Lawsuit Shows Dell Hid Extent of Computer Flaws

Geoffrey.landis writes "According to an article in the New York Times, documents revealed in a lawsuit against Dell show that the computer maker hid the extent of possible damages due to a faulty capacitor in the computers it shipped from 2003 to 2005. Dell employees were told, 'Don't bring this to customer's attention proactively,' and 'emphasize uncertainty.' (PDF) 'As it tried to deal with the mounting issues, Dell began ranking customers by importance, putting first those who might move their accounts to another PC maker, followed by those who might curtail sales and giving the lowest priority to those who were bothered but still willing to stick with Dell.' In other words, the most loyal customers got the worst treatment."

Comments

Oblig reference

[Ark42]

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/index.php

It was more than just Dell having capacitor issues left and right.

Re:Oblig reference

[DarthBart]

It not just "bad" caps. My 42" Samsung TV died, not because of defective caps in the power supply, but because the caps were inappropriately rated. They were 10V-rated caps in a 15V circuit. It was just only a matter of time before they died.

And thankfully I found articles on the cap issues before I plunked down $999 for a new TV. $2 in caps, and 45 minutes of my time solved the issue.

Well, $2 in caps, $23 in shit I didn't really need to cover minimum orders, and $20 in "overnight" shipping all because jASSper, TX was a shithole of a town and the local Ratshack doesn't carry anything but TV antennas and Verizon phones.

Re:Oblig reference

[allanw]

Use Digikey in the future. No minimum order and $3 shipping.

When You Cut Corners...

[BoRegardless]

And take the lowest bidder from China...

And outsource your inspection, testing and QC,...

You deserve what you get. I am actually sorry to see this happen. I expected more professional management system.

This story can't be true

[GodfatherofSoul]

How is it possible for the free market to not result in better products and service?

Re:This story can't be true

[blair1q]

But it did. Right after tens of thousands of customers got fucked by it and shareholders lost $300 million in equity.

Now it's all better.

same thing with nvidia flaws

[datapharmer]

This isn't just capacitors. I almost stopped doing business with dell completely after a client came to me with a clearly failed nvidia chip on a model that had the warranty extended for just that problem. They had called dell during the warranty period and were told it was an issue with the OS and they needed to reinstall. They trusted dell. They reinstalled. They updated their firmware. The computer lasted another few months with the problem getting progressively worse until there was no video at all. I tested the system and determined definitively that it was the nvidia chip and asked dell to replace the board. I was given the runaround being told how do I know and its out of warranty. I pointed out that the warranty had been extended and my customer had called them during that timeline and was given bad information by their support team. They fought it and fought it and fought it some more until I called the rep that I do large orders with for corporate clients, and apologized to him that I would not be ordering anymore servers etc. from him. I explained the situation and was called back by dell corporate the next day offering to swap the bad board for a refurbished one. It solved the problem, but it really shouldn't have to go that far. I love using dell servers, but having experiences like that do not make me want to use their products.