Dell dishonest behavior

I have been a Dell customer for years for their customer support. However something changed in the last year and my personal experience makes me believe that their claims that customer satisfaction is a high priority became just words.
This is my latest experience: The Dell website had a great deal on a laptop with GeForce graphics card, 16GB of memory and 1TB HD for just over $1K. I jumped into this great value. After confirming that the purchase was accepted and went into production I received a call that there was a problem with the components and that they could not build my computer. I asked what they could do with a similar configuration and the only thing that they offered was a laptop without graphic card and with 8GB of memory. They told me that the only option was to cancel the order. However, when I went back to the Dell website, I found the same configuration with an extra $300 price tag. So my conclusion was that they did not want to honor the price that we agreed in that transaction and to avoid litigation they tricked me to cancel my order.
This is the second time that this happened to me with Dell this year, so I think that their behavior goes beyond a mistake and it is borderline fraudulent.

 

Sounds as if testing price points, obviously without regard to morals.

 

I have had a similar experience of the dishonest practice by Dell, which was confirmed numerous times by the incompetence and mendacity of Dell's employees, while Dell Canada Inc simply ignored my registered letter seeking a resolution. Dell is a nightmare for any innocent customers.

The chronology of my problem with Dell is as follows:
(1) 25 Sep: an order of a notebook was placed to be delivered to a shipping address different from mine.
(2) 26 Sep: that order was cancelled, because of the breakdown of the agreement between the person at the shipping address and me, which Dell confirmed by sending me an email, stating that it would be NOT delivered but returned to Dell, upon which a full refund would be made.
(3) 30 Sep: Breaking that cancellation confirmation, Dell nevertheless delivered the computer to the shipping address.
(4) 30 Sep: Through a telephone call longer than 5 hours, I tried to resolve the issue with the Dell customer care centre, which appears to be in India, but failed, upon which I sent an email to the supervisor, seeking a written response to my attempt.
(5) 1 Sep: A written response from Dell stated that it would make a full refund, if it receives the computer back.
(6) 2 Sep: I requested an email address of someone higher in Dell, with whom I could try to resolve the issue, and sent an email, with copies of supporting documents.
(7) 9 Oct: Dell's response from (6) came from the aforementioned supervisor.
(8) 9 Oct: A registered letter was sent to Dell Canada Inc at 135 Gordon Baker Road, Suite 501, North York, ON, which sent me the original bill for the computer, and as of 22 Oct, there has been no response from Dell, not even an acknowledgement of the receipt of the letter, although I have the signature of the Dell employee who signed for the letter.

I have tried to find some legal process of recovering my money, but was told by a paralegal, referred to me by the Upper Canada Law Society, that the best outcome I could hope for is to get a refund, from which I had to pay the legal fee of $200. And if Dell refuses even that, I would simply have to take the loss of both the initial cost of the order and the legal fee, while there is no other legal remedy for it, because even the small claims court would not take my claim, because of the small of the claimed amount, which is $566.46. The paralegal also told me that Dell knows this, and has been known to delay the resolution to make it as costly as possible for the customer.

I have submitted a formal complaint to the Ontario Ministry of Government and Consumer Protection, and waiting for their response. And if this Ministry does not help me get the refund, I would be writing to the local MPP and even to the Premier about the sheer injustice in the system.

This experience with Dell has made to boycott Dell in all my future dealings, as well as proffering my advice tirelessly to anyone who would listen to watch out for the Dell's dishonest practice and the incompetence and mendacity of Dell's employees at all levels.

Dell is indeed a nightmare of business.

 

good,I would be writing to the local MPP and even to the Premier about the sheer injustice in the system.

 

But isn’t it so that the “person” still has the computer?
I don’t know about Canadian law, and am no lawyer, but I believe that in many countries, the person receiving the computer would be liable to return it; which act should make Dell refund it.
From a common-sense point, if someone has the computer, it’s quite understandable Dell wants to keep the money for it.
And overall, it’s quite understandable that they—as a business—prefer that the person keep the computer and they keep the money.