The long wait begins

September-October 2004
Alienware delivered my computer late, and only after some aggressive nagging. There are several complaints about Alienware's late delivery on the net. For example, http://www.ichbineinauslander.com/archives/2005_01.php, http://str8dog.com/articles/182.aspx, and http://www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/alienware.html

According to the Federal Trade Commission's 30-day Rule, a company that sells goods by mail, phone, fax or internet order should only sell merchandise that it has a reasonable basis to believe it will ship within 30 days. According to the FTC:

"If, after taking the customer’s order, you learn that you cannot ship within the time you stated or within 30 days, you must seek the customer’s consent to the delayed shipment. If you cannot obtain the customer’s consent to the delay -- either because it is not a situation in which you are permitted to treat the customer’s silence as consent and the customer has not expressly consented to the delay, or because the customer has expressly refused to consent -- you must, without being asked, promptly refund all the money the customer paid you for the unshipped merchandise."

Time of delivery was a big issue for me. I bought the computer to use during the Fall term, in teaching one of my classes. I needed it in September. The estimate on the website was September 23, which was a little later than I wanted, but I could work with it.

I got status emails that showed the system was only in Phase 7 of a many-phase (at least 12 phase) process. Clearly, it was not coming by September 23, so I wrote to ask when it was coming. They wrote back saying that my order had been delayed and would be ready in the second week of October.(It wasn't.)

Alienware's note contained no statement that I could cancel the order and no request for my consent.

It had been years since I studied the Mail Order Rule (before law school). Frankly, I forgot that I had a right to cancel.

I wouldn't have cancelled in September--things were pretty busy in other ways:

Hurricane Charley destroyed the roof on Becky's house (After 20 years of teaching, Becky (my wife) went back to U Central Florida for her doctorate and lives near school during the week.) Frances and Jeanne landed just a few miles south of my house, did a bit of damage there, 5 million dollars damage to Florida Tech where I teach, and displaced a lot of our students. My top priority this term was helping students get through the term. I still did some video work on my Mac, and would have done much more if the Alienware system had come when promised, but spending extra time dealing with a troublesome vendor was low, low priority in comparison.

However, when the system still hadn't arrived in late October, I was ready to cancel, probably would have done so if I had realized/remembered that I had an unconditional right to do so given the lateness of (non)delivery.