Dell Sues Tiger Direct For Misleading Customers 214
An anonymous reader writes "Dell is apparently suing popular online retailer Tiger Direct, claiming that Tiger violated the resale contract it had with Dell, which included false advertising, misleading representation and unfair competition. Dell has accused Tiger Direct of selling old and out-dated Dell computers that Tiger Direct purchased from other resellers and then saying they were brand new directly from Dell. They also passed the computers off as still having a full warranty, but the warranties had expired long ago."
Tiger direct sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Tiger direct is awful. Pay just a little bit more at NewEgg and get actual customer service.
Re:Tiger direct sucks (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Tiger direct sucks (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Tiger direct sucks (Score:5, Funny)
Well for me it's simple, I live in California and pay a recycle tax and sales tax on many items. "I was already recycling electronic gear before the TAX" If I can buy somewhere and not pay tax or shipping and skip the recycle fee I will. Places like TigerDirect give me that option.
Note I do not say TD is a good place.. but I only buy new items from them. I still occasionally will buy from Newegg but it's getting rarer and rarer with new sales tax hike. Of course I do remit the owed amounts of sales tax every year. Just like every good tax payer should. Ahem.
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Don't worry, it looks like, instead of cutting spending to match income, states are instead going to close that little "loophole"...
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9.5% sales tax? Cry me a river.
When you get to a 10.25% base rate like it is in Chicago, then I might start feeling sorry for you.
And if you shop in certain products in Chicago, it's more.
And if you shop in certain districts in Chicago, it's even more.
Some basic everyday items like a can of soda in certain parts of Chicago carry 14% or more sales tax. It's like living in Europe, but without the free healthcare or fast trains.
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When you get to a 12%-14% base rate like it is in most of Canada, then I might start feeling sorry for you.
Of course we do get the slow trains and "free" healthcare (paid for by other taxes and user fees) but they aren't paid for from sales tax.
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For some things I go to B&H Photo/Video, another great online outfit (with 1 brick and mortar store in NY).
But yeah, Newegg FTW.
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I stopped dealing with TigerDirect and TigerDirect.ca years ago. I've had bad experiences with them and often the cheap items they carry are exactly that, cheap. Anything worth buying from them I can most likely get at the same price elsewhere
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Re:Tiger direct sucks (Score:5, Informative)
AMD is great, but ATI still can't write drivers. Their hardware might be great, but the world will never know. That said, if you're running Windows the ATI driver usually works. Just, you know, not very well.
Your descriptions of Tiger Direct make me think of Fry's. Heaven for the hardcore, so long as you don't expect too much, and know what you're doing. Way too easy to scam, which means that innocent customers take it in the shorts on a regular basis.
Dell Sues "Tiger Direct" (Score:5, Funny)
You should never sue a tiger direct. Tigers take their legal clawses very seriously. It's much safer to negotiate through an intermediary like a monkey or an elephant.
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Tiger direct is awful. Pay just a little bit more at NewEgg and get actual customer service.
I was going to bemoan the fact that newegg doesn't deliver to canada, but lo... newegg.ca is up and running... when did that happen?
Wooo... Although I've been very happy with ncix. Competition is good.
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Oct 1, 2008 [wikipedia.org]
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Pay a little more? I usually check newegg, tigerdirect, and pricegrabber (even though pricegrabber searches newegg and tigerdirect...they usually have more specs and such), and tigerdirect _never_ has the best price. Newegg has been getting better recently...it used to be I bought damn near everything off of random Yahoo business sites and such, but now I'm finding Newegg often has the best deal. But maybe that's just because I've been moving to higher quality (and not so outdated) hardware...
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I only use TigerDirect. I have dealt with their customer service as well, and it was actually very pleasant.
Why would a pay more at NewEgg and still wait longer to get the product? (Even ground shipping is next day from TigerDirect for me)
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Or for Canadians, pay a bit less at NCIX, and get actual customer service.
(for those of you that didn't know, TigerDirect is in both the US and Canada)
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I bought a scanner from Tiger Direct back in '94. They sent me two scanners but only charged me for one.
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From the FAQ:
If your order was lost while in transit, please contact Customer Service within 7 business days of not receiving your order.
Which day would I not have received it on?
Anyway Ive never had a problem with either newegg or tiger Direct, though i tend to order from newegg more than TD as TD tends to be more expensive most of the time.
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Which day would I not have received it on?
The day the shipping tracking indicates it was supposed to have arrived.
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That would be a nice idea if newegg.com actually delivered anywhere useful [newegg.com].
If you actually lived in the civilized world they would deliver to you.
What? Tigerdirect? Unethical? (Score:5, Funny)
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Heh. Reminds me of this one time I saw an ad from them pushing a 1GB hard drive when they meant 1TB.
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Strange contract (Score:5, Funny)
Dell required Tiger to advertise falsely, mislead customers, and compete unfairly? That's an awful strange contract!
(badly worded summary. Obviously. Tiger sucks. IMHO. Carry on.)
Re:Strange contract (Score:5, Funny)
TigerDirect reminds me of AOL (Score:2)
Re:TigerDirect reminds me of AOL (Score:5, Insightful)
TigerDirect is nothing like AOL. TigerDirect sells cheap crap with lousy customer service at low prices.
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I can't quite put it into words, either, but I know exactly what you mean.
Tiger direct or indirect (Score:5, Informative)
Do like the first person said, use Newegg, the customer service is 5 star and the prices are not bad either.
p.s I don't work for Newegg - However, I really like the customer reviews for parts I intend to buy.
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I tried eight orders, all eight were so screwed up . . ..
You tried 8 orders? So somewhere along the line at 0/6 you decided to do the same thing again twice?
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I had 5 screwups on 1 order. I quit pursuing it and tigerdirect at that point.
Re:Tiger direct or indirect (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the bar must be set awfully low for them to be assigned a 5-star rating by so many people.
In my experience, customer service with Newegg has been average, no better.
Fulfillment, on the other hand, has been awful. More than half of the times I've ordered from Newegg (7 orders so far), I've had my order confirmed, my credit card charged, and then a couple days later notified that they were out of stock... at which point my credit card was refunded. Twice I received the notification the day the goods were to be delivered -- I paid for two-day delivery.
That is AWFUL. Note that this has all been for A/V equipment, not for computer equipment.
Just my two cents.
Re:Tiger direct or indirect (Score:5, Funny)
Sadly I can't recall if it was Newegg or Mwave that included what looked like a prison shank (boxcutter razor blade taped to a PC empty slot bracket) for FREE in one of my orders! Man was I stoked!
Thankfully I didn't find it the hard way.
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Damn! I read that as prison skank was was looking for my credit card! :-)
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Wow, you're experience is exactly the opposite of mine and everyone I know who has ordered anything from them. Every item I've ordered has arrived earlier than their estimated delivery date, and has always been complete and correct. Of course, this means I don't really know how their customer service is, because I've never had a need to deal with it... they always seem to get everything right the first time (probably 20-30 orders over the last 6 or 8 years).
That said, there are always exceptions...
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I suspect it is because I monitor for great deals on video equipment (especially cameras) that I can resell at a profit.
The few times I've bought regular goods from them at decent prices, no problem -- but when I try to buy something that they've priced below wholesale is when they mysteriously have none in stock and have to cancel my order.
Re:Tiger direct or indirect (Score:5, Informative)
I recently looked through my NewEgg order history with them; all computer parts, orders going back to 2001ish I think (over a couple dozen orders - I used my own account to buy for a small company I use to work for). Never paid for extra shipping, received everything in 3-4 biz days. I even got them to credit me back ten bucks when the part was put on a weekend sale two days later. Everything showed up in good working order, never had them ship something incorrectly.
Moral of the story: YMMV. For myself and countless others I've recommended NewEgg to, they've never failed to deliver.
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I suppose your mileage may vary.
I've never had to deal with Newegg customer service.
Every item I've bought from them shipped properly (correct item/size/model/variation) and it was shipped pretty quickly. Only once or twice have I needed fast shipping, and they did follow through.
Re:Tiger direct or indirect (Score:5, Insightful)
Often times I'll check pricewatch first, but if the price difference isn't too big I'll go with Newegg instead of whatever Mom & Pop is cheapest anyway.
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Ditto. I've never ordered from Newegg because their prices were a little higher than Tiger, but neither Tiger nor amazon have ever given me any cause for complaint.
But the interesting thing is that in the last 8 years of ordering things online, I can't recall a single problem (other than UPS delivering to the wrong house). And that's from any company--not just amazon and Tiger. I'm not saying I've never had an issue; only that I don't remember them.
My gut tells me that there are some people who just have ve
Re:Tiger direct or indirect (Score:5, Insightful)
I like TigerDirect, but I only shop with them in-person, not on-line. In person I can see precisely what I'm getting and know that I can return it without much hassle if it has a problem. I wouldn't recommend it for casual computer users, but for people who know what they need, their stores are good places to buy computer components without spending a fortune because they charge the same price in person as they do on-line.
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Of course, I think the boss had some cousin or something working there and that probably helped to screw things up.
Nothing like inbreeding.
What's Tiger Direct? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What's Tiger Direct? (Score:5, Informative)
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So if you're not happy with TigerDirect, don't consider the re-formed CompUSA as an alternative... it isn't.
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CDW is what killed Tiger Direct, which was a bad joke long before newegg gained its current immense popularity.
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It was a magazine I used to buy hardware from (using their 800 number) before egghead/newegg.
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No, it's obviously where you get Apple's Tiger operating system. Or wait, it's Apple who does mail-order for them. It's so confusing! [slashdot.org]
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I know there is a Siegfried and Roy joke in there somewhere.
If you order from TigerDirect, you are likely to get bit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_&_Roy#Roy.27s_tiger_injury [wikipedia.org]
Something odd here (Score:4, Interesting)
The computers were still new in the box, from reseller stock, but the warranties were expired?
I don't think there's any question that they were actual Dell equipment. So, why should the warranties have expired?
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Re:Something odd here (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's not unusual for a retail store to have a 3-year-old computer.
Not a new one. Most model lines don't last 3 years, anyway.
Re:Something odd here (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah; I've got a problem with that, too. The warranty had better start when I buy the machine, not when the store buys the machine.
I've never heard of that happening before for new sales.
Unless what Dell is claiming is, these are actually second hand sales, and not new sales.
Still, there's a reason I've got a bunch of these orange egg-shaped microfiber cloths about the place now.
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That's exactly what Dell's claiming, and I know this first hand.
The machines are consistently off-lease machines; The (l)users who're buying them think:
* The machine is new
* The machine has a warranty that covers everything including the end of the world
* The machine is the latest hardware on the market
When in reality, the computers are:
* 3-4 years old
* Outside of the official Dell warranty by months at the very least
* Decent, but older hardware compared to the current systems (Latitude D600 compared to Lat
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Dell claims both that Tiger sold Dell equipment that was used, refurbished, and acquired from other resellers as new equipment received directly from Dell and that Tiger sold refurbished Dell equipment covered only by a third party warranty under the representation that it was sold with a Dell warranty.
The lawsuit does not appear to claim that Tiger sold new (not used or refurbished) equipment whose warranty had expired
Re:Something odd here (Score:5, Interesting)
That's my guess, anyway -- that the transfer of the goods to Tiger was not via the wholesaler.
Dell --> wholesaler --> retailer --> end-customer (warranty activation).
Dell --> wholesaler --> retailer --> clearinghouse (warranty activation) --> Tiger Direct --> End-customer.
Should have been:
Dell --> wholesaler --> retailer -(RTV)-> wholesaler --> Tiger Direct --> end-customer (warranty activation).
Tiger may have bought directly from the retailer, or they may have bought from a clearinghouse; but according to Dell Service, the warranty would have been activated when the retailer sold the boxes.
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Never seen any listed as new there, not that i looked there for them but i do scan the offerings every now and then. I see they changed the dell logo from the article, just Dell now, no capital ELL.
Long time Tiger buyer, but the last order for memory and external HD went to newegg on pricing alone. The memory was cheaper (even after Newegg's tacky shipping charge added on) and the HD was on clearance sale. The HD showed up on Tiger at regular price when Newegg took them off their site. Tiger=160G while Newe
Re:Something odd here (Score:5, Informative)
Simple. Dell's warranty is fundamentally flawed. IANAL, but even I was able to spot three parts of their warranty that seem to be legally noncompliant in a quick one minute skim. It's pretty sad, really.
Products are warranted based on date of manufacture, not date of customer sale. From their warranty info:
If I read that correctly, then when Dell sold it to the original reseller, the warranty began. I'm not certain, but such a warranty period probably runs afoul of Magnuson-Moss. At least in my mind, that clearly qualifies as a deceptive warranty term---a warranty that appears to provide coverage, but does not actually provide any coverage in some cases. It would be nice for some big company like Dell to get the crap sued out of them to set a precedent against warranty periods that start on the date of manufacture. It would be somewhat ironic if a dirtbag company like TigerDirect ended up being on the right side of such a suit, though. :-)
Dell explicitly doesn't extend product warranties if they repair the machine, but IIRC, California law requires them to extend the warranty for every day the product is out of the customer's hands.
IIRC, California law requires that all new consumer electronics products have a minimum of a 90 day warranty from when the customer receives the product. There are a number of products that would run short by several days, depending on shipping time, and in the case of products sold through a reseller like Tiger Direct, the warranty could actually be zero....
I think it's long past time for consumers to revolt against such abusive warranties. Warranties should, by law, start when the consumer receives the product. Anything else is unethical, and quite probably illegal.
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According to the lawsuit [regmedia.co.uk], among other things:
(1) Tiger sold used/refurbished Dell computers not covered by any Dell warranty, but covered by a third party warranty, and presented them as being covered by a Dell warranty.
(2) Tiger sold computers that were variously used, refurbished, or purchased from other resellers and advertised them as new, original, and obtained directly from Dell.
I don't see an allegation in t
Will TD finally own up? (Score:2)
Grat's for Dell (Score:2)
Yawn... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not surprising at all. They also pass off used, defective items as "refurbished". I imagine they turn them on to make sure they get power and then pack them up for shipping.
NewEgg is a better deal at twice the price. No, I'm not exaggerating.
Low prices and low morals (Score:5, Interesting)
Tiger Direct does what it can to reduce its prices.
If this includes not packing their goods for shipping, lying about what you're getting, or rebate and switching, so be it.
Their prices are only about 5% lower than most websites. Its not worth it to get a CPU that was dropped into an antistatic bag and put into a box 10x its size unsecured.
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Never had any issue with rebates from TigerDirect actually. Sure, you have to follow the directions, but they are pretty clearly laid out and I have always gotten my money.
Overall, I'm happy with them. I've purchased a number of things from them, and no major complaints. Then again, I always shop in person and not online, as there are three stores within a forty-five minute drive of my house.
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About 6 months ago, my credit card was falsely billed for around $500 from Tiger Direct. It was the third time that it had happened. I hadn't ordered anything that large from them, and my last order had been a few months ago, had been very small (RAM or something), and had been completed successfully.
TD is the only online retailer I've ever had this problem with. No one tries to use my credit card at Newegg. No one tries to use it at Amazon. All three times (over the course of about 4 years), it was us
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On the flipside, I bought a few computer cases from TD because the price was really, really good. I was fully aware of their suckage, having experienced it personally in the past. But this order for ~$200 went just fine.
Fast forward to a year later and I decided to buy a bunch of hard disks from them because their price, after shipping, was still 10% less than any other vendor and I wanted to get my RAID on, especially the Inexpensive part of RAID.
Their website took the order, and succesfully put a hold o
CompUSA and Circuit City purchases make sense now. (Score:2, Interesting)
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Umm... both CompUSA and Circuit City have gone out of business... Either that means Tiger is really hurting, or it shut them down on purpose so everyone would go to Tiger Direct.
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the old saying (Score:4, Insightful)
If it sounds to good to be true... it usually is
Holds true with any ad I see from any retailer/e-tailer. Always look (as best you can) at the items before you buy.
Most of tiger's stuff that looks good in the beginning, is either really old, refurbished (but not listed that way in the ad), or when you look at the specs of the item it is misleading. I.e. a new HD 50 inch TV. Check out the TV in question, it is new, it is 50 inches, and it is 720p. Now mind you 720p is good, but on a 50 inch TV I would rather have 0180p not 720p. If it was a 20 inch TV then 720p is fine. So the ad to me was misleading. Full HD == 1080p in my book.
I was temped to get one for their bare bones PCs since the price was really low. Then I looked at what the parts were. The parts could make a decent email, web, doc computer. No light gaming, no DVR system (maybe DVR but it at the min). So I passed. I paid about $80 more then their kit and got a system that I knew would do what I wanted.
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Why? So everything you watch looks like it was rendered by an 8-bit video game system?
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The cable box gui looks like that (Score:2)
The cable box gui looks like that
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Full HD == 1080p in my book.
Meh.
Nearly all broadcast/cable/satellite HD is 1080i or 720p. (And 1080i vs 720p is a wash... higher resolution but interlaced vs lower but progressive scan), and its usually compressed which isn't doing anyone any favours.
A DVD upscaled to 720p vs 1080p doesn't really look any different. And most console games even on the new HD consoles aren't 1080p.
So what does that leave? Blu-ray, and the future.
For me, I don't have any intention of getting bluray, and if a 720p TV was at the
How eco-friendly (Score:5, Insightful)
[blockquote]Dell wants an injunction on Tiger using any of its materials, the destruction of all computers parts and accessories with Dell logos[/blockquote]
What a waste of perfectly good electronics. Surely Dell could have come up with a solution that doesn't contribute to landfills unnecessarily.
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I agree- this does seem odd, especially given that everyone is jumping on the "green" bandwagon. This is still Dell equipment, even if it is older. The equipment should be returned to Dell for recycling, or donated to a charitable organization.
I sincerely doubt Tiger Direct cares.
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Of course they could have, but what would be their incentive to do so?
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I know... noob mistake. I actually opted out of /. beta mode because I find it obnoxious, so I have separate preview and submit buttons. Oops.
Not surprised in the least. (Score:2)
In my one experience with Tiger Direct, the following occurred: .ca domain, with big Canadian flags saying "NO DUTY"), and when the product arrived at my door it had a $150 COD for... dum du
- 1 year warranty on the product they were offering, only for me to discover once it broke that they were just reselling the manufacturer's 90-day warranty. Of course, they changed their website prior to me realizing this and I didn't get a screenshot so I couldn't report them.
- Claiming to be without duties (even at the
Wait stop. (Score:3, Insightful)
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Nope. While the word "unethical" is used a lot in the comment thread, what Dell is accusing Tiger of doing is breaking the law, not being "unethical".
Not surprised (Score:2, Interesting)
direct mail tactics (Score:3, Informative)
Anyone remember TD's odd direct mail tactics in the mid 90's. They had a similiar approach to what Columbia House did with music CD's. They sent out mailings that threatened to send you software that you didn't order if you didn't send back the mailer with a certain box checked. That was thier thankyou for ordering out of the catalogue.
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They had a similiar approach to what Columbia House did with music CD's. They sent out mailings that threatened to send you software that you didn't order if you didn't send back the mailer with a certain box checked.
Columbia House was one of those "record club" things, wasn't it? We had them in the UK (along with similar book clubs), but you only *had* to send the ticked monthly thing back if you'd already agreed to this arrangement by joining- and they were reasonably clear about it.
You also had to purchase something like six CDs, books or whatever at the regular (uncompetitive) rate in your first year. For me, this made the cut-price joining offers look much less attractive, but again- and IMHO- they never actually
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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I've always heard complaints and warnings about Tiger Direct, but I'd have to side with you on this, to an extent.... Most of the time, I don't listen to the advertising hype in their ad copy. Rather, I go straight to the list of specs. The info seems to usually be there, if you care to read it.
EG. They can tell you what an "Awesome price" it is on a "Powerhouse" of a computer - but it'll tell you in there someplace if it's a Celeron processor with integrated Intel video, or what-not.
The people getting
What's new? (Score:2)
I live near a tiger direct store myself, and I've had pretty good service from them both online as well as in-store. What's so shocking about selling something new that is no longer sold? How often does Newegg go fix their 8 month old inventory comments that say 'blistering performance for today's market' and it's for a Pentium 4? People sell the stuff and add all sorts of good fluff to make the consumer think it's a good purchase. The consumer should know if it really is however.
Go look at TigerDirect
TigerDirect was great (Score:2)
I use to love TigerDirect, but then they got bought up. Systemax owns them, along with CompUSA, Global Computer, CircuitCity, and many others ( http://www.systemax.com/shop.html [systemax.com] )
NewEgg has been great, but the prices are not as good as they once were. They previously were always the price leader. Now I am finding Amazon.com is often cheaper after S/H.
Currently, if Dell sells it I buy it from them. Many items can be had for 40%-85% off. Software can often be bought at 85% off if you ask correctly. I
Yeah, pretty much. (Score:2)
TigerDirect are spammers and they're not real ethical. No surprise there.
My newegg experiences have been ALMOST uniformly good. Two issues:
1. When I bought an MSI video card through NewEgg, MSI screwed me on the rebate -- and then went around signing me up for spam when I complained. (Yes, I have proof that MSI signed me up for spam -- IP addresses and timestamps and everything.) NewEgg offered me a $25 credit on a future order but never applied it. (I don't actually care that much, I figure it just f