A group of Taiwanese consumers have won a lawsuit forcing US computer giant Dell to honor bargains the firm says it offered in error on the Internet, it was reported yesterday.
A court in southern Taiwan last week ordered the firm to deliver 18 laptops and 76 flat-panel monitors to 31 consumers for NT$490,000 (US$15,120), less than a third of the normal price, the Chinese-language Apple Daily said.
Dell will be allowed to appeal the decision — its first setback after victories in seven identical cases, the report said.
The company advertised the unusually low prices on its Web site in June and July last year, prompting bargain-hunters to place as many as 200,000 orders for the monitors.
In the July incident, the company’s Latitude E4300 notebook, which usually sells for NT$60,900, appeared online at NT$18,558, the daily said.
Dell has apologized in a statement on its Taiwanese Web site and offered a voucher of up to NT$20,000 per customer in compensation.
However, the gesture has failed to appease consumers angered by the company withdrawing the offer.
The consumer rights authorities in Taipei have fined Dell NT$1 million for customer rights infringements.
The company could not immediately be reached for comment yesterday.
SETBACK: Apple’s India iPhone push has been disrupted after Foxconn recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers, amid Beijing’s attempts to curb tech transfers Apple Inc assembly partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has recalled about 300 Chinese engineers from a factory in India, the latest setback for the iPhone maker’s push to rapidly expand in the country. The extraction of Chinese workers from the factory of Yuzhan Technology (India) Private Ltd, a Hon Hai component unit, in southern Tamil Nadu state, is the second such move in a few months. The company has started flying in Taiwanese engineers to replace staff leaving, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named, as the
The prices of gasoline and diesel at domestic fuel stations are to rise NT$0.1 and NT$0.4 per liter this week respectively, after international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to rise to NT$27.3, NT$28.8 and NT$30.8 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$26 at Formosa pumps, they said. The announcements came after international crude oil prices
A German company is putting used electric vehicle batteries to new use by stacking them into fridge-size units that homes and businesses can use to store their excess solar and wind energy. This week, the company Voltfang — which means “catching volts” — opened its first industrial site in Aachen, Germany, near the Belgian and Dutch borders. With about 100 staff, Voltfang says it is the biggest facility of its kind in Europe in the budding sector of refurbishing lithium-ion batteries. Its CEO David Oudsandji hopes it would help Europe’s biggest economy ween itself off fossil fuels and increasingly rely on climate-friendly renewables. While
SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (永豐金控) is weighing whether to add a life insurance business to its portfolio, but would tread cautiously after completing three acquisitions in quick succession, president Stanley Chu (朱士廷) said yesterday. “We are carefully considering whether life insurance should play a role in SinoPac’s business map,” Chu told reporters ahead of an earnings conference. “Our priority is to ensure the success of the deals we have already made, even though we are tracking some possible targets.” Local media have reported that Mercuries Life Insurance Co (三商美邦人壽), which is seeking buyers amid financial strains, has invited three financial
RSS