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Comment by kstrauser | Hacker News Reader

I won’t buy Dell gear again, at home or at work. I bought my kid a monitor for his gaming PC from Amazon. It was advertised as brand new. Dell shipped it in a brand new, undamaged, unopened box. Its HDMI port failed a couple of months later but with many months of warranty left. Then Dell denied a warranty claim because their inventory system had it listed as having been previously registered to someone else. I tried to escalate the claim but they refused it all the way to the top. Amazon was helpful: they let me swap for another brand and just pay the difference.

In before “how do we believe you?” I wrote this all up in a blog post, under my real name, with backing details. If I’m lying, Dell can sue me for defamation.

A Dell corporate sales person contacted me at work to talk about setting up a work account. It felt sooo good to send them a link to my blog post and explain that Dell was dead to me. I didn’t hear back.

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FWIW, it could be an Amazons fault. Someone bought the monitor, used it, decided they didn't want it and returned it. The seller looked at it, decided it looked good enough, and put it back in his inventory at Amazon as new.

You'd have no way of knowing. People used to (maybe still do?) buy expensive graphic cards, take them out and put back a cheap one with a flashed ROM. Then shrink-wrap the box again and return it.

You wouldn't blame the manufacturer in that case. I never buy expensive things from Amazon because you can never trust what you're going to get, especially with inventory comingling.

If you bought directly from the Dell website, I'd share more of your anger. I also dislike Dell in general though, so I wouldn't buy their stuff anyway.

Yeah, this is common Amazon behavior.

Or, potentially, of any other computer hardware reseller. I’m surprised OP is mad at Dell, typically you’d expect the reseller to handle such an issue. Amazon allowing to replace it isn’t doing anything extraordinary here.

Amazon has a return window. After that, they tell you to take it up with the manufacturer. When Dell refused to honor their warranty, Amazon covered it even though it was outside their window.

That's because Amazon sold a used monitor as new.

> “…it could be an Amazons fault. Someone bought the monitor, used it, decided they didn't want it and returned it.”

While this may be true, it’s Dell’s lost opportunity to honor their product warranty in a generous way. Obviously it’s turned this customer into a permanent antagonist.

What’s more, the product Dell has in their warehouse should cost Dell less than the advertising, or marketing costs to get new customers.

Not to defend Dell, because they don't deserve it and should have stood by their product, but it's possibly true that the monitor was used, and not their fault that it was. 'Sold by Amazon' products are AFAIK commingled with the same product from other sellers that are Fulfilled By Amazon.

Sounds like a great battle for Dell and Amazon to have. It shouldn’t be a burden to consumers regardless of whether Amazon or Dell screwed up.

If it wasn't purchased from an authorized Dell retailer then Dell really has nothing to do with it. With the way 3rd party Amazon Marketplace sales works, who knows what happened here.

What nonsense is this?

The monitor is within the warranty period and failed. Dell didn't deal with their warranty issue in an honest and direct way. They suck. No other details matter. The end.

No, companies warranties start to expire from the point of original sale not whenever you happened to get it. What you’re complaining about is no different than expecting a used car to still have the original manufacturer’s warranty, that just not how warranties work.

The real moral of this story is to never buy electronics from Amazon. Amazon sold you a fraudulent product and you’re blaming Dell for Amazon’s failures.

I strongly doubt the warranty period expired from first sale. I strongly doubt there was a previous sale. More likely Dell screwed up their warranty database. But sure, Amazon suck very hard. Dell are at least as bad. Who do you talk to /when/ they make a mistake in their favour.

Much easier to tell people to f.off when they're not standing in front of you in your shop holding the crap goods. Amazon and Dell both push that with suppliers & customers.

> More likely Dell screwed up their warranty database

Amazon is well known for this exact kind of issue due to intentionally commingling products they frequently can’t separate returns from new products. It’s so bad everyone I know well that shops at Amazon has run into obviously used Amazon items sold as new, but not for any single brand.

Dell messing up their completely automated warranty database on the other hand requires an extraordinary series of events.

There’s no way Dell is more likely to be the culprit.

I think your prior about the probability "dell messing up" needs some adjusting based on experience there.

If Amazon are crapping on dell's brand that is 100% Dell's problem to solve. As soon as they see the receipt they should honor the warranty fully and then go hard on Amazon because they look bad. But they do not care at all about their customers seems to be a common conclusion based on experience. Whether amazon suck does not make dell's conduct any more acceptable.

Dell are known for their total contempt of their customers.

Read up on first sale doctrine. First this guy isn’t a Dell customer. Second, Dell doesn’t have the option to do what you’re suggesting.

Not honoring the warranty is they only defense here as it forces Amazon to fix the issue or risk being charged with fraud.

Yup the only option they have is to treat customers like dung and aren't they committed to it? It's impressive. No other possible legal choice.

That's a new one you're not a customer because middleman so can be no issue with warranty ever. Dell's PR would love it if they cared, which they clearly don't because why bother.

“go hard on Amazon because they look bad”

Not an option.

As to PR, you should buy a 500$ used car and then take it to the manufacturer I am sure they would be happy to make warranty repairs because that’s just great PR for them…

OP bought a 2nd hand product with expired warranty. Retailer sold it as new is a fraud by Amazon not Dell.

"expired" meaning Dell arbitrarily decided that they didn't want to honor their warranty because of course they didn't. Bought as new but so what? Resale doesn't magically make their products any more or less crap.

If Amazon committed fraud here, Dell are the victims and can deal with it. But Dell have a reputation and it is deserved. Ring them up sometime to discuss it with them, go on, try talking to them about anything.

Why are you sticking up for a bazillion dollar company behaving badly?

> In before “how do we believe you?”

A company trying to weasel out of its warranty obligations is hardly something I'd cast doubt on anymore (unfortunately).

You and me both, but someone’s always gotta be a contrarian.

Nordstrom was famous for refunding the money for things obviously not bought at the store, for example, tires, and clearly worn out shoes. (As told to me by a former sales clerk at Nordies.)

But too many people tried to make a living out of scamming Nordstrom's patient indulgence of this, and they changed their policy.

Warranty fraud is a major problem.

For consumables, sure. But a monitor should last 8 years minimum.

The tire story was the result of Nordstrom's absorbing a local department store chain in Alaska. They weren't just taking in a product Nordstroms doesn't stock.

The dumb version of the story was good PR at first and was disseminated among the staff but contributed to unreasonable customer expectations.

Connectors like HDMI ports should not be the first point of failure, especially in monitors. That sounds like planned obsolescence.

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