Taiwanese officials are investigating whether computer giant Dell violated the law in its handling of recent online pricing errors, an investigation that could result in a $758,000 fine for Dell.
Twice in a span of 10 days Dell mistakenly posted super-cheap prices to its Taiwanese Web site. On June 25, Dell erroneously listed 19-inch monitors for $15.26 instead of $228.84. This week, Dell did it again, this time offering up the Dell Latitude E4300 laptop for $565 as opposed to the usual $2,102, a 75 percent discount. If Dell honored the bogus Latitude price break it would've sparked a revenue shortfall of more than $75.8 million for the company, according to according to Taiwan News.
Dell, however, said it wouldn't honor the discount after the listing appearing on the Taiwanese Web site Saturday night and was removed Sunday morning. Instead, Dell offered Latitude E4300 buyers a coupon worth $609.
In the case of the mispriced displays, roughly 26,000 people took advantage of Dell's pricing foul-up, ordering nearly 140,000 displays. The pricing error was listed on the site for eight hours, and Dell has said it would not fulfill orders. Dell later agreed to reimburse buyers with a $30 discount coupon.
Dell's refusal to honor the pricing discounts sparked outrage for buyers and fueled hundreds of reports to Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission.
Because Dell has refused to honor the orders placed for the mispriced items, Taiwanese officials are looking into whether that is against the law. Wu Hsui-ming, Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission Deputy Chairman, told the Associated Press that authorities are trying to determine whether Dell's failure to deliver orders for the price advertised is a violation of the Fair Trade Law.
"If we find Dell to have broken the law, the company could be fined" between $1,500 and $758,000, Wu told the Associated Press.
Terence Liao, Dell's Taiwan general manager, told the United Evening News that Dell is trying its best to deal with the situation.
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