan, though, argues that he never saw the EULA, because of the broken graphics. As such, he's not held to that agreement." Some connections between this and a discussion about a Second Life case we had yesterday.
And even more connection to THIS ARTICLE from yesterday:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
He just posts here ... I don't think he reads the site much.
Some awesome legalise there.
Regardless if a user accepts a EULA, its actually against the law to unlawfully restrict their rights in tapping into some legal protection for sale of faulty goods. Well it is in Australia, I'm sure the US has similar laws to protect consumers.
Don't accept this garbage - I'm glad his fighting for his rights to receive what was intended - a working product.
I never understood why someone would pay /. for the privilege of doing their work for them...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The securities brokerage industry, stocks, bonds, etc.. has been doing this for decades. If you want a brokerage account, I don't care where, you have to agree to an industry arbitration. And some business magazine, I believe "Forbes", many years ago found that the arbitration panels are heavily loaded in the industries favor.
I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand it sounds like everything is weighted in favor of the company and against the consumer.
On the other hand, many times consumers cause themselves their own problems and refuse to take responsibility for them. Whether it be installing boards incorrectly themselves, or gambling on the derivatives market. I, for one, don't want to have to pay other's litigations, whether through increased product costs, or insurance costs.
As Gateway tells it in court filings, the company replaced Sheehan's computer a few months after he first complained, and he kept both machines.
Oh yeah, it sounds like, if Gateway is telling the truth, that this guy is trying to "game" the system and get a free computer.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
What happened to the "dupe" tag? Why doesn't it show up any more? Obviously I'm not the only one to notice, as it seems to have been replaced by "duped." So what happened to it, and all the humorous tags -- haha, itsatrap, etc. What gives?
Saw this come from "the mysterious future" and I e-mailed the on-duty editor like it says. I guess that doesn't work so well.
It's because Zonk can't see what's on his screen and is just blindly clicking around. You should expect to be sued by him for the dupe soon.
This guy's the limit!
Not only that, but they have no way to know if you've accepted the EULA.
AFAIK, Gateway doesn't offer Linux as an OS option. If you want to run Linux, you'll probably boot to a Linux install disc the first time you turn on your machine, bypassing any EULA and nuking it in the install process. I suppose they could build it into the BIOS, but if they combine all of the EULAs into one, then you'll be forced to accept them even if you never use the software the EULAs cover.
Really, the proper thing to do is make these conditions part of the terms of sale, made known to the customer BEFORE the sale is made.
Cost of fixing the bust PC: $200
Cost of lost sales due to bad publicity: $200,000
How does that make sense ?
O, I am willing to moderate. It's just I accidentally cranked open a huge canister of -1 troll on the wrong post. Figured I didn't want to spoil the poor guy's karma.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
I installed software once that had the best EULA ever. While it did have the "legal speak" version you had to agree to, it also had a recap in layman's terms. Made it very very easy to see what you were agreeing to.
Example (not a real example, but you get the idea) :
1.1 Installation and use. You may install, use, access, display and run one copy of the Software on a single computer, such as a workstation, terminal or other device ("Workstation Computer"). The Software may not be used by more than one processor at any one time on any single Workstation Computer.
Becomes
1.1 You get one copy for one computer.
I get my kids to click EULA's since contracts with minors are not valid.