Slashdot Mirror
Dell Sues Tiger Direct For Misleading Customers
An anonymous reader writes "Dell is apparently suing popular online retailer Tiger Direct, claiming that Tiger violated the resale contract it had with Dell, which included false advertising, misleading representation and unfair competition. Dell has accused Tiger Direct of selling old and out-dated Dell computers that Tiger Direct purchased from other resellers and then saying they were brand new directly from Dell. They also passed the computers off as still having a full warranty, but the warranties had expired long ago."
From what i have seen at their site most of their stuff is improperly advertised. mostly warranties that are not really as long as they say.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I used Tiger in the early part of the decade and ended up spending so much time on the phone or on emails fixing my orders with them that I have never gone back. I tried eight orders, all eight were so screwed up that I never went back.
Do like the first person said, use Newegg, the customer service is 5 star and the prices are not bad either.
p.s I don't work for Newegg - However, I really like the customer reviews for parts I intend to buy.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
I didn't even realize people went anywhere but newegg...
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
They were once one of the biggest direct mail PC sellers. They had multi-page ads in Computer Shopper and PC Magazine. They later started having their own monthly mini-catalogs. Today they just seem like a joke compared to Newegg.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Seriously! I gave up shopping anywhere other than newegg when I moved to a small town. I'll wander around an electronics store for fun if I go to the city but I buy everything from newegg now. The few times I've compared prices on big ticket items newegg has always been cheaper anyway.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
I've actually gotten a lot of hardware from tigerdirect, and I've always been happy. Aside from the 2 day free shipping I always get, I've had good experience with those "fuzzy" warranties.
I had some cheapo-brand Nvidia card a few years ago that stopped working after about a year. It was well out of the warranty period but I send it back and was given a replacement. The replacement was even a much better card than the original.
I've even ordered something the hour before the rebate sale ended and they honored the rebate with an instant coupon instead of me having to send it in. (I guess the billing is a few hours behind, so I'd have been fucked on the rebate.)
Simple. Dell's warranty is fundamentally flawed. IANAL, but even I was able to spot three parts of their warranty that seem to be legally noncompliant in a quick one minute skim. It's pretty sad, really.
Products are warranted based on date of manufacture, not date of customer sale. From their warranty info:
If I read that correctly, then when Dell sold it to the original reseller, the warranty began. I'm not certain, but such a warranty period probably runs afoul of Magnuson-Moss. At least in my mind, that clearly qualifies as a deceptive warranty term---a warranty that appears to provide coverage, but does not actually provide any coverage in some cases. It would be nice for some big company like Dell to get the crap sued out of them to set a precedent against warranty periods that start on the date of manufacture. It would be somewhat ironic if a dirtbag company like TigerDirect ended up being on the right side of such a suit, though. :-)
Dell explicitly doesn't extend product warranties if they repair the machine, but IIRC, California law requires them to extend the warranty for every day the product is out of the customer's hands.
IIRC, California law requires that all new consumer electronics products have a minimum of a 90 day warranty from when the customer receives the product. There are a number of products that would run short by several days, depending on shipping time, and in the case of products sold through a reseller like Tiger Direct, the warranty could actually be zero....
I think it's long past time for consumers to revolt against such abusive warranties. Warranties should, by law, start when the consumer receives the product. Anything else is unethical, and quite probably illegal.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Anyone remember TD's odd direct mail tactics in the mid 90's. They had a similiar approach to what Columbia House did with music CD's. They sent out mailings that threatened to send you software that you didn't order if you didn't send back the mailer with a certain box checked. That was thier thankyou for ordering out of the catalogue.
I work for a school, and we use their B2B site quite a bit. We buy tons of printers, hard drives, monitors, TVs, VCR/DVD players, open license software...etc. from them.
Yes, they are cheap, yes they sell refurbed and B-stock stuff - but it is all clearly labeled. Devoting 5 minutes to reading a product description for a large purchase isn't asking too much.
As far as their customer service goes, we have a dedicated sales rep, so I can't comment on personal purchases, but we've been very happy with our rep. Out of 100 or so orders, we've had maybe two screw-ups. Our rep promptly fixed the problem in both cases.
So, here's one happy customer....whatever that's worth.
-ted
Check out ncix out of Vancouver (yes, they ship to the US). I've always had amazing service from them and their prices are hard to beat (in Canada at least). Plus they will price match other online retailers. Also great for me as I don't get dinged with duty charges.
I stopped dealing with TigerDirect and TigerDirect.ca years ago. I've had bad experiences with them and often the cheap items they carry are exactly that, cheap. Anything worth buying from them I can most likely get at the same price elsewhere.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
The problem is newegg.ca's prices don't really compete up here. NCIX.com is still the Canadian newegg equivalent, imo.
That's exactly what Dell's claiming, and I know this first hand.
The machines are consistently off-lease machines; The (l)users who're buying them think:
* The machine is new
* The machine has a warranty that covers everything including the end of the world
* The machine is the latest hardware on the market
When in reality, the computers are:
* 3-4 years old
* Outside of the official Dell warranty by months at the very least
* Decent, but older hardware compared to the current systems (Latitude D600 compared to Latitude D630 or Latitude E5500)
* Missing operating system media that customers do not want to pay retail for
* Still in the previous company's name, which means the computers weren't bought through Dell Financial Services' Off-Lease division
* Have a warranty through Bankers Warranty Group (as of the last time I actually called the hidden number on TD's site for a customer that I placed on hold, just to see how they handle it) that is very short-term, and often resolves issues by just exchanging the damn computer.
Things that TFA wouldn't tell you, basically. :)
One of these days, I am going to flip out. When I flip out, I'll be back in five minutes.
No, it's obviously where you get Apple's Tiger operating system. Or wait, it's Apple who does mail-order for them. It's so confusing!
AMD is great, but ATI still can't write drivers. Their hardware might be great, but the world will never know. That said, if you're running Windows the ATI driver usually works. Just, you know, not very well.
Your descriptions of Tiger Direct make me think of Fry's. Heaven for the hardcore, so long as you don't expect too much, and know what you're doing. Way too easy to scam, which means that innocent customers take it in the shorts on a regular basis.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yes they both went out of business, and AFTER that Tiger Direct bought the remainders. I need to clarify that Tiger Direct is owned by Systemax, and Systemax is who made the purchases I am speaking about. I believe for CompUSA it was 12 or so actual store buildings and the name CompUSA. The Circuit City purchase included IP, the Circuit City name, and their webpage. So now Systemax operates Tiger Direct as a eTailer, and CompUSA as a B&M retailer. Their plans for the Circuit City properties haven't been announced yet as far as I know. You can find other non Wiki announcements but I linked it below since it refers to both deals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemax
Which day would I not have received it on?
The day the shipping tracking indicates it was supposed to have arrived.
I put the 't' in electrical engineering.