Bringing pressure on a bad vendor

Several people have written me in response to this blog, some whose experiences with Alienware were disappointingly similar to mine. Except that they hadn't gotten a refund (or any other satisfaction) from Alienware and they didn't know what to do next.

So how do you bring pressure on a company that has sold you a bad product and won't stand behind it?

What follows is not legal advice. It does not take into account the specific facts of your situation, it is not tailored for any particular state's laws or procedures, and you should not assume that any assertion that appears to state a legal rule has been researched for conformity with current law.

The first thing to do is to decide what it will take to satisfy you.This might be a solution to a problem, it might be a refund, it might be something else. If you don't know what you want, if you can't explain why it's reasonable that you should get it, and if you don't ask for it, you won't get it.

From there, you can push on several pressure points:

• More senior people in the support organization
  
• The corporate executives
• The corporate counsel
• The corporate ombudsman
  
• The company that owns this company
• The shareholders
• The web (your own website)
• The web (other websites)
• Journalists
• Magazines that have endorsed this product
• Other individuals who endorsed or recommended this product
• Consumer protection agencies: Better Business Bureau
• Consumer protection agencies: Other private organizations
• Consumer protection agencies: County-level mediators and investigators
• Consumer protection agencies: State-level regulators and investigators
• Consumer protection agencies: Federal
• Litigation: Sue them in small claims court
• Litigation: Sue them in a more formal court
  

Here are some general tactical tips:

• Don't fire all of your bullets at once. I prefer to start with a little pressure and add a little more every week or so.
• Do the easiest things first. Be considerate of your own time and aggravation.
• Do some research on the web. Google is your friend. Find out how other people have handled their complaints with this company, what worked and what didn't.
  
• Don't ever threaten to do anything. This can be misconstrued as extortion.Or as blowhard bluffing.
• Be factual and polite in all of your communications. If you are rude, if you use abusive language, if you raise your voice, you weaken your own negotiating position.
  

Here's how I applied this to my case.

On May 30, I reached several conclusions about Alienware's support. (These are my personal value judgments. Someone else might have come to other conclusions.) I concluded that Alienware's support group was not going to fix the problems with my computer. I concluded that they were willing to spend (waste) an unlimited amount of my time in the process. I concluded that I no longer trusted the individuals I was dealing with. And based on what I saw as a pattern of similar reports on the Net, I concluded that I didn't trust Alienware. I would take my complaint through the Alienware chain of command, but I expected to resolve it through external pressure and I prepared for that.

I considered my situation.

• What did I want from Alienware? I would have been happy, at the end of May, with a fast refund or a replacement computer that worked. I was willing to pay some extra money for a replacement system that was configured substantially differently (dual processors rather than a video coprocessor card). But I also knew that with the passage of time, as I lost more productivity (because my system was down) and as I burned off more time negotiating, my position would change because my costs had changed. Eventually, Alienware did offer to replace my system, giving me full credit ($5000) toward any other Alienware system that I wanted to order. But they did this so late that I was no longer willing to do business with them.
• Another thing I decided was that I could not afford to lose productivity forever. At some point (soon), whether Alienware and I had reached agreement or not, I was going to have to get a working computer. I didn't set a time frame for buying a replacement computer from another vendor but I did start thinking seriously about what machine I would buy and how I could afford it. (Eventually, I did buy a replacement machine. That changed my negotiating position with Alienware because after that, Alienware could not satisfy me by fixing or replacing their defective computer. I needed one computer that worked, not two. At that point, all Alienware could offer was a refund for the system (which they eventually paid) and reimbursement of my other expenses (which they did not).)
  
• I also considered adding consequences. I decided was that I would give Alienware some additional opportunities to change my bad impression of them but if they didn't, I would invest time over and above what it took to get a refund, to make my problems with Alienware public and encourage other people with problems to improve the effectiveness of their efforts to get redress.
  

From there, I changed my pattern of communication with Alienware so that almost all of my communication with them was by email. This gave me a set of records that I could quote, rather than my memories of phone calls against their memories of phone calls. (By the way, like many other vendors, Alienware staff sometimes put a confidentiality notice on the bottom of their emails. The legalese varies across companies, but the tale is that the message is confidential, contains valuable trade secrets, is protected by copyright or other laws, and may not be disclosed to others. That's an interesting assertion, but is it legally or morally binding? It seems to me that I never entered into a confidentiality agreement with Alienware. All I did was buy a defective computer from them and get bad support. They might not want me to talk about that, but that's their problem, not mine. They own copyright on their messages, so I can't reproduce them in their entirety, but I'm not aware of any law that stops me from quoting them and I never made any promise or hinted that I would ever agree not to quote from them.)

So, let's look at the pressure points again.

• More senior people in the support organization. I worked with Mo, and according to Larry, the next level up for complaints was president@alienware.com. As I described in my previous posts, my experiences with Mo were unsatisfactory.
  
• The corporate executives. I asked Mo for the name and address of Alienware's president, but all he gave me in response was "president@alienware.com." I saw that as an eloquent failure to provide information. Writing to president@alienware.com became a task I would do in parallel with other efforts to get redress from Alienware rather than being a task I would do before taking my problems to external people and organizations..
  
• The corporate counsel. A brief, polite letter of complaint to a company's corporate counsel speaks eloquently. I would expect a letter to the company's agent for service to reach their lawyer. By sending the letter to this legal agent of the corporation, without ever using the word "lawsuit," you are saying that you are considering suing the company, you know how to reach them, and you know something about legal process.
  
• The corporate ombudsman. A corporate ombudsman is an executive who investigates complaints that people have with his company and works to achieve a fair settlement. It's often a challenge to find out whether a company has an ombudsman or who it is--if you know enough to find the ombudsman, you know enough to be taken seriously. Several companies provide the Federal Citizen Information Center with contact information for an ombudsman or other person who sophisticated customers, consumer advocates or regulators should contact to resolve a consumer dispute. Alienware doesn't have a contact on this list, but many other companies do. As a general rule, when you have a problem with a company that isn't resolved through normal channels, this is a great list to check next.
  
• The company that owns this company. Suppose BigCompany owns SmallerCompany and your gripe is with SmallerCompany. Sometimes, the best way to bring pressure on SmallerCompany is to write a letter of complaint to BigCompany's president, who sends it back to SmallerCompany with a note saying "Maybe you'd like to take care of this."
  
• The shareholders. Alienware is a privately held corporation so this isn't a tactic I would use with them. But imagine being grumpy with a publicly traded corporation. Now imagine buying a share in the company. Buy a few more for your friends. Go to a company (shareholder's) meeting and protest at the meeting. You (and your shareholding friends) can circulate a letter of complaint. You can speak at the meeting. Send a before-the-meeting copy of your letter to the company's president (or to its Directors--you're a shareholder, so you can call the company and get contact info for the directors). Be careful about your wording. You don't want to say, "Pay me or I'll circulate this at your meeting" -- well, maybe you do want to say that, but don't. It's too easy to interpret this as extortion (blackmail). Instead, say something like, "I'm writing this note as a courtesy to let you know that I plan to circulate this memo at the shareholder's meeting. Please advise me of any procedures I am expected to follow (a) to circulate the letter to my fellow shareholders and (b) to speak on this matter at the meeting." That's not a threat, it's a request for information about your rights as a shareholder. Of course, the response might be to solve your problem before the meeting, but that's their decision, not something you demanded under threat .
  
• The web (your own website). You're reading this blog. A lot of people have read this blog. Most companies don't like it when lots of prospective customers read bad things about how the company does business. If you do create a protest site, take care with your facts. If you make false claims about the company or its practices, you could get into a lot of trouble.
  
• The web (other websites). Do a google on "alienware sucks" or "alienware problems" and you'll find web pages with long lists of customer complaints. Add yours.
  
• Journalists. Several journalists write consumer protection articles. Some work for magazines, some for newspapers, some for television statements, and some are freelancers.
  
  Show some consideration dealing with these folks. Approach one at a time, ask them whether they're interested. If one agrees to follow up, leave it with her for several days.Imagine if your journalist worked on your complaint, started writing up his report, and then read about it in some other magazine--she might be pretty grumpy about wasting time trying to help you. Before I would take this to any other journalist or write complaint letters to the editor of any magazine, I would check with the first journalist who agreed to investigate. This is a basic courtesy that I would extend to any journalist in this situation. There's a time limit to this courtesy, but as long as I believe the journalist is actively investigating, I'll keep it exclusive to that person if that's how she wants to work it. In my case,I took my story to Ed Foster at InfoWorld's GripeLine. Ed was a serious and respected technology journalist and editor long before he started doing consumer protection work. He has a lot of connections and he's a really nice guy. So I sent him a note describing my problem, he agreed to look into it, and his report is here.

Journalists aren't always well-treated by companies--even people as credible and respected as Ed. Here's how Alienware treated Ed Foster:


I contacted Alienware a few weeks ago to ask if they could explain their support policies in this regard, and their spokesperson said they would get back to me. They haven't, and my subsequent calls have gone unreturned.

To me, this is outrageous, the kind of report that motivates me to keep this blog going.

• Magazines that have endorsed this product. According to Alienware's web page, Smart Computing reports that "Alienware easily beat all the competitors we tested in this category [Customer Support]" I read that survey. That survey is one of the reasons I bought from Alienware. I'll never trust another Smart Computing survey again. Alienware lists lots of favorable reviews. If you had a problem with Alienware that they wouldn't resolve, it would be fair game to write every one of those magazines describing your situation--especially if their endorsements helped you make your buying decision.
  
• Other individuals who endorsed or recommended this product. Alienware lists other people who've agreed to publication of their testimonials of how wonderful their Alienware computers are. You could write them too. Suppose you endorsed a product. How many complaint letters from other customers would it take before you started thinking about withdrawing your endorsement?
  
• Consumer protection agencies: Better Business Bureau. Alienware's in Miami, so you should check the BBB in Southeast Florida. Alienware is a member of the BBB, which means (among other things) that they have agreed to take seriously all consumer complaints filed against them with the BBB. File a complaint here.
  
• Consumer protection agencies: Other private organizations. I don't think Alienware advertises a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, but if they did, you could complain to them. You might file a complaint with Consumer Action--they mediate many disputes. Also consider complaining to the Consumer Federation of America, the National Consumers League and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. These groups won't help you with your specific complaint, but patterns of complaints influence their legislative and regulatory agendas. If we had better enforcement of deceptive-trade-practice laws, I think we would have fewer consumer disputes of the kind I had with Alienware.
  
• Consumer protection agencies: County-level mediators and investigators. Several counties have agencies that mediate consumers' disputes with businesses. The mediators are often trained volunteers--for example, I was a part-time volunteer investigator / mediator for the Santa Clara County Department of Consumer Affairs for almost two years, before I went to law school. Some of these agencies stand alone, others are affiliated with the District Attorney's office. If your county has such an agency (many have been defunded over the past 20 years), you can file your complaint with them. But if you're complaining about an out-of-state company, your county's agency will probably coordinate with the agency in that state. For example, if you were complaining about Alienware, you could complain directly to the Miami, Florida county-level agency that would normally deal with Alienware, which I would expect to be the Miami-Dade County Consumer Services Department. For a listing of all of the county agencies in the USA, go to the Federal Citizen Information Center's page on State Resources.
  
• Consumer protection agencies: State-level regulators and investigators. At the state level, you normally complain to the Attorney-General's office. If I was considering complaining about Alienware to state level regulators or prosecutors, I would consider filing a complaint alleging deceptive trade practices to the Florida Attorney General's office or asking for help from the Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services. In my specific case, I would consider a third angle--because I don't think that Alienware was living up to its service contract, and because Florida treats many service contracts as insurance, I might try a complaint with the Office of Insurance Regulation.For resources in other states, check the Federal Citizen Information Center's page on State Resources.
• Consumer protection agencies: Federal. The obvious federal agency is the Federal Trade Commission. The 30-day rule (a business must advise the consumer if a product will be delivered more than 30 days after it was ordered, and get the consumer's permission or let the consumer cancel the order) and the federal rules against deceptive trade practices are enforced by the FTC. The FTC doesn't usually involve itself in mediating individual complaints, but patterns of complaints influence its decisions about what types of crimes to prosecute and who to prosecute. If you were the victim of false advertising (or any other crime) and the U.S. Mail was used in any way in the process, you can also complain to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service for mail fraud.
  
• Litigation: Sue them in small claims court. I think the Nolo Press guide to small claims court is the best nationwide source available. The rules differ from state to state. Some states offer excellent guides to their small claims courts, for free. Some counties offer free advice for people bringing small claims cases in their county. A few even have classes where you can go through the procedure and get feedback from the instructor. One question is whether you can sue Alienware in your county or state (if it's not Florida) because Alienware is a Florida corporation. Maybe not. You might have to travel to Florida to sue them.
  
• Litigation: Sue them in a more formal court. In a small claims case, you would represent yourself. (Alienware can still send its lawyer, who probably knows a lot more about running a lawsuit than you do) whereas in the more formal courts, you would almost certainly hire an attorney. The costs of these trials are significant--court fees are cheap but legal time and costs of "discovery" (the formal process of investigation and document review) are significant. A basic, simple no-injury car accident that actually makes it to trial probably costs about $20,000. You're probably not going to bring a $5000 dispute to these courts. UNLESS. Unless you sue for violation of a deceptive trade practice law or an unfair competition law or some other consumer protection law in your state and your state's version of these laws is that the defendant (Alienware, if you sue them) pays your legal fees if they lose the case. A few lawyers handle cases like this. Many of them would combine cases, bringing a "class action" (a lawsuit that represents many people) to cover everyone who was cheated in the same way(s). Usually, these lawyers work on contingency, you pay them if and only if you win the lawsuit and you pay them only a share of the recovery from the suit, not from your own savings).
  
  Unfortunately, it gets harder every year to find lawyers who are willing to bring consumer fraud or other consumer protection lawsuits. The work isn't all that profitable, the lawyers who do it are constantly villified (often by the companies who most deserved to be sued and the politicians who take big campaign donations from these companies), and the courts are constantly rewriting consumer protection laws to make it harder to bring cases to court or harder to win them. The last 25 years have been very, very tough on your rights as a consumer and on your ability to enforce them in court--which (I believe) is why there is so much consumer fraud today.

With all these options, I proceeded as follows.

• I worked with the tech support staff. That failed so badly that I decided to bring external pressure to bear.
• I contacted a journalist, knowing it would take him a while to investigate and publish.
• I wrote a letter of complaint to president@alienware.com asking for a full refund.
• The same day I posted the letter, I started working on this blog.
• A few days after that, I started posting links to this blog in other we-re-having-trouble-with-Alienware pages or discussions.
  

Amost two weeks later, with Ed Foster making reporter's inquiries and an alienwaresucks blog in full steam, Alienware offered a refund, which I accepted.

If Alienware had waited a day or two longer before offering the refund, I would have filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

A couple days after that complaint went in, I would have filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission and the Florida state-level agencies. I might have filed with the Miami-Dade Consumer Services Department or I might have waited a few days before filing that one.

Next planned stop was to the TV stations and local newspapers for their consumer watch shows or columns.

Your order of tasks might have been different. Remember my first two tactical tips:

• Don't fire all of your bullets at once. I prefer to start with a little pressure and add a little more every week or so.
• Do the easiest things first. Be considerate of your own time and aggravation.

Good luck handling your current (or future) complaints against computer (or other) companies. If you try the things I suggested here, I'd appreciate seeing how it turned out in a comment on this posting.

(Is this my last posting by the way? I doubt it. Stay tuned for a page that asks, if you were considering bringing a lawsuit against Alienware for problems like the ones I've described in this alienwaresucks blog, what legal grounds (causes of action) might you consider as the bases for your lawsuit? That page might not be up for several days. I want to do some more reading and thinking before I start the final draft of it.)