When Dell's mistake is your problem

My wife's printer is running low on ink, so I went onto the Dell website to order more. Yeah, their ink is over-priced but it is convenient.  We had checked a couple of local stores, and none of them carried the specific size cartridges (do they make so many different types to discourage after-market ink?) that we needed.

The following week I received this in an email from Dell:

Dear Customer,We're sorry but your order will take longer to fulfill than previously communicated and is now scheduled to be delivered on or before 6/8/2011

Because we did not meet the date previously communicated to you, we need your permission today to continue your order with this new date. If we do not receive your permission, the Federal Trade Commission requires that we cancel your order.
I also received several robo-calls repeating the same message. 

Well my wife has a lot of stuff to print between now and when she is leaving on a trip, so I decided to look around online and see if I could find someone else that would have compatible ink.  I found some and ordered it.  It was cheaper and faster too.

So just to be sure, I went online to Dell, to 'Order Status', and selected the 'Cancel' link.  After all, I had just bought enough ink for the next year, who knows if the printer will even live past that.

Two days later, on the same day my ink arrived from the alternative supplier, an email came from Dell saying they had shipped my order.

Needless to say, I was pissed.  I called them and they started to tell me how I could return it for a full refund.  My response was essentially this.  This is your mistake, not mine, your problem, not mine.  You fix it.  Call FedEx and tell them to cancel the shipment, or don't, but I'm not paying for it.  I called my credit card company, and they had not billed me.  I figured I would be nice and leave a note on the door to tell FedEx that I was refusing the shipment, and that would be the end of the it.

Last night my wife noticed that they had billed us.  She goes online to check the credit cards regularly.  I called the credit card company and told them that this was a fraudulent charge, and I am disputing it.  Their response was "Have you returned the merchandise yet?".  They are essentially siding with Dell, that is is my problem not Dell's.  This is what the FTC Website says about this:

Whether or not the Rule is involved, in any approval or other sale you must obtain the customer’s prior express agreement to receive the merchandise. Otherwise the merchandise may be treated as unordered merchandise. It is unlawful to:

1. Send any merchandise by any means without the express request of the recipient (unless the merchandise is clearly identified as a gift, free sample, or the like); or,
2. Try to obtain payment for or the return of the unordered merchandise.

I run a business.  Sometimes I make a mistake.  But here is the difference.  If it is my mistake, I own it.  My customer will not pay for my mistakes, I will.

But it will never happen

I was reading an article online today. about the passengers that airline employees most dislike.  One of them was people who shout and complain, who become belligerent, when they are getting bumped.  As those it was perfectly OK for the airline to sell something they don't actually own (a seat they have sold to someone else) even though if you or I did the same thing that would be fraud.

Now it is in the airline's best interest to leave the airport full.  Actually, that is not completely true.  I have read that for many types of aircraft, they actually make more money with a couple of empty seats. The amount of additional fuel they use flying completely full is not paid for by the fares paid by those last few passengers.  But for arguments sake, let's just say full.

So they want to leave full, and they done want last minute cancellation cause them to leave half empty.  So they sell more seats than they have, and somebody gets screwed.  But let's look at it a different was.  Not completely one-sided, just different.

Have you ever bought a non-refundable airline ticket?  The airline is requiring that your travel plans be cast in stone, or you forfeit your money.  So that should work both ways.  It is simple.

If the ticket is non-refundable, then you own that seat.  If you miss the plane, the airline cannot sell it to someone else unless they are going to give you back your money.  If they only get half what you paid, you get half back.  If they get twice what you paid, you get all your money back, and the airline gets to keep the difference.  And if they can't sell it, you lose all your money and they use a little less fuel.  Isn't that fair for everyone?


And since you own the rights to that seat, you cannot be bumped.  They want to overbook, they do it only with seats that are refundable.  You buy a refundable seat, you do so knowing the risks.


How about some of the airlines that don't treat you like shit?  Even if a Southwest ticket is non-refundable, they let you change it for a different flight.  You only pay the different in the cost between the old and new ticket.  You do not want to punish a company for treating you fairly.  So let's add a couple more caveats.

Say even a refundable ticket becomes non-refundable 48 hours before your flight is due to depart.  Maybe 5 days for international flights.  And after that point, you have to pay for the ticket if you cancel and the airline does not re-sell it, and you cannot be bumped.

Yes the airlines have been screwing their customers forever, but that doesn't mean the rules should be revised to screw them.  We just need a little balance.

What did you think it was for?

You are constantly hearing the right talking about limiting government, as though everything would be fine if only the government would just stop getting in the way of business.  So let's just look at some of those crippling regulations that business and the right fought so bitterly against.

As you walk through the supermarket, throwing  items into the shopping cart, your are checking the labels.  Your child is allergic to nuts, and you know that selecting the wrong product could be the difference between life and death.  Did you think that listing the ingredients on the labels was something the manufacturers did out of the goodness of their hearts?  They do that because the law requires it. The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1966 established labeling standards that were bitterly fought by industry.

Do you work an 8 hour day?  Do you expect to be paid overtime when you work more than 8 hours a day?  Although 8 hour work days had been won in pockets throughout the country over the years, through strikes dating back to 1835, it was not until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was enacted that the federal government got into the business of enforcing standards and working conditions.  That established a 44 hour work week for a considerable portion of the nation, a minimum wage, time and a half for overtime, and outlawed "oppressive child labor".

When you have a cold, a fever, an ache, you can reach into your medicine cabinet and find a number of non-prescription drugs to treat the symptoms.  And you can do so knowing that none of those medicines contain poison or heroin or cocaine.  That all began with the Biologic's Control Act (1902) and The Pure Food and Drug Act (1906),  These two pieces of legislation were the foundation upon which the Food and Drug Administration was eventually built.  It is because of the FDA that pharmaceutical companies actually have to prove that a new drug works, that it does not do more harm than good, and that they have to tell you when the potential side effect are.

It is cheaper to sell contaminated food and medicinal products than it is to maintain a safe and clean facility, and to monitor for contaminants.  It is cheaper to dump your toxic waste where it will contaminate the drinking water of the surrounding community, than it is to properly dispose of it.  And if a small group of manufacturers do that, then others must do the same to compete.

Who's job did you think it was to enforce that the bottle that says 'Asprin' on it contains aspirin?  Would you rather go back to the days when you might work in a factory where the air was filled with asbestos?  If you get sick, and cannot work for a week, do you still want a job when you get back?  Did you think the only purpose of the government was to invade relatively weak countries so that US companies could do things there that would be illegal here?

The purpose of our government is to protect us from those more powerful, those we cannot fight on our own.  That includes, of course, foreign governments, that's why we have a military, but also from companies that would control our lives the way mining companies that ran 'company towns' in the 1800's did.