Dude, you're getting a settlement!

@sebadoh128: Just couldn't pass that one up, eh?

Who qualifies? Anyone who bought a Dell, or do I need to have a specific gripe?

yea any info about what qualifies in this settlement? is there a website or form?

hypothetical: say if I am from Virginia, lived there at the time of purchase of my dell, and live there now (during the summer and winter break) BUT I go to school in Pennsylvania and live there all for most of the year and bought my laptop for that school, think I could get some moola?

Anyone notice that Texas is not on the list?

i was one of the people directly affected by this - i ordered a computer & applied for their advertised "no interest for 1 year" programs. it said i was approved, but then when my first bill arrived, there was ~$40 in interest on the bill.

i called in when i got the bill & they said i was approved for financing, but not for the special offer, yet nowhere was that indicated during the purchase. i transferred the balance to another card at 0% (plus ~$50 in transfer fees) & got a year to pay it off anyway, but i remember being pretty miffed about it at the time.

you know, i'd love to make a claim, but i don't think i qualify. the form instructions state that this had to occur on or after 04/01/05 & i think i made my purchase well before then.

@copious28: Neither is NY. So?

According to my state (KY) in order to make a claim:

It must concern a product or service purchased from Dell between April 1, 2005, and April 13, 2009; AND you must file a consumer complaint about one of the following reasons:

- A Dell Financial Services deferred-interest financing promotion (such as “same as cash” or “no interest for 90 days”) offered to some consumers who qualify for a Dell credit account.

- A rebate that the consumer applied for but did not receive.

- Warranty service that Dell did not perform as promised or as required by the State’s implied warranty law.

- Extended warranty or next-business-day service that was not provided as promise, and the consumer must have suffered a verifiable out-of-pocket (monetary) loss.

@copious28: @Taliskan: So, Texas is where Dell corporate headquarters is located. Not too far from where I live, actually.

Yes, I noticed, retched, got over it, before you even posted... I figured Texas is not on the list for the usual political self-serving reasons.

My parents got screwed by Dell's financing idiots. A quick claim to the BBB got it cleared up immediately, though.

Oddly enough, my own experiences with Dell have been nothing but positive. My refurbed tower has never had an error that I can recall, and my laptop has functioned acceptably. Additionally, I had an easy time getting free restoration discs from customer service after they didn't send them with the computer. (BOOOO for restoration partitions!)

HP, on the other hand, has already caused me plenty of grief by not sending the discs. I tried calling customer service once already, and was hung up on during a transfer to tech support. I might try again today, if I have the patience after work...

@DanglinModifiers: It looks like you have to contact your States Attorney General. On the Illinois site there is a form that you can fill out.
[www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov]

This could not be more vague. Or could it?

i'm thinking maybe this is so vague b/c the settlement differs from state to state...who knows? here's a link to the info for CT residents. --> [www.ct.gov]

there's a claim form & instructions at the bottom of the page. plus, be sure to read the article for awesome quotes from dick blumenthal himself, like:

Dell must reform and reboot its commitment to customers...

lol! thanks dick! that's awesome.

oh wait, this is even better:

Dell must hit delete and then reprogram and restart customer relations by keeping all its promises.

Dell is a horrible company that I advise anyone that listens to stay away from... the outrageously expensive proprietary RAM they use/used is typical of their business practices...

Can I get back the TENS of HOURS I spent on the phone with Dell trying to unravel the numerous bait-and-switches they pulled when I bought a desktop system from them?

The machine I ended up with was much more expensive because few of the components in the advertised special were "available". It took much fighting to get them to come anywhere close to honoring their advertisement.

Then when the thing arrived it didn't work out of the box. I returned their doorstop and would never ever buy anything from Dell again.

Vague is putting is mildly. I followed link after link and still have no clue if hubby or I qualify. Both of our computers are Dell and I think bought in 2005. If anyone can give a better link to the info it would be nice. Not going to get rich either way but I'm sure curious.

@mac-phisto: Wait, is this what this is for? That totally happened to me too! Although it was in 2003...

The settlement was written by circus jugglers.

Anyone find anything for Maryland? Ive called the attorney general's office. The person i need to speak to is busy :P

@rellog:

1. Prices of RAM through OEM's are universally inflated. The prices of extra RAM in Apple computers is even more ridiculous than Dell. That said, the price of the same sticks of RAM at Newegg, Tiger Direct, or Corsair is Absolutely cheaper.

2. You have no right to say the company is horrible based solely on the prices of their RAM sticks. Even more so, you have no right to claim the company is bad without a personal experience for evidence. Between my parents and I, we own three Dell computers that have been relatively free of problems from day one.

@BodeMiller: That's highly unfortunate.

I ordered a Dell laptop this summer. It arrived in a quarter of the time they initially told me and it's worked flawlessly every day since then.

@rellog: you know you don't have to use their RAM in their computers, right? i'm running a dell that i salvaged at home w/ kingston RAM that i picked up uber-cheap thru newegg.

@rellog: I forgot to add that I was using RAM from an HP computer in my Dell tower for over a year. I would hardly call that proprietary.

However, if you're referring to the use of RIMM memory modules instead of the industry standard DIMM, than I sympathize. The use of proprietary, expensive, and under-performing RIMMs was a mistake the industry should not have made. I'm just glad the manufacturers stopped cowtowing to Rambus before they caused us paying customers any more grief.

Um...the attorney general's office just called me back and said that Maryland was not involved in this. -_- A little help here?

@cordeliapotter: it's definitely part of it, but not the only reason you can make a claim.

Florida Here:
[myfloridalegal.com]

@ViperBorg:

No. No, I couldn't.

I live a sad life.

hmm. i wonder if charging ME for someone else's computer counts? seriously. $2 grand on my dell finance account. took 4 calls and 3 months to get it off, and guess who paid for financing during that time for someone else's sh*t? me. F'ers.

No matter. 6 months later the a-holes at airport security dropped it, broke it, made me get a $200 estimate for repair (yep, $200 for the ESTIMATE) and still refused my claim.

Bought an HP and couldn't be happier. except that it runs vista, but thats another story.

I've never understood the gnashing of teeth people make over Dell. Well, I mean, I understand it after they explain what they've been through, but I simply can't relate. I've bought two computers and myriad electronics and accessories and have never had anything but an A+ experience with the company.

@sebadoh128: haha awesome

@Rob Weddle: Agreed. I've owned 3 Dells since 2001, and have had nothing but good customer service experiences. When my laptop's hard drive died, I called them and received a replacement within a few days. Of course, if it had been out of warranty, I would have been out of luck. However, it is now 4 years old and works fine and I have had no problems since the hard drive was replaced.

@mac-phisto: you know what? just file anyway. the worst they can do is say "No".

@animatedantmo: lol! someone didn't get a memo this morning.

if i were you, i would email your contact the story from the CT AG's site --> [www.ct.gov] or maybe wait a few days for the info to trickle down.

it's quite possible that the state's going to just keep the money on your behalf. certainly looks like CT will be shifting the majority of their portion into our "general fund" (a/k/a the black hole).

@Bill Blasky: Likewise, what about Alienware? I bought an Alienware m9750 using the "Alienware Titanium Account" which uses Dell's financial system, all of which was discussed here. I wonder if I'm eligible for that if it only corresponds to actual "Dell" computers.

@mac-phisto: I bought mine in 04, yeah :(

@hewhoroams: It could, yes?

@rellog: Time to update your notes. They got away from the whole proprietary memory thing at very least 5 years ago.

@ShulkaDarnified: Warranty service that Dell did not perform as promised or as required by the State's implied warranty law.

Wow- try documenting that one two years out...

- Extended warranty or next-business-day service that was not provided as promise, and the consumer must have suffered a verifiable out-of-pocket (monetary) loss.

More reason to document downtime and assign a cost to it...

@BlackMage is doing the Time Warp agaaaaaaain!!!: When Intel decided to promote mainboards that took Rambus memory, it was inevitable that the big manufacturers would go along. It was a total fiasco, Intel's associated chipsets didn't work right, the total RAM per board was very limited, and then Rambus started suing everybody.

But you could, and probably can, get third-party equivalent Rambus memory also. I think Simpletech still sells it.

@Ms. P likes Agatha Christie: @Rob Weddle:

You need to search "Dell Hell" and you will be amazed at the idiocy of the company at times. All I have ever seen shows two types of Dell Customers- the happy and the screwed. There never seems to be an in-between feeling. It seems like either Dell either performs great or completely drop the ball, it rolls into the toilet, and down into a vat of sh*t.

As for their financing, they were crooks even back in 2000 when I got a $3k system from them. Back then I too failed to qualify for the advertised rate so I transfered the amount to a 0% interest/1year credit card and paid off over 6-8 months.

All computer companies are terrible. They all use the same hardware, they all cut corners, they all have baffling and constantly shifting product lines, and they all have rotten tech support.

It's inevitable that some people will have good experiences with a company and others will have bad experiences with the same company, because inconsistency an aspect of low quality service. But I think that desktop/laptop manufacturers provide poor service generally -- and they've set expectations so low that we don't always notice.

I had an IBM before, now I have a Mac. I use Mac at home, Windows at work. It's pretty much the same level of lame all around.

@bobloblawsblog:

Just curious as to which airport? And did you have a witness? Because the security geniuses at LAX dropped my watch dumping it out of the personal items container, said "I'm sorry," then when I pointed out the crystal face was broken, denied doing it.

I had a witness and filled out a statement while still at the airport (luckily I was early enough for my flight to be able to do this). I was told the security video would have to be reviewed . . . it must have been pretty definitive because I was shocked when they paid major $ for the repair (I also had to go through the estimate process).

@Rob Weddle: I am an IT tech and I can tell you that my experiences with Dell have been less then satisfactory. The quality of their parts has gone down drastically in the recent years and their customer support still sucks, even for someone who orders hundreds of computers from them a year. I hate dealing with Dell.

$3.35 million settlement?!?! That's all? Talk about dodging a bullet.

@axiomatic:

Unreal. That comes out to $98,529.411 PER STATE. The only ones making out like bandits on this settlement are the lawyers.

@rellog: There was no proprietary memory in my '04 Dell. Straight Samsung 240-pin DDR2.

What I did get was a defective heatsink - It affected the entire Dimension 8400 series and Dell never issued a recall.

Man, I bought my machine in '04. They never sent me a scanner that came with my package. They claimed that two different ones were delivered to my address w/o being signed for, meaning that they were left on my doorstep and presumably (I live in a city apartment) stolen.

All of the other components were delivered to my work address as I requested. After the first time they seemed cooperative enough... and sent another scanner to my home address when I again requested the work address. At that point I should have fought it more, but it was beginning to look like I was scamming them, asking for a "third" scanner.

Now I wonder if one was actually sent to begin with... pity I didn't keep this paperwork, nearly 5 years ago now.