Aussie consumer watchdog is taking Dell to court over misleading discounts
-
Loading... - Oleg Dryomov
- 22 Mar 2023
- 69 Views
- 0 Like
- 0 Comment
Monitor offers were "inflated", according to the ACCC
Despite making some of the best laptops money can buy, Dell is set for a Federal Court date with Aussie consumer watchdog ACCC, following allegations the tech company’s Australian online store made “false or misleading representations regarding the price of monitors”.
In a statement(opens in new tab), the ACCC alleges that between August 2019 and December 2021, Dell aimed to entice consumers to add monitors to the purchase of a computer “by displaying false or misleading discounts”. As per the watchdog’s alleged findings, the prices of monitors as an add-on were often more expensive than if the monitor was bought separately.
Dell’s online store in Australia has the usual RRP stricken out and, the ACCC claims, these strikethrough prices were often inflated to make consumers think the saving was greater than reality. Deal markers such as ‘total savings’ and ‘discounted price’ are among those the consumer watchdog alleges Dell Australia used to mislead its customers in an attempt to encourage them to add a monitor to their computer purchase.
“Cases involving allegations of misleading ‘was/now’ pricing by large retailers of consumer goods are a priority for the ACCC,” the watchdog’s Commissioner Liz Carver said. “Businesses should be well aware of their legal requirements and should have effective compliance programs in place to prevent this type of consumer harm.” The ACCC also added that the alleged misleading of consumers occurring during periods of Covid lockdowns were of particular concern, as parents of schoolchildren forced into home learning were increasingly looking for PCs and PC-related tech out of necessity and therefore more vulnerable to being misled.
“While the total number of misled consumers is unknown, we believe many thousands of consumers were sold an add-on monitor which was advertised with a representation that an inflated discount applied,” Carver added. Read More…
