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Alienware Refusing Customers As Thieves
ChrisPaget writes "Thinking about buying Alienware (now owned by Dell)? Think again. After buying an almost-new Alienware laptop on eBay, I've spent the last week trying to get hold of a Smart Bay caddy to connect a second hard drive (about $150 for $5 of bent metal). Four different Alienware teams have refused to even give me a price on this accessory, instead accusing me of stealing the machine since I didn't buy it directly from their eBay store. They want me to persuade the eBay seller I did buy it from to add me as an authorized user of his Alienware account — they have no concept of 'ownership transfer' and instead assume that if you're not in their system, you must be a thief."
I had to buy some plastic components to repair a Dell laptop a while back, so I searched online and got a list of the part numbers I needed. I called someone working for Dell in India, and got the total price I'd need to pay to buy the stuff directly from them [after having the phone rep try to sell me RAM or something]. Turns out I saved a bit by buying everything online.
This the correct answer and any consumerist bloggers should pick up this story and INVESTIGATE properly to report their findings. (I do not advocate merely copying stories as it is both immoral and pretty dangerous if it turns out you are reporting incorrect information as is increasingly the case where people use Wikipedia as an authoritative source for information, for example.) Each and every one of these cases need to be brought to light so that either the company capitulates under the burden of public knowledge or the knowledge of the public makes them better consumers and can better avoid such vendors and their practices.
which can not be licensed away [arstechnica.com] by any EULA, at least in the United States.
Non sequitur. If you read your linked article, you'll see this bit:
Citing the 1977 case of United States v. Wise, which involved the sale of used films obtained under dubious circumstances, Jones found that the Ninth Circuit's precedents suggested that the circumstances surrounding the sale of AutoCAD software constituted a sale, not merely a license. Therefore, the First Sale Doctrine applied, and Vernor was not bound by any of the terms in Autodesk's license agreement.
But the judge acknowledged that three more recent Ninth Circuit decisions involving software seemed to cut in the opposite direction without explicitly overturning Wise. Jones found that Wise was controlling precedent, and ruled in Vernor's favor. If the case gets appealed to the Ninth Circuit, the conflict among these precedents is likely to occupy the court's attention.
I don't know if that case was appealed, or what's happened to it. However, even if it was appealed and upheld, I believe that ruling would set precedent only for the 9th circuit, not the entire U.S. I don't remember off the top of my head, but I seem to recall there being a circuit split on this issue.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Alienware feels like they're trying to do business in a new age of credit card fraud but can't quite figure it out yet. Almost all vendors require your shipping address to be on your credit card as a billing address, but they can tell you about it almost instantly. Customer service tells you that you can add a secondary address on your credit card really easily. Not Alienware. Many vendors require you to have a proof of ownership for certain service. Dell lets you change the ownership online. Not Alienware.
Alienware needs to invest some of its hard-tricked money into providing decent customer service.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
No - if their concern is valid, you tell them where you bought the computer, provide serial numbers and so forth, they take any number of actions, including:
1. Working with law enforcement - if the thing was stolen, you're either out or you have a civil case against the thief.
2. Transfer the record to you
You're right to look at the social side of the issue - but go a step further - technology can solve this particular problem.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
*shrug*
I've been building PCs for decades.
Meanwhile, my wife and I each have an Alienware desktop PC.
Why? Well, first, we each needed a new computer. The motherboard was dead on her venerable Dell desktop, and Dell's case was sufficiently strange to preclude replacing that component by itself. Later, I wanted a box to play games on, without disturbing my Linux desktop machine.
Second: The price was right. Before we bought these computers, I did the usual sanity check against Newegg. After buying putting a whole PC worth of good components of similar specification into my cart, the price difference was about $100.
Yeah - $100.
For that hundred bucks, one gets a very fancy ATX case which is easy to work on. Working audio ports on the front which interface properly with the sound card (instead of stupid rear-panel pass-through crap), such that the sound card can detect when headphones are plugged in and reconfigure itself automatically. An in-home service agreement. A PC which doesn't need assembled, but just unpacked and plugged in.
And unlike most prebuilt machines, when they're first turned on, they just boot Windows. I don't have to spend a couple of hours removing extraneous crap software. It comes up and behaves about the same way a new PC would if I'd have taken the time to build it myself and install Windows with a base load of drivers, except I didn't have to do it myself.
Meanwhile, they use about the same parts I'd have chosen myself if I were building a new PC. Good DVD-R, XFX video, fancy-pants motherboard with lots of expansion. The power supply is nameless, but is every bit as heavy as a good power supply ought to be. It included the same Logitech mouse I'd have bought myself. So on, so forth.
And it's pretty.
I don't think Alienware's pricing is out-of-line at all.
YMMV.
Kid-proof tablet..
Lots of laptops sold on eBay are stolen property. If the one you bought was stolen, then the original owner may have reported it stolen, which means the serial # is in a database that Dell maintains of "hot" laptops. No Dell-authorized repair company will work on them.
To their credit, though, they put the database online so you can see if a serial # is in there. Anyone considering buying a Dell laptop on eBay should look up that laptop's serial number first to see if it's stolen. Caveat Emptor.
I bought two Alienware computers. One for my wife and one for me. Both being avid gamers, we loved them. I managed to spill water in mine though, and severely damanged it. Of course, this was completely my fault and no reflection of their system.
However, their handling of the replacement is. I shipped the laptop and called a few days later to ensure that they had received it, to which they claimed they had. Two weeks from the time I sent it in I had still heard nothing, so I called them, at which point they claimed to have never received it. I managed to misplace the shipping paperwork I had because I believed the laptop had showed up, etc...
They accused me of lying and having never sent in the laptop until I was able to get replacement paperwork, etc. from the post office. The reality was that they had misplaced it in their shipping warehouse. So after the two week delay I then had to wait 6 more weeks for the out of stock part to come in so that they could replace it.
And so, with prompt service, and considerate customer service like that, who needs anyone else.
The monster cable of pre-built PCs
Couldn't agree more with this assessment. Alienware is hideously overpriced and their systems aren't really that good. I have an Alienware D900T that a friend of mine owns sitting in my closet. The video card stopped working and it's going to cost $500 for the replacement for a wimpy GeForce 6800. He doesn't want to spend the money so I've disassembled it for the good parts and junked the rest. In disassembling the machine, it's obvious that Alienware doesn't back up their bloated prices with anything resembling quality, too.
Nobody in their right mind should be buying Alienware. There's nothing about their machines that you can't get from regular branded PCs and custom built PCs, except for a huge price hike on the Alienware.
In the case of Alienware, if they sent a random customer who asked for a part a note saying "Sorry, but your PC is reported stolen, please bring it to the cops,"
That's not what happened. They said to send a warranty number that would prove he bought it from them. Alienware hasn't said that the laptop was reported stolen.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Further reading indicates this is very hard to prosecute, and requires actual attempt at concealment. So, aside from South Carolina or somesuch, you appear to be right :)
For example. 13" Macbook. 4GB memory. 320GB, 5400rpm HDD. $1774. 13" XPS M1330, 4GB memory (but slower), 500GB 7200rpm HDD, $1174. But guess what, I can upgrade to 4GB of DDR3 memory for $69. I'm still $530 cheaper than the MacBook.
So, please, have at it. Nothing too esoteric there.
However, the fix is $5. Just buy ONLY the connector ($5 from various online suppliers). The drive doesn't need a caddy - the caddy is made out of such thin sheet metal because even the thickness of a piece of electrical tape will be enough to wedge the drive firmly in place in its' bay. I ran with 2 hard drives for months - without even the tape - before tracking down a caddy from a similar model.
Dell's policy is to not talk to people who aren't authorized on the account that owns the computer. Considering the number of laptops that get stolen, that's a good policy, IMO.
Now if the user bought the computer legally on e-Bay, he should have some kind of sales receipt, or at least know the name of the person he bought it from. If he knows the name of the person he bought it from he can go online to the Alienware website and fill out a transfer of ownership form. If he doesn't know the name, or he bought it from a retailer, he can fax in a copy of the sales receipt to customer care, and have them transfer the ownership for him.
But instead of doing a little legwork at his end to get the system actually transferred to his name, he chooses to go online and grouse about how a company is treating him like a thief.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
I'm fairly certain that even if it is stolen, if you buy goods without knowledge that they are stolen (i.e., in good faith) you are considered a buyer in the ordinary course of business and you'll take free of any prior interests. It's called the "garage sale rule". The person from whom it was stolen can still hold the thief liable for damages, but can't get their original goods back. If that's the case here, this guy is legally the rightful owner and Alienware should treat him as such.
You didn't have to write it, but You Are Not A Lawyer, and you should warn people before posting legal advice (especially incorrect legal advice.) There is no such legal concept as the "garage sale rule" with respect to stolen property. According to the law, as the purchaser of merchandise you have the same rights to the property as the person who sold it to you. That means if have a thing which you have used as collateral on a debt (called a secured interest) and you haven't paid it all back yet, even if you sell it to me the property is still secured by the bank, and can be repossessed by them if the loan is not repaid. It also means that if you have no rights to the property at all, as in the case of stolen property, then I as the buyer have no rights to it either.
A garage sale does provide protection from the seller being compelled to look up the serial number if such a lookup is required of an "ordinary course of business" seller; in the case of a garage sale the seller is classified as not an "in the ordinary course" seller and is exempted from that requirement. Maybe that's what you are thinking of as a "garage sale rule".
Of course I am not a lawyer either, so don't take this as gospel, but at least I do a bit of fact checking before making a really outlandish claim.
John
RTFA. He never wrote that Alienware directly accused him of a crime, or of being a thief. He is complaining that he is being treated like a thief. There is a significant difference between the two statements.
John