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General discussion

Please read and tell me what is wrong with this picture

Apr 25, 2005 6:10AM PDT

Nov. 25, 2004 I ordered a Gateway desktop, configured to my specifications. I wanted 1GB of RAM and I received an invoice detailing everything I ordered and the final price which I ordered and paid (with 1GB RAM).
I went on their web site to check my system out buy inputing my serial number and it says my system only has 512MB installed. I called customer service and they confirmed it was sent with only 512MB but because it has been over 30 days - time allowed for me to check my system and report any discrepancies - I am out of luck.
Now, I paid for 1GB and I was sent only 512MB installed, how can they tell me "tough luck".
Something is very wrong here. It sounds like fraud to me. Incidentally, I purchased a 3 year extended warranty also.

Looking forward to your replies.

Discussion is locked

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yea
Apr 25, 2005 6:14AM PDT

doesn't seem fair i guess. But you were given 30 days, so i guess it falls on you.

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Fair or fraud
Apr 25, 2005 6:20AM PDT

This has nothing to do with fair as far as I am concerned. If they agree they did not send me what I paid for, and assuming it was not intentional, all they have to do is make it complete. I respect your answer but I see this as being more serious. It is one thing if they say that they sent it, then the burden of proof is on me, but they admit not having sent it.

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Nope!
Apr 25, 2005 6:34AM PDT

If you can prove you ordered a gig and paid for it, you can sue them - and you should! They can't place arbitrary limitations on fraud!

W.W.

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Yes
Apr 25, 2005 6:42AM PDT

I have the original order with the price and all the specs. I paid the same price as in the quote. I may call BBB first and then take it to Dept. of Consumer Affairs. It is absolutely fraud if they admit they gave me less than what they promised even if I paid for it.

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Yes!
Apr 25, 2005 7:08AM PDT

Cut them off at the knees! Take no prisoners!

W.W.

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Dell fun, not!
Apr 25, 2005 7:25AM PDT

If you brouse this fourm you will find a lot of complaints about Dell.
So you can esclate, ask to talk to a manger, the vice pres of DEll, the president of Dell. Tell them your are gonig to return the system.
Call you credit card company and protest the charge, you may have to write a letter to CC company to do this, but they will withdraw the payment from Dell. John

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(NT) (NT) Err....John....it's a Gateway..;-)
Apr 25, 2005 7:39AM PDT
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Sxxx happens...
Apr 25, 2005 7:28AM PDT

Crud like that can happen.

I ordered my Ford pickup truck several years ago, special from the factory through a authorized dealer and specified that I wanted a posi-traction rear end, you know, where both wheel will pull, so I can get my boat up the ramp. Well, the truck arrived with every thing that I ordered. Checked the special serial numbers that have a code to identify all the extras and it all checked out.
Some time later I noticed that the posi-traction was not working correctly. Took it to the dealer & they said nothing is wrong & they swore that since the factory numbers code identifying the vehicle as having a posi-traction system then I have it. To this day it has not worked, dealer can't find anything wrong, but admits it does not work and that I have it because of the code. No one will ever admit that maybe a worker had a hangover and didn't install the correct rear end. Wrote to Ford....nothing...so I just put up with it spinning one wheel when I pull my boat up out of the water. Yes, I can complain to the BBB & give my attorney his big cut to file a suit, but I plan on getting a new Toyota Tundra next year from the brand new factory being built in my area.

Another successful dealing involved of all people, DELL. About 5-6 years ago I ordered a Dell on the telephone using a credit card after configuring online. The computer arrived exactly like I ordered. After checking, it had the video card I ordered but it was the OEM version and didn't have the feature that I expected it to have. I was very disappointed and called Dell about it and they were very nice, gave me a return code, and in two days a truck was sent out to pick up the computer and monitor. In a couple days my credit card was credited including reimbursement for the shipping/handling both ways. I then bought another computer from a competitor that used a RETAIL video card that I wanted.

Since you paid for 1GB RAM and have it in plain writing (assume the invoice shows 1GB or it's SOL) ...go for it.

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Easy fix!!
Apr 27, 2005 12:51AM PDT

This is (if all is as you state) simple breech of contract, enforceable in any court of law; in this case file in Small claims court in your jurisdiction and you will receive judgement including all court costs

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Solved
Apr 27, 2005 1:36AM PDT

When I threatened them with small claims court and called what they are doing fraud, they agreed to my point of view and did the right thing, correct the situation. This is what I expect from a reputable company. AAfter all I am not buying on eBay from some "unknown" entity!

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It's a shame...
Apr 27, 2005 5:08AM PDT

you had to go through all that just to get what you paid for. Thanks for the heads up...and congratulations on your win!

-JDM

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Gateway had no choice - glad you got it resolved.
Apr 27, 2005 1:06PM PDT

Their 30 day excuse was as lame as if you bought a car in Minnesota in Novermber and did not discover that it did not have Factory Air Conditioning that you paid for until the first hot summer day in June. Sorry !!! you should have tested the air conditioner in December when it was 20 below zero.

Also, what if your computer had been a Christmas gift for a nephew and you bought it right before Thanksgiving and he did not open it and discover the missing RAM until December 26th?

Be it Dell, Gateway, or whomever, the low level clerical types you first get on the phone are just buffers and probably do not have the IQ points it takes to distinguish between a legal issue and a customer service issue.

Place calls to the legal department of any publicly traded corporation you deal with when you truly have a legal issue. The phone number will be right in the annual report.

Your issue was not about the level of customer service It was in fact an illegal trade practice by any legal standard.

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Lets see...
Apr 27, 2005 1:47PM PDT

You got an invoice saying you ordered 1gb of ram and it took you 30 days to figure that out. Come on, you really need to be on the ball. Report this to your local DA and with the paper proof, etc. see what they'll do for ya. You pretty much sat on your rights. I suggest you contact some local advocate like the BBB or similar to see if they'll take up the matter. At least they'll write a letter. But, you should also write a letter and pursue it and be as nice as possible about it explaining the facts. You also need to start notations(history) of what you did to resolve it.

tada -----Willy

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I have a kind of similar ques, but maybe more tech ?
Apr 27, 2005 2:15PM PDT

I "kind of" a similar question, but it may end up being more of a techinical question than a fraud question (that will make sense once I ask my question)

I just got a Dell PC for my mom (yes this is maybe the 10th post I have nmentioned that - smile) but I did try to quickly check the specs out to make sure i got what I paid for.

The only question I ended up with relates to the hard drive. The Demenion 3000 I got for her is one with a 40 gb hard drive (I know that is minimal for most, but what she is using it for, she will be lucky to fill 1/2 of that). Anyway, when I did the My Computer, then selected C:\ Drive, it said it only had like 34 GB or something, with maybe 1-2 gb (if that) actually used.

I am not that technical, so I am going to maybe use the wrong words, but does this system partition or segment a small portion of the hard drive for the operationg system or something like that? Again, sorry if I am not asking this the right way. BUT if I did really start with 40 gb, is is set up in some way that right off the bat 4-5 GB is ues either for the system restore, for the operating system, or perhaps for virtual memory? then that leaves her like 34mb left to then in turn use as she needs to?

I am not saying it says she has 40 and 6 is alredy used, but instead it says she has like 34 and maybe 1-2 gb is used.

I have not called Dell, and again only looked at it quickly after I set it up.


And YES Culture, maybe this is an example of Dell not looking out for the "unprofitable home consumer"... Sorry - I just had to say that (just joking around a bit ya know).

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When you click on...
Apr 28, 2005 2:30AM PDT

"My Computer", how many drives do you see? Many makers create a smaller partition to hold things like driver information, etc. Partitions usually show up as separate drive icons, so if you find an extra one that's about 6 gigs--your question will answer itself. Count the drives, and look for an extra one...and if you don't find it, call the maker and ask them to explain things to you.

There might even be a "hidden partition" on your hard drive, but I don't understand why the company would feel the need to create one. If that's what they've done, they should at least inform you about it.

Sincerely, JDM

(*BTW, I'm sure you'd slay me at poker.) Wink

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That is normal, Dell is like other factories...
Apr 28, 2005 2:57AM PDT

Hi Chip,

I've never had or seen a computer purchased from one of the factories that had the full amount of advertised HDD (Hard Drive Disk or Hard Disk Drive). Even building a computer, you will have less hard drive, because of stuff you install. Kinda hard for me to explain....so...

Do hard drive vendors lie? http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/fat1.html

"You might notice that the new hard drive that you installed, gives you less than the amount of storage space advertised. Why is that? Well, the marketing department of the vendor doesn't know too much about bits and bytes and binary system. To make it easier to calculate, they assume that 1 KB is 1000 Bytes, 1 MB is 1000 KB, etc. which of course is wrong as you just learned a minute ago. So when they have a drive that can hold 8,400,000,000 Bytes, they just call it 8.4 GB and say that's close enough for government work. Not so.

To figure out the correct size of that drive, divide 8,400,000,000 Bytes by 1024 and you'll get 8,203,125 KB. Divide that by 1024, and you get 8,010 MB. Divide that by 1024 and you get 7.82 GB which is the actual size of your hard drive in GB. That's several hundred MB off from the 8.4 GB you though you would get."

Also....http://compreviews.about.com/od/storage/a/ActualHDSizes.htm

The way I look at it is that using the formula above left your HDD with 37.25 GD. The WinXP Operating System took aprx 2GB, the WinXP SP2 took 395MB, the System Restore took 500MB, so that left aprx 34.36 GB left. Consider that your your anti-virus program took some MB and other small programs like Spyware, etc... and Dell installed programs could have eaten up the remaining 368.6MB.

I kinda recall that my latest computer's 100GB HDD had only around 93GB when new and I know my others had less than advertised (none Dell).

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Talking to Mom.....
Apr 28, 2005 3:20AM PDT

BTW Chip,

Since your mom w/b surfing the internet and doing email, I assume she probably has the free 30-90 day anti-virus program that came with the computer. When it runs out she can purchase one (I have & like the Nortons Systems Works) or can get free ones like AVG or Avast (I've used both, but currently prefer Avast). She should also have some Spyware programs like the free AdAware SE Personal, and free SpyBot (check the CNet Virus & Security Alerts forum).

Also advise her to never open email attachments, even from her mother, as that and clicking on to email strangers suggested URL, is the most common way that viruses, worms, trojans get to a computer. Since she is not in business, there is really no need to open attachments, & even photo's can be sent/received without putting them on an attachment. Let her know not to fall for sucker emails like "I Love You" to open an attachment. Grin

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Very impressive
Apr 28, 2005 5:16AM PDT

I have learned more about computers from John Robbie than from anyone else. Thanks for all your insight and wisdom. Couple of days ago someone posted an answer "ask John Robbie", now I know what they meant.
Thanks alot JR.

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(NT) (NT) P.S. Is there a John Robie for notebooks/laptops?
Apr 28, 2005 5:29AM PDT
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Err........gosh........
Apr 28, 2005 5:47AM PDT

thanks hh. I never touched a computer until age 66. Was out at the USAF base the other day to renew a vehicle decal. The Sergeant asked me to sign in. I took out my pen and was looking for the sign-in sheet. She pointed to a desktop computer, I blinked and smiled saying we didn't have these newfangled machines when I was in the service. Course I can type (learned the proper way in high school), but used one finger for the big smile the Sgt had on her face. Wink

JR

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THANKS (again...)
Apr 28, 2005 1:27PM PDT

Thanks for the tips Culture and John. I will admit when I set it up last weekend I did not spend tons of time looking at exactly how this was set up. I will get back over there and check it out. As I said before 40 GBs is about twice what I think she will use BUT I still obviously want to make sure I got what I paid for.

She had an old Sony, and has had email for years, so she does know all about watching out for attachements, downloads etc and also runs her stuff through AOL (aol is expensive but she likes them, so oh well) and they have some virus filters etc as well. However luckly in the last few days we found out that if something happens to her new pc she can just buy a new one. See apparently she was contacted by an American in the Bahamas that needs some help transferring his money from an offshore account into a US Bank. So.... All my mom had to agree to was to provide her bank account info, he is transferring $14.5mm that she then transferrs to another account for him, and she gets 2% of it!!! NOT.....

anyway, seriously - thanks again. I will check it out this weekend.

and ps culture - don't be so sure about the poker thing. I said I play poker, I don't remember saying I win at it. it might not be that uneven of a match as you think.

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Welcome Chip, and
Apr 28, 2005 4:40PM PDT

when you see Mom tell her I'll help with that banking deal for ? of the 2%.
Silly

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SURE...
Apr 29, 2005 6:58PM PDT

I would glad to cut you in on the deal. Just email me your bank account #, social security number, and 1-2 credit card numbers. I am sure you will see some "activity" very quickly in these accounts. ha ha

seriously, thanks again for the help with al my posts etc.

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A positive fact.....
Apr 29, 2005 8:28AM PDT

I had decided to use the internal 80 GB WD HDD I had on hand for another desktop computer and get another one for my main computer. This afternoon I went to Circuit City and purchased a 80GB external USB 2.0 hard drive. It cost $129.99, on special all this week ending Saturday night, with a $30 Circuit City mail-in rebate and WD mail-in rebate for $30, so costing me $69.99 + tax after the rebates.

Well, I just got throught setting it up on my WinXP desktop PC, everything was in the box, and going thru the CD wizard it only took about 13 minutes total for everything. The 80GB hard drive is already formated by WD and with no partitions.

I clicked 'My Computer' on the Desktop and it showed WD USB 2 (F:.) Right clicking on it and selecting properties the F drive showed:

capacity 79,995,928,576 bytes
74.5 GB

Nothing was put on the drive by me and the advertised in big bold letter on the box was 80GB. So the true GB is actually 74.5GB and the formula works:

Divided 80,000,000,000 bytes by 1024 and got 78125000. Divided that by 1024 and got 76293.9453125. Divide that by 1024 = 74.50GB.

Gee, this extra HD has a power button, a button for selecting backup manually and another button for Automatic backup.

I already installed a new game on it that I purched this PM and everything works great.

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Every maker...
Apr 28, 2005 3:34AM PDT

rounds up the numbers (that's why I said "about" 6 gigs in the partition), but to be off by 6 gigs on a 40 gig hard drive is way too much. There either has to be a partition, or you didn't get what you paid for.

-JDM