Computer club forces Dell to change sales policies

A Dutch computer club has taken computer giant Dell to court and forced it to make changes to its 'unfair' conditions of sale.

Founded in 1977, the Dutch Hobby Computer Club (HCC) is the largest computer club in The Netherlands and currently has around 200,000 members. The HCC decided to take Dell to court after complaints about wrong or incomplete deliveries when members had already paid in full.

Dell is one of the world's largest computer manufacturers and grosses over $43bn annually. The company sells around 9 million new computers every quarter.

A court in The Hague ruled that Dell may no longer demand full payment in advance on orders, before it ships anything. Consumers are forced to pay the entire amount upfront, while Dutch law only allows for a maximum of 50 per cent.

Though the court was scheduled to look at the case in September, the HCC had requested an early ruling on Dell's terms and conditions of sale. It demanded an immediate ban on the 100 per cent advanced payments, but the court allowed Dell a three-month period to get things in order.

HCC chairman Ronald van Rooden is content with the court's decision, but regrets that Dell has been given three months to change its terms. "We would think that an organisation like Dell could manage to implement normal regulations in a matter of weeks, not months," he said.

Van Rooden thinks the ruling is good news not just for HCC members, but for all consumers. Now, when a delivery is not what was agreed upon or is incomplete, the unpaid amount can be withheld to force improvement.

In September the court will rule on other "unreasonable issues" in Dell's terms and conditions policy, says Van Rooden. Dell currently refuses any repairs outside the warranty period. But the HCC says consumers have the right to expect a certain durability of the product they purchase and the supplier should not be able to hide behind an arbitrarily set warranty period.

The computer club is happy with its victory for now and Van Rooden says it proves only a collective approach gets results.

Lars Pasveer writes for ZDNet Netherlands