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."

Comments

Cars

[googlesmith123]

Imagine if the same was true for cars: Guy fixing your car: "Sorry mate...can't fix this....seems like you bought it from another human and not from a huge company".

Re:Cars

[plover]

Imagine if you paid cash for a car from a guy selling one in his driveway. A few months later, maybe you need a brake job, so you head to the dealer to have them do the work.

Do you expect anything except the dealer to do the brake job? Of course not. It's your car, you need brakes, so put brakes in it. But when the dealer types the VIN into his computer and it comes up "stolen", and says to you "sorry, there's going to be a delay," you might assume that he's just running a bad dealership. But that's not how the law works. If they discover you're in possession of a stolen car, they MUST notify the police, and it WILL get impounded and returned to the rightful owner. That's pretty easy to do when it's still in the dealer's garage, but not so easy if he lets the customer leave with it.

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," the chances are good the customer will simply disappear, keeping the stolen goods. What are the chances he is going to voluntarily bring it to the police and say "here, have this laptop, I bought it from eBay and it turns out it was stolen. So you can just keep it, and I'll be out the thousand dollars then. Sure, I'll have a nice day."

Bottom line: how does Mr. Paget know that his laptop isn't stolen merchandise? He says got "a good deal" on it from a "hassle free seller" who shipped it promptly. If I was fencing hot PCs on eBay, you bet I'd be a hassle free, fast shipper. I'd also be gone in about a week. I'd say there's a damn good chance it IS stolen merchandise, and he's about to lose his money.

Re:Cars

[richdun]

I like the analogy in principle, but there's one problem with it - if I bought a car from a random guy (for cash or otherwise), and didn't get the title transferred into my name at whatever government office is responsible for such things in my neck of the woods, I'm an idiot. While there's currently no government agency policing computer ownership (pause for applause / tin foil hat brigade reaction), this highlights the importance of shopping at a reputable dealer when purchasing goods for which there is no clear transference of ownership. That, most likely, is the point you were trying to make in that analogy.

Re:Cars

[EvanED]

You just have to find a seller who knows that the computer's value is crap.

I bought a (yes, used) 2000-era laptop a year or two ago for $20. Where am I to get a new laptop for that price?

Re:Cars

[DarkOx]

Ignoring the fact that cars are registered and titles and things like that so you usually know if you are in possession of a stolen car, there is no reason to think this computer is "hot".

Unless its been reported stolen Alienware should not be hassling this guy. These things are registered with the company when you buy them. So you can probably call in and say my box is missing without needing the serial. When ordering parts its certainly reasonable for Alienware to ask for the serial, which you should be able to provide since you physically have the thing. They should be able to key that in and unless that serial is associated with an existing account that has reported a theft, they should be able to just sell you a part. There is really no good reason this should be hard.

I think this has more to do with them not really wanting to support their hardware in the second hand market. This is a company after all that makes its profit selling really high markup cutting edge (or so they claim) gear. They don't make money stocking and selling replacement parts for last years, hell probably even last months model.

Re:Cars

[erroneus]

Where did the companies of today get the stupid idea that they can do good business by treating customers and potential customers like crap? Perhaps it comes from the customers and potential customers who accept such treatment willingly.

Re:Cars

[Nitewing98]

Au contraire mon frere! I just recently bought a 2002 dual processor Powermac G4 for 275 bucks. It runs the latest version of Mac OS X, runs great, and I paid about 10% of its original price.

You should qualify your statement - "Used computers aren't good value for your money UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR."

If you're a saavy bargain-hunter you can find real gems on eBay or in the classifieds.

Re:Cars

[Anonymous Coward]

alas...my point was that the big companies don't make any profit of a second hand laptop, so they make life difficult for end user. ...

But they do make money on a second hand laptop. The resale value of the laptop allows them to charge a higher price initially.

I want a laptop for 2 years. I am willing to pay $1000 to use it for 2 years. If I can sell it at the end of it's life for $250, then I am willing to pay $1250 when I buy it. If I can't resell it (resale of $0), then I am only willing to pay $1000 initially.

Accusing customers of theft is stupid. Many jurisdictions have laws that say if you buy something in good faith, then you own it, regardless of whether it is stolen or not (put in place to protect pawn brokers).

Re:Cars

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You would be surprised at how poorly policed title transfer is. I have a good friend who bought a $50K used car from a dealer only to have the FBI impound it between the point when he paid the dealer and when the shipping company should have picked it up later that week - and the only reason the FBI impounded it was because the real owner had connections to LE, even then it took 2 months before they did. The dealer had an officially issued title, it turned out that the car was stolen through fraud (fake cashiers check). My friend had to sue the dealer to get his money back and even though he won in court the dealer declared bankruptcy so my friend was basically fucked.

Re:Cars

[1u3hr]

It sounds like the machine is supposed to have a plate on it with a warranty number. Alienware has reasonably asked for that information,

Reasonably?

In the automotive world, tampering with or removing the VIN before selling the car is a crime all by itself:...

Another totally irrelevant car analogy. WTF is it with people here that they can't think about anything -- software, laptops, relationships -- unless they can put it "in the automotive world"?

Alienware just has horrible CS overall

[firegate]

One of our offices needed a couple of PC's and I ordered two through Alienware - everything went through fine and they were set to arrive two weeks later.

Three weeks after I placed the order, Alienware informed me that they hadn't built or shipped the computers because I had asked that they be shipped to an address other than the CC billing address.

I'll never do business with that company again.

Well, a lot of stuff on eBay is stolen...

[Bearhouse]

Did the vendor include the original invoice? That should work.

Can't understand their 'fix' of adding you as user of the original owner's account, though. Surely goes against the basic rules of CRM.

While we're on the subject of 'ownership transfer', note also that under most EULAs, you should also buy the software all over again...

Re:no honor among thieves

[CSMatt]

Indeed. I have to wonder why those who want such power don't just build their own machines.

More careful is good.

[cuby]

Do you have the original bill provided by the seller? Do you even asked for it to check if the item was not stolen? I think if companies were more careful, like this one, people would be more careful before buying 2nd hand stuff.

Killing the resale value

[olddotter]

They are just ensuring there is no resale value for there products. Imagine if a car company refused to sell you repair parts if you buy the car second hand? Their products would have ZERO resale value, which means that no one would buy one in the first place, because they would know that when they wanted to trade up, there was no market for their old model.

Given the resale value of used Apple hardware, those prices don't seem so high now.

Transfer

[shentino]

Why did the former owner not transfer his alienware account to you?

Sounds like the one ripping you off is the original seller, much like if you bought a car and he didn't transfer the title.

Then again...why do you need an alienware account in the first place?

Re:No I wasn't aware of this unethical practice

[irving47]

I was. I had to fix one of their overheating, POS DVR/WMC's for a customer and it turned out it was under someone else's name from the beginning of the ordering process. It was very lengthy, and very difficult to figure out the original purchaser and their information. Until we had it, they would NOT honor warranty (even though they were perfectly capable of checking the serial number) or even quote prices for parts or labor.
Never again.

Re:Warranty

[amiga3D]

Nice thing about apple is...if you have money they'll kiss your ass. Most computer companies I deal with seem like they expect me to kiss their ass before they'll take my money.

I'd like to add

[earnest murderer]

This is pretty much one of many scenario's where people would mock the tin foil hat crowd when they get all hysterical about companies/government keeping too much data on them. In this case in the pursuit of "customer service" (read marketing opportunity) they also get to turn every second hand product (MBA's may translate that to "missed sale") into a ticking time bomb. Forget the warranty, you can't get it fixed at any price.

Sounds like a job for the attorney general and/or the FTC. Not that you can get their attention.

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Corporations and stolen laptops

[altinos.com]

A laptop was stolen from our company in August 2008. Two weeks ago, the most recent purchaser acquired it off of eBay and called Panasonic to get tech support when something wasn't working. Panasonic said "That laptop is stolen, please contact this company." We ended up buying it back from this guy for what he paid for it.