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Amazon US Refunds Windows License Fee, Too
rrohbeck writes "Today Amazon credited my card with $65.45. After ordering an Eee PC 1005 HA from amazon.com, I asked them for a refund for the cost of Windows XP via the 'Contact us' form. At first they told me to cancel any items on my order that I wanted a refund for, but after I explained that XP was pre-installed on the machine they got it. They asked what the cost of the OS was, and I answered that I had no idea but that Amazon UK refunded £40.00. Within a few hours I got a response saying 'I've requested a refund of $65.45 to your Visa card.' Somehow I doubt that Amazon will charge Asus or even Microsoft, but maybe they will one day if more people do this. Oh, and peeling off the 'Designed for Microsoft Windows XP' sticker is easy, too."
They may require you to send it back along with any manuals or repair disks.
bomb the us up set someone
they will just raise the price for everyone else.
They sure as hell won't be refunding $65 to everyone, when the OEM probably only paid $15 dollars for it or less.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
it's no skin off your ass to keep the OS.
It may be no skin, but it is apparently $65.
He did what is right for him. As others have pointed out more generically, why should he subsidize your Windows use?
Did he tell you to refuse the MS license and to reclaim your fee? I didn't see it.
First off, if 10 people do this, Amazon is going to find out what it really costs, and it isn't $65 or anything close to that.
Secondly, they are't going to do this without some kind of verification. It sounds like someone asked for money and they gave it to them. Great customer service but hardly something they can operate a business on. So unless there is a verifiable way to determine that XP has been irrevocably uninstalled I don't see this happening too much more.
Or do you get the refund and the option to continue to use the OS? Surely Amazon isn't tied all the way back through ASUS to Microsoft's licensing servers.
That's fine if you have no personal integrity. The rest of us might have a problem.
Amazon is just the retailer, but as long as the OEM is still cashing in from the license sale, it's no real progress. It doesn't make a difference if the retailer is giving you the refund, the money is still going to the OEM and as a result, Microsoft. And as long as this happens, they'll still enter corrupt bargaining deals and shut out Linux from mainstream offerings. We need OEMs to give the refund, not the retailer.
So maybe eventually, Amazon will ask the OEMs for a refund for the license. What will the OEMs say? Probably no. Then what will happen? Amazon will probably start refusing the refund as well too. Back at square one, going back to buy my computers from system76, itwasfunwhileitlasted, etc.
In any case, if I were Microsoft, I'd change the wording of the EULA to something like "By purchasing this computer, you consent to pay for all software preinstalled, whatever" to bar these refunds. I don't think it's unenforceable.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
Bah, then they should charge more for the Linux support. Simple. I would never call it, but I sure wouldn't mind if their prices were a bit higher to cover the unavoidable cost of supporting another OS. Or not offer software support at all, whatever.
The reason people smell conspiracy is the sudden drop of all Linux, anywhere, as soon as Microsoft reacted to the growing Linux use. They didn't take the netbook market seriously at first, but then overnight you couldn't buy a Linux netbook at a brick and mortar store if you wanted to. That's the conspiracy.
You can't tell me it's economics. There are plenty of ways they could have made money hands over fist. Instead, they let Microsoft kill the whole category.
What about, "I've paid for OEM Windows, but it's not installed on any of my 12 boxen. And now they want me to buy a full version just so I can run it in virtualbox."
Because there is a BIG difference between not having an Operating System and not being tied to a network? I'd love to see how well YOU would fare if they just handed you a cell phone with no OS and a "good luck buddy!" because that is just about as hard as Joe Average would find installing a new OS on a blank PC.
And please don't say "Linux live CDs make it easy!" because that is as much bullshit as MSFT with their "get the facts" crap. Sure, if you research your living ass off and check on every single component of that brand new PC and get lucky that they haven't changed something between rev-1 and rev-2 then it'll work without a hitch, maybe. More likely there is gonna be at least one major PITA piece of hardware that won't have a driver at all, or has a driver that you have to jump through CLI and never will get to work 100% (thanks Broadcom!) or some other royal PITA.
That is why I still sell Windows machines even though I could make more profit with Linux. The odds that my customers will find anything on sale at Walmart, Best Buy, Staples without XP support? About 0%. The odds that they will find something that doesn't work in Linux at the above stores? About 80%, sometimes higher. Installing an OS can be a royal PITA. It is even worse if there isn't a driver for a piece of hardware. The guy who wrote TFA is lucky that ASUS EEEs are well documented and have Linux drivers right there on site. I bet the odds wouldn't be nearly as good if he picked up some Compaq at Walmart. Most Windows users have trouble finding anything in Control Panel. CLI? BWA HA HA HA HA! They'd have a better chance of solving cold fusion than getting anything they do in CLI to work.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You are absolutely correct. Subaru will not buy back your original shifter. The dealer, however, may very well do so in order to keep your business.
A number of people have pointed out that a few refunds for XP is not a sign that anything is changing. I believe these refunds only show that Amazon has not formed any kind of official policy for this situation. They are simply erring on the side of not pissing people off, because technical people are going to buy more computer products, either from Amazon or someone else who treats them better. I'm sure they are aware of the press.
Sometime soon, I think we will see a more permanent resolution to this customer service issue. I can't say whether it will be progress or not.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."