Back in November, the ACCC announced it was taking Dell Australia to court, with the watchdog alleging the computer maker misled consumers about the cost of monitors. In June, the Federal Court declared by consent that Dell Australia Pty Ltd made false and misleading representations on its website about the prices of add-on monitors and in ‘strikethrough’ prices shown on the website. And today, the fine has been handed down to Dell – with the computer giant to pay a whopping $10 million in penalties.
Instituting proceedings in the Federal Court, the ACCC alleged in November that Dell made false or misleading representations regarding the price of monitors that consumers could add on to purchases of Dell computers. The ACCC said that Dell Australia made false or misleading representations on its website about the prices of monitors and the potential savings when a monitor was purchased with a computer.
According to a statement from the ACCC, when a consumer selected a Dell desktop, laptop, or notebook for purchase on the Dell website, the consumer was offered the option of adding a monitor during the check-out process. The ACCC claims that on occasion, the monitor was shown with a higher price in strikethrough, representing a significant saving.
Dell Australia admitted 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.
The local arm of the computer giant also admitted that it made misleading statements about the discounted price of the add-on monitor on its website, including “Total Savings”, “Includes x% off”, “Discounted Price”, and “Get the best price for popular accessories when purchased with this product”.
The ACCC said that the company sold more than 5,300 add-on monitors with “overstated discounts”.
In November, Dell told Gizmodo Australia it had fully cooperated with the ACCC throughout its investigation, and that the company had been working with impacted customers to provide appropriate refunds (as well as interest). The ACCC confirmed in June that Dell Australia had refunded, or agreed to offer compensation, to around 4,250 affected customers. The ACCC said customers paid over $2 million for add-on monitors between August 2019 and mid-December 2021.
Previously, a Dell spokesperson said the company was taking steps to improve its pricing processes to ensure this sort of error does not happen again, here’s what they had to say today:
“We are pleased that this is now behind us, and our focus can return to serving our Australian customers. As we acknowledged in November 2022 when the ACCC commenced these proceedings, 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.“
This article has been updated since it was first published.