Dell Fined $30,000 for Taiwanese Pricing Errors

By Marcus Yam
published

Dell's 'fine' deals turned out to be costly for the PC maker.

In the last month, Dell has faced increasing scrutiny over its apparent price errors on its Taiwanese online retail site.

After being ordered by the Taiwan government to honor purchases for the erroneously priced 19-inch LCD monitor for $15, Dell followed up with a few more pricing errors, leading consumer protection bodies to step in.

Taiwan's Consumer Protection Commission has given a fine to Dell of NT$1,000,000, or just over $30,000 USD.

Now Dell is faced with either paying the fine or going back to honor all the original orders at the erroneously lower prices. While the logical thing for Dell to do is to take the less costly of two avenues, it'll be interested to see if Dell's pride will have anything to do with its next step.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
31 Comments Comment from the forums
  • griffed88
    lol man Dell's suck...
    Reply
  • kingnoobe
    I don't see how dell's pride would affect that decision.. They can't deny they screwed up.. They'll pay the fine any smart company would. Remember it's all about the cash, if dell thought they could save face I'm sure they'd fight it, but this isn't something they can save face on except by admitting to it.
    Reply
  • valcron
    Maybe now Dell will stop miss pricing items for those of us to order them and then have them cancel all of the orders. Still want my 1TB HD for 45/50 dollars.

    Seriously though they should have been fined hire. If this was a first time offense no biggie but Dell has continuously made these so called, "errors" of the years, they knew about them, and did nothing to correct them from continuing to happen. They knew it would keep people coming to their site to look for more is my thought. Basically false advertising/bait and switch.
    Reply
  • amnotanoobie
    $30,000 fine + "shame on them" is better than (approx) $20,000,000 worth of hardware to give away + pride
    Reply
  • jerther
    19-inch LCD monitor for $15, Fined $30,000

    Looks like their typos cost more than those in many articles here ;)

    cheap shot :P
    Reply
  • Anyone wants a job with Dell in Taiwan as an online product and price administrator?
    I guess they have one open right now!
    Reply
  • scook9
    HP does this too sometimes

    If I am lucky, I will have an OEM QX9300 for my laptop coming next week that I paid only $500 for (they typically go for around $1200)
    Reply
  • pharge
    "Taiwan's Consumer Protection Commission has given a fine to Dell of NT$1,000,000, or just over $30,000 USD."

    According to news, the Taiwan's Consumer Protection Commission (TCPC) has asked Dell to fix the mistake by providing the monitors with 40% off from the lowest sale price... and then wen t up to 25% off from the lowerest sale price... but Dell refused and only want to give out some discount coupons instead... that is why the TCPC fined Dell. In the news... the head of TCPC in Taipei said.. if Dell still refuse to fix the problem in a reasonable way, this fine can be as much as a daily fine.
    Reply
  • grieve
    Make Dell honor the orders and pay the wimpy 30k fine.

    GEEZ 30k is pennies to Dell... Why even bother.
    Reply
  • pharge
    oops.... sorry.... misread the news.... "by providing the monitors with 40% off from the lowest sale price... and then wen t up to 25% off from the lowerest sale price..." should be first 25% off and then went down to 15% off....

    sorry about the wrong information.....>_
    Reply