Jul 30, 2009, 8:08 GMT
Taipei - The Taipei city government on Thursday fined US computer giant Dell Inc 1 million Taiwan dollars (300,000 US dollars) for not selling notebook computers at misquoted prices to local customers.
Yeh Ching-yuan, a city government official in charge of legal affairs, said Dell Taiwan must submit plans for giving better compensation to customers, otherwise the city government can levy a fine of maximum 1.5 million Taiwan dollars.
'Dell has failed to protect customers' rights and its compensation is too small and not sincere. If Dell's compensation still does not satisfy customers, we do not rule out shutting Dell's online shop,' he said.
Dell's online store made pricing errors on two occasions in June and July, offering notebooks for less than a third of their normal price of more than 2,000 US dollars and monitors for 15 US dollars instead of the regular 228 US dollars, triggering rush orders, sometimes in bulk, for the drastically underpriced wares.
The company apologized, offered coupons with a value of 30 US dollars for customers who bought monitors and 610 US dollars for laptop buyers.
However, many customers demanded Dell deliver the goods at the misquoted prices, or face legal action.
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