Dell taken to court by ACCC for allegedly misleading customers

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has instituted Federal Court proceedings against Dell Australia for allegedly making false or misleading representations regarding the price of monitors that consumers could add on to purchases of Dell computers.

Dell told CRN that approximately 2,100 customers had been affected during a two and a half-year period from at least August 2019 to 16 December 2021.

According to the ACCC, when a consumer selected a Dell desktop, laptop, or notebook for purchase on the company’s website, they were offered the option of adding a monitor during the check-out process. The monitor was often shown with a higher price in strikethrough, representing a significant saving.

“We allege that Dell Australia made false, misleading or deceptive statements on its website to entice consumers to add on monitors to the purchase of a computer by displaying false or misleading discounts,” ACCC commissioner Liza Carver said.

The ACCC is alleging that the monitors were not sold for the strikethrough price for most of the relevant time, and, in some cases, the add-on price shown was more expensive than if the monitor was bought on a stand-alone basis.

“We have commenced these proceedings because we are concerned that Dell’s presentation of allegedly inflated discounts meant some consumers may have added monitors to their purchase which they may not have otherwise bought, or which they could have bought more cheaply from another section of Dell’s website,” Carver said.

Dell stated that “Due to an error in Dell's pricing processes, there was incorrect information displayed on our website about the pricing and savings associated with certain monitors.”

“We have fully cooperated 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.

“Dell has de-activated that functionality on the website and we are actively working to update our systems to prevent the error from re-occurring,” Dell stated.

Some of the statements about the purported discounts to the price of add-on monitors included “Total Savings”, “Includes x% off”, “Discounted Price”, and “Get the best price for popular accessories when purchased with this product”.

Carver said, “Cases involving allegations of misleading ‘was/now’ pricing by large retailers of consumer goods are a priority for the ACCC. Businesses should be well aware of their legal requirements and should have effective compliance programs in place to prevent this type of consumer harm”.