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Dell, once my favorite computer company (and the maker of my last three computers), fell out of my favor when it started engaging in what I considered unethical business practices. I witnessed first hand the amount of effort required to disengage from Dell Financial’s predatory credit lending practices with a college-aged family member. It required verbal legal threats to induce them to give the true “payoff number” over the phone and avoid additional charges at 29.9% interest.

Companies that hate their customers this much don’t deserve their customer’s loyalty. So Dell lost me as a customer “forevermore”.

Now it seems I’m not the only one dissatisfied with Dell’s practices:

The New York State Supreme Court has dealt a blow against Dell by ruling that the company and its affiliate, Dell Financial Services, engaged in fraud, false advertising, deceptive business practices, and abusive debt collection practices.

From ars technica .

The article includes a scathing recap by the judge in the case, but more shocking are the legal findings that include very low acceptance rates for its “come on” low interest financing; advising customers they qualified yet signing them up at higher interest rates; hidden warranty requirements for its next day service that mandated a consumer must disassemble their machines prior to the next day service call and more. One of the most shocking accusations is that the “voice mail jail” you find yourself in, with transfers between departments and long hold times may have been created intentionally to delay warranty claims. Dell, you see, would deny the warranty claim if it could delay its action on the claim past the expiration date (in most states, you only have to notify the company about the problem before the end of the warranty period).

“Dell has engaged in repeated misleading, deceptive and unlawful business conduct, including false and deceptive advertising of financing promotions and the terms of warranties, fraudulent, misleading and deceptive practices in credit financing and failure to provide warranty service and rebates,” concluded [Judge] Teresi in his decision.

Dell claims that the customers affected by these incidents represent only a small minority of its customer base, which seems to me a peculiar defense: could a thief provide a list of banks he hasn’t robbed as defense?

Companies that act in this manner do not love their customers; they hate them.

My recommendation: don’t do business with companies that engage in such practices. Find another computer vendor other than Dell.

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Well, its about time …

Ars Technica reports that two MySpace spammers have been given the largest fine in the history of the too-weak CAN-SPAM law:

The US District Court for the Central District of California made a default judgment against Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines for using MySpace to send more than 700,000 spam messages to users of the popular social networking service. The result is $234 million in damages for MySpace—assuming, of course, that Wallace and Rines can be tracked down and forced to pay up.

More here.

The article by Jacqui Cheng lists several other cases, including criminal prosecutions the under-utilized law has produced. Good news.

But its not nearly enough. America must strengthen anti-spam laws and put some teeth into the enforcement.

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It should be unnecessary to say it, but adults should monitor children’s activities, not engage in them.

The AP reports on a 49 year old woman indicted for initiating a hoax on MySpace that led to a 13 year old’s death. The alleged reason for the hoax? To find out if the girl was saying bad things about her daughter.

Never mind the stunning bad judgment in starting the hoax, where the mother is alleged to have impersonated an interested 16 year old boy, but this woman is charged with then “dumping” the girl by stating that the “world would be better off without you.”

All of the allowances we make for youth don’t apply here; this woman is an adult. Her words, she knows, have consequences that often go beyond the immediate effect. She knew, or should have known, that 13 year old children are often vulnerable, and that first crushes are often totally encompassing. The 13 year old’s death by suicide is not surprising in that context.

Adults, who don’t play in the playground, are still charged with knowing the risks associated with the equipment. Supervision is meant not to protect just your child, but all the children. And you don’t hurt one child to make your child feel better, you try to protect them all.

If the allegations are true, this woman caused a girl’s death, just as surely as if she pushed her off the top of the Jungle Jim.