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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."
Charging a customer because they have an OS installed on a computer / notebook is completely wrong. Lately I've been trying to pick up a notebook for school and I've been getting a run around. I've called Dell, Asus and shopped at the all the major Ontario computers stores, all of them come back with the same answer, you need to buy an OS with the notebook. It doesn't matter if I don't want Windows because I don't get a choice, personally I think forcing a customer to buy an OS is horrible idea.
As a Linux user I don't understand why I'd pay someone to hit next 4 times and partitioning a drive which a 5 year old could do. Even when I talked to Dell they only offered to install the "Big" Linux names.
If I'm going to buy a notebook then I want to make sure it comes unbundled and with a clean HDD so I can put what I need onto it. The problem is I can't seem to get any one to send me a blank notebook that I can install a proper OS to, if I spend the 100 dollar software package bundle then I'll wipe the notebook when I get it wasting the 100 dollars, but when I tell the computer store / company I'm going to wipe it so don't sell me the bundle they tell me they can't.
Does anyone else have this problem?