Dell admits misleading consumers about monitor prices

Consumers who purchased monitors from Dell as an add-on to a desktop or laptop were misled about prices and charged inflated rates.

Details suggesting monitors could be purchased individually for higher prices, and that computer packages represented significant savings were false and misleading.

The company sold more than 5300 add-on monitors with overstated discounts.

Dell made these admissions in the Federal Court on Monday, saying the false claims were made because of an “unrectified error” on its part.

The firm had been sued by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which is seeking penalties.

“We have fully co-operated with the ACCC throughout their investigation, have been working with impacted customers to provide appropriate refunds plus interest, and are taking steps to improve our pricing processes to ensure this sort of error does not happen again,” a Dell spokesperson said.

“Dell has deactivated that functionality on the website and we are actively working to update our systems to prevent the error from reoccurring.”

The court ordered the firm to undertake a redress scheme to refund customers affected by the falsely inflated rates.

Dell has so far compensated over 4250 individuals.

ACCC Commissioner Liza Carver said the consumer watchdog had brought the case because it was concerned about statements Dell was making about its prices.

“In some cases, consumers paid more for the add-on monitor advertised as ‘discounted’ than they would have paid if they had bought it as a standalone product, which is shocking,” she said.

“This case serves as an important reminder to businesses that suggestive upselling or bundling of products must not mislead consumers as to the deal they are getting.”

A hearing on further relief sought by the ACCC will take place on August 14.

Dell Australia is to refund thousands of customers after they were found to have paid $2 million for supposedly discounted monitors.

The Federal Court of Australia declared by consent that the Australian branch of Dell Technologies misled consumers about discount bundles of adding a monitor to a new laptop or desktop computer purchase.

Over 5,300 add-on monitors were sold with overstated discounts, with Dell refunding or agreeing to offer compensation to more than 4,250 affected consumers.

“We brought these proceedings because we were concerned that Dell Australia had misled its consumers with false representations about its pricing and discounts,” ACCC Commissioner Liza Carver said.

“In some cases, consumers paid more for the add-on monitor advertised as ‘discounted’ than they would have paid if they had bought it as a stand-alone product, which is shocking.

In November last year, the ACCC instituted Federal Court proceedings against Dell for allegedly making false or misleading representations regarding the price of monitors that consumers could add on to purchases of Dell computers from at least August 2019 to 16 December 2021.

At the time, the vendor was claimed to have made false or misleading representations on its website about the prices of monitors and the potential savings when a monitor was purchased with a computer. Often, the monitor was allegedly shown with a higher price in strikethrough, representing a significant saving.

Now, Dell had admitted that the monitors were not sold for the strikethrough price for “most of the relevant” time, with some cases showing the add-on price being more expensive than if the monitor was purchased separately.

Additionally, Dell also admitted it made misleading statements about the discounted prices, which included “Total Savings”, “Includes x per cent off”, “Discounted Price” and “Get the best price for popular accessories when purchased with this product”.

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