Dell - Small Claims Court form filling advice.

xtremepoizn

So I have the now infamous Dell XPS M1300 with the NVIDIA GEFORCE 8400M GS graphics card. The Laptop was bought in March 2008 with a 1 year warranty. I paid around €1600 for the laptop and also paid extra for the graphics card and white LED display. In October 2009 the graphics card failed. I contacted Dell and they wanted me to extend the warranty before they touch it which I was not prepared to do as this is a known hardware failure which they should fix without me having to pay for an extended warranty.

I now need advice and articles related to this problem so that I can attach it to the claims form. I also need the Dell address which I should put on the form.

I know that under Irish consumer law, a product should last a reasonable amount of time, regardless of warranty etc. Can someone tell me where this law is actually written so that I mention this as well?

Thanks

jor el

Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act 1980.

Faulty goods guide by the NCA.

In particular, Q11 of that guide is what you want. You don't need to quote the Act in your Small Claims submission, as they will already be aware of it.

Q11. I have a faulty good but my guarantee is out of date by one month. Is there anything I can do?

A guarantee/warranty is a bonus and cannot affect or diminish your statutory rights with the seller. A guarantee/warranty is a written statement given by a manufacturer or a company indicating they will repair or replace a product within a specified time after it was purchased. You may decide to claim under a guarantee during its period of validity, but cannot be obliged to do so.

Therefore you may, if the reasonable lifetime of a given product exceeds the time period of any warranty, pursue the seller in respect of your statutory rights - 'The Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act, 1980'. If the trader refuses to offer redress for the faulty goods and you have exhausted all other options you may wish to pursue the matter with the Small Claims Court.

Since your laptop broke within 18 months of purchase (a reasonable time frame) and Dell are refusing point blank to do anything, you have a very good case for the small claims court.

According to the CRO, Dell's registered business address is :

DELL (IRELAND)
INNOVATION HOUSE
CHERRYWOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY PARK
CHERRYWOOD
CABINTEELY, DUBLIN 18

xtremepoizn

That was quick! Thanks a lot! Any advice on how to fill the form? Do they bother if it is in simple english or legal english?

I found the below articles related to this issue. Do you thing this is enough for the small claims court to understand that this is a wide spread issue?

http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/b/direct2dell/archive/2008/07/25/nvidia-gpu-update-for-dell-laptop-owners.aspx

http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/b/direct2dell/archive/2008/08/18/nvidia-gpu-update-dell-to-offer-warranty-enhancement-to-all-affected-customers-worldwide.aspx

Please let me know what else to add to the form. So far I have the following:

Small Claims Court Form
Invoice
Emails from Customer Care
Emails from Technical Support
Email from Dell Legal Team (They haven't emailed yet but said they would.)

I might add a print out of one or both of the above articles or if I find any better ones.

jor el

I've never filled on in, but you don't need too much. Just back up your claim with what you have so far. It doesn't need to be legal jargon, as the whole idea of it is not to use solicitors and so on.

xtremepoizn

Thanks! Just got the email from their "Legal Department". Seems their legal eagle is also in India who has no idea about Irish Consumer Laws or European either. Also sent me an official letter in pdf form which states that I contacted them about a "printer":D

slave1

PM sent

xtremepoizn

slave1 wrote: »

PM sent

To me? Haven't got any PM yet...

cast_iron

jor el wrote: »

DELL (IRELAND)
INNOVATION HOUSE
CHERRYWOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY PARK
CHERRYWOOD
CABINTEELY, DUBLIN 18

The address seems correct. Though if you check your invoice, you will find the company's name is "Dell Products". It is them you have the contract with, as it is "Dell Products" that you paid the money to for the laptop.

How did it work out, OP?

dstoran

I've the same problem. Bought the laptop back in Nov 2007, needed the motherboard replaced after 6 months. Now same problem again but Dell told me there was nothing they could do. The legal department called me as well saying I was on my own.

I started small claims court proceedings last week. Am now awaiting their response. Hopefully those bastards will get what's coming to them!

tommy21

dstoran wrote: »

I've the same problem. Bought the laptop back in Nov 2007, needed the motherboard replaced after 6 months. Now same problem again but Dell told me there was nothing they could do. The legal department called me as well saying I was on my own.

I started small claims court proceedings last week. Am now awaiting their response. Hopefully those bastards will get what's coming to them!

Let us know how you get on if you don't mind! good luck!

xtremepoizn

Never got the emails that there were new posts in this thread... hence the delay.

Anyway Dell is willing to offer me 3 years extended warranty for around €200. :rolleyes: I don't have a problem in paying but according to me this is Dells problem not mine so they should fix it first and then we'll talk about extended warranty. Looking at the past cases in the small claims court, it can take ages to solve this, the last case of a similar kind took over 6 months. If Dell refuses to fix this there is NOTHING the court can do other then order Dell to pay up and send the sherrif to collect the money (you have to pay the sherrif). If the sherrif manages to get the money then they refund your money if not they tell you to contact your solicitor to take this out of the small claims court. I saw two articles in the independent or irish times about Dell and the small claims court. Seems the small claims court couldn't make Dell pay... the article spoke about two cases and both had the same outcome. This is in relation to the "reasonable amount of time" argument. Other cases against Dell are solved easily and Dell repairs, replaces or refunds the customer.

So I started the small claims court proceedings but if it takes longer then 2 months to solve this I think it will be best to pay for the warranty and get it fixed.

I really don't understand why the Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act 1980 mentions that goods should last a reasonable amount of time but doesn't specify what is reasonable! This makes it very difficult to know what the outcome will be in court as it can swing both ways.

tommy21

xtremepoizn wrote: »

Never got the emails that there were new posts in this thread... hence the delay.

Anyway Dell is willing to offer me 3 years extended warranty for around €200. :rolleyes: I don't have a problem in paying but according to me this is Dells problem not mine so they should fix it first and then we'll talk about extended warranty. Looking at the past cases in the small claims court, it can take ages to solve this, the last case of a similar kind took over 6 months. If Dell refuses to fix this there is NOTHING the court can do other then order Dell to pay up and send the sherrif to collect the money (you have to pay the sherrif). If the sherrif manages to get the money then they refund your money if not they tell you to contact your solicitor to take this out of the small claims court. I saw two articles in the independent or irish times about Dell and the small claims court. Seems the small claims court couldn't make Dell pay... the article spoke about two cases and both had the same outcome. This is in relation to the "reasonable amount of time" argument. Other cases against Dell are solved easily and Dell repairs, replaces or refunds the customer.

So I started the small claims court proceedings but if it takes longer then 2 months to solve this I think it will be best to pay for the warranty and get it fixed.

I really don't understand why the Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act 1980 mentions that goods should last a reasonable amount of time but doesn't specify what is reasonable! This makes it very difficult to know what the outcome will be in court as it can swing both ways.

Don't waste your time buying an extended warranty! They are surplus to requirements because of the act and indeed European legislation. I think you are getting ahead of yourself and getting too worried. Give the court some time to sort it and hopefully it should come right in the end. I think it is good in a way that the act doesn't state an exact amount of time, as you probably get longer when its a bit vague! Besides there are so many variants of so many products that it would probably be impossible to have an average for them all.

jor el

xtremepoizn wrote: »

So I started the small claims court proceedings but if it takes longer then 2 months to solve this I think it will be best to pay for the warranty and get it fixed.

Unless it contains a very good insurance policy, one in addition to what your home insurance gives you, then extended warranties are a waste of money. Don't do this.

xtremepoizn wrote: »

I really don't understand why the Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act 1980 mentions that goods should last a reasonable amount of time but doesn't specify what is reasonable! This makes it very difficult to know what the outcome will be in court as it can swing both ways.

Reasonable varies from one purchase to the next. While a laptop or TV could be reasonably expected to last several years (or well beyond the 1 year warranty), something like an electric drill would not. So no specific time can be mentioned, as it would do more harm than good.

As tommy21 says, give the court time to do their job.

Honda08

xtremepoizn wrote: »

So I have the now infamous Dell XPS M1300 with the NVIDIA GEFORCE 8400M GS graphics card. The Laptop was bought in March 2008 with a 1 year warranty. I paid around €1600 for the laptop and also paid extra for the graphics card and white LED display. In October 2009 the graphics card failed. I contacted Dell and they wanted me to extend the warranty before they touch it which I was not prepared to do as this is a known hardware failure which they should fix without me having to pay for an extended warranty.

I now need advice and articles related to this problem so that I can attach it to the claims form. I also need the Dell address which I should put on the form.

I know that under Irish consumer law, a product should last a reasonable amount of time, regardless of warranty etc. Can someone tell me where this law is actually written so that I mention this as well?

Thanks

there is a thread over on notebook review forum

also
Problems

Some chips of the GeForce 8 series (concretely those from the G84 and G86 series) may suffer from an overheating problem. NVIDIA states this issue should not affect many chips,[43] whereas others assert that all of the chips in these series are potentially affected.[43] NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang and CFO Marvin Burkett were involved in a lawsuit filed on September 9, 2008 alleging that their knowledge of the flaw, and their intent to hide it, resulted in NVIDIA losing 31% on the stock markets.[44]
The reason for the high failure rate was because of faulty solder material; when the GPU heated up and then cooled over its use, particularly when used in GPU intensive operations like games, the solder would become soft when hot, and when cool, that solder would crack, causing failure in the 8600M GT, 8600M GS, 8400M GT, and 8400M GS cards. It is widely acknowledged that these cards have a universal design flaw. It has also been speculated that mobile cards prior to the GeForce 8M series like the GeForce Go 7600 and earlier also have this design flaw, although it has not been proven.


quoted from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_8_Series

its a known and well publicised issue, for a good while now.
print off the above, from wikipedia, and check it out

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/369024-gpu-failure-after-warranty-expires.html

a lot of laptops from varied manufacturers were fixed free even when out of warranty.

xtremepoizn

A short update, nothing interesting yet.

Been in contact with the Executive Escalations Specialist of Dell since 2 weeks. Was told that management will contact me. After 2 weeks managament contacted me and it was the same person who told me before that they will not fix it and now want me to pay around €450 to fix it. They also told me "contact your solicitor if you have any problems with us" After giving Dell so much business over the years I was very happy to hear that!:mad:

So now that I tried everything to solve the problem, lets see how well I do in Court provided the law covers me I am sure I have a very strong case against Dell as I have been in contact with peopel from Dell who actually have a Name!

Cuddlesworth

xtremepoizn wrote: »

A short update, nothing interesting yet.

Been in contact with the Executive Escalations Specialist of Dell since 2 weeks. Was told that management will contact me. After 2 weeks managament contacted me and it was the same person who told me before that they will not fix it and now want me to pay around €450 to fix it. They also told me "contact your solicitor if you have any problems with us" After giving Dell so much business over the years I was very happy to hear that!:mad:

So now that I tried everything to solve the problem, lets see how well I do in Court provided the law covers me I am sure I have a very strong case against Dell as I have been in contact with peopel from Dell who actually have a Name!

Michael_dell@dell.com

You would be surprised what a email listing all your problems and Irish consumer law to that address would do.

tommy21

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Michael_dell@dell.com

You would be surprised what a email listing all your problems and Irish consumer law to that address would do.

Why not give it a go!

xtremepoizn

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Michael_dell@dell.com

You would be surprised what a email listing all your problems and Irish consumer law to that address would do.

Are you joking? I doubt that is even his real address! Why would be have an email address which every one can easily get? Any why will he be concerned about what happens to one of Dells thousand customers?

Have you emailed him? If yes then I will try or else I don't want to spoil my case as there might be another Michael Dell who might only be the security guard of the Dell factory in Poland!

Cuddlesworth

xtremepoizn wrote: »

Are you joking? I doubt that is even his real address! Why would be have an email address which every one can easily get? Any why will he be concerned about what happens to one of Dells thousand customers?

Have you emailed him? If yes then I will try or else I don't want to spoil my case as there might be another Michael Dell who might only be the security guard of the Dell factory in Poland!

He doesn't read the emails. A team of people do. And they find the person in charge and mail them from that email if they feel the dell brand is being hurt. And when one of those emails turns up everybody jumps, then asks how high.

xtremepoizn

Have you emailed him or do you know anyone who has? I might give it a go. I already emailed Dell before and so it will only be a copy and paste job...

Cuddlesworth

xtremepoizn wrote: »

Have you emailed him or do you know anyone who has? I might give it a go. I already emailed Dell before and so it will only be a copy and paste job...

I have never emailed him. Your email might just be ignored by the people who read it. But its worth a shot.

xtremepoizn

Done! Will see if I get a reply... and will post here if I do.

slowmoe

xtremepoizn wrote: »

Done! Will see if I get a reply... and will post here if I do.

i've had the list of problems with this lap top since i bought it last feb. i went through the irish times after dells repairs failed and then they started failling to show up to bother repairing! The guys name was conor pope from irish times, he got me a replacement which also broke several times. just after its third repair and its broken after 2 hours of use so i'm also going through small claims court. i emailed michael dells above address and a ton of other dell heads address, never got a single response apart from one out of office mail :rolleyes:

slowmoe

also the extended warranty is a waste. i have a 3 year accidental damage warranty. the problem is dell can't actually fix the computers or won't so no warranty will help you with their incompetance

dstoran

Haven't had time to post an update until now, but basically within less than a week of starting small claims procedings I received a letter from Dell offering me a full refund for my laptop, provided I return it to them. Lodged the cheque for €1,199 today! Couldn't believe when I got the letter, the most I expected was a repair and maybe an extended warranty.

Cuddlesworth

slowmoe wrote: »

i've had the list of problems with this lap top since i bought it last feb. i went through the irish times after dells repairs failed and then they started failling to show up to bother repairing! The guys name was conor pope from irish times, he got me a replacement which also broke several times. just after its third repair and its broken after 2 hours of use so i'm also going through small claims court. i emailed michael dells above address and a ton of other dell heads address, never got a single response apart from one out of office mail :rolleyes:

slowmoe wrote: »

also the extended warranty is a waste. i have a 3 year accidental damage warranty. the problem is dell can't actually fix the computers or won't so no warranty will help you with their incompetance

At last count I have logged about 900 calls with Dell for various reasons. I have found the support structure be of varying degrees of competency but I have never found them to be anything as bad as you describe. I don't understand how something can break several times and yet be repaired three times.

I fail to understand why Dell would even entertain "Conor" from the Irish Times. The techs on the phones are based in India and could care less about Irish reporters. Dells press office here would just laugh it off, no editor would go with such a bad story so full of holes.

I don't understand how they could fail to show up several times. You get rung to confirm a engineer will be there, you get rung afterword's to check if you are happy with the service. The repair engineers work for a third party and get in trouble for botched jobs and no shows. This is tracked by the control center in Limerick. I have had the head of the company come out to do the job to avoid negative feedback when his worker was caught in a car crash.

And if your literary prose to Michael Dells email is similar to the above I would have no doubt it would have been binned. Reading it I would guess the problem was somewhere between the keyboard and the chair.

xtremepoizn

dstoran wrote: »

Haven't had time to post an update until now, but basically within less than a week of starting small claims procedings I received a letter from Dell offering me a full refund for my laptop, provided I return it to them. Lodged the cheque for €1,199 today! Couldn't believe when I got the letter, the most I expected was a repair and maybe an extended warranty.

A bit more info will help! Can you let me know what you mentioned in the small claims application? what articles, emails etc required? and in which court it was... PM me if you can't post. I wonder what structure Dell follows! Some people get nothing and others get a refund... wouldn't it be cheaper for Dell to repair all the faulty laptops? :mad:

Thanks

Darwin

To the OP: you are entitled to an extended warranty of 1 year for Nvidia GPU related issues. My wife's laptop (same as yours) experienced GPU failure and after several phone calls on my part (and a lot of patience), they eventually agreed to take the laptop back and repair it. Here is the original link outlining the details of the extended warrranty by Dell:

http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/b/direct2dell/archive/2008/08/18/nvidia-gpu-update-dell-to-offer-warranty-enhancement-to-all-affected-customers-worldwide.aspx

Stick to your guns and remind them of their obligation to fix your laptop.

slowmoe

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

At last count I have logged about 900 calls with Dell for various reasons. I have found the support structure be of varying degrees of competency but I have never found them to be anything as bad as you describe. I don't understand how something can break several times and yet be repaired three times.

I fail to understand why Dell would even entertain "Conor" from the Irish Times. The techs on the phones are based in India and could care less about Irish reporters. Dells press office here would just laugh it off, no editor would go with such a bad story so full of holes.

I don't understand how they could fail to show up several times. You get rung to confirm a engineer will be there, you get rung afterword's to check if you are happy with the service. The repair engineers work for a third party and get in trouble for botched jobs and no shows. This is tracked by the control center in Limerick. I have had the head of the company come out to do the job to avoid negative feedback when his worker was caught in a car crash.

And if your literary prose to Michael Dells email is similar to the above I would have no doubt it would have been binned. Reading it I would guess the problem was somewhere between the keyboard and the chair.

There is absolutely no need to be so rude because you don't agree with my post. Strangely i had not felt the need to re check my grammar on a forum, had i known i would have been slagged for it i probably wouldn't have bother posting at all. What i did post was my opinion and a smalll part of my story in response to the ops. I'm completely entitled to it and i stand by it. As for the 'holes' in my story??? The second lap top has been repaired two times, it has broken several times. From your post you seem to think several is a lot more than three. There have been a lot of problems with both lap tops i had and the current one has been repaired three times for a few faults at each repair. None of which seem to have been repaired as the lap top is still not turning on. As for these calls you have received, i have never heard of anyone getting one apart from you nor have i received them.

xtremepoizn

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I fail to understand why Dell would even entertain "Conor" from the Irish Times. The techs on the phones are based in India and could care less about Irish reporters. Dells press office here would just laugh it off, no editor would go with such a bad story so full of holes.

Couldn't have been more precise! Dell tech support, management, legal section is all in India and when they don't follow their own laws etc how the hell do you expect them to care two cents for irish journalists or irish consumer laws? I told them time and again about the irish consumer laws but they just laugh it off... :mad:

slowmoe wrote: »

i emailed michael dells above address and a ton of other dell heads address, never got a single response apart from one out of office mail

I did get a number or replies from real people at Dell and not out of office replies and so I guess my case is a bit different to yours. At least I know they are reading it. Btw what did you tell Conor Pope and what did he do? Did he spend hours on the phone to Dell on your behalf? If he emailed or phoned a particular person then that is the person we need to contact. While I have heard of Journalists or Joe Duffy having the power to help in these cases, I really don't know what he can do that will help? Wouldn't a small claims application be better?

By all means go through the small claims court but try not to exaggerate the facts. Just "Was working, now isn't" will do. Instead of "worked 3 hours not working for 4." Don't forget that the small claims court can reject your application if they find even a small problem in the application.

If I was doing your application I would only mention that it was bought in feb'09 had 3 repairs and still not working and now Dell refuses to fix it.

xtremepoizn

slowmoe wrote: »

There is absolutely no need to be so rude because you don't agree with my post.

Btw hope you don't feel that I am rude too! After reading your post and then Cuddlesworth I thought I better tell you to be short and precise on your application to the small claims court as although you might be right, unless you fill in the application correctly you will stand no change of solving your problem.

As far as I understand they are not bothered about the "how" and "what" but just the beginning and the end. Later they might ask you who all you contacted and what was the outcome etc... They only allow you 1500 characters so not much you can write.