an open letter to Michael Dell of Dell Computer

Whew!! Amazing - and sad that you had to go through such an arduous process to get Dell to fulfill its business obligation. I strongly believe the step that got Dell's attention was "after I had sent the e-mail mentioning the AG, CNET, and the Austin Chronicle all at once". You had thoroughly documented the situation, enough so that it would be convincing to a jury and to readers of a website and a newspaper. And NO manufacturer wants to be written up in a publication's Consumer Defense column as being unresponsive to such a just complaint. As a matter of personal observation, they are quite willing to take a big loss in the transaction just to appear as contrite and apologetic and responsive in the eventual write-up by the publication. I think your blog also helped as it would be a standing negative ad campaign as long as the problem wasn't satisfactorily addressed.

There's a radio show here in L.A. on weekends about personal computers, and the host ALWAYS gets companies to jump as soon as he mentions that he hosts a computer radio show and one of his listeners is "having a problem" with them. Access to the media seems to be quite "help-inducing". :-)

The bottom line seems to be that manufacturers don't like to be convincingly villified publicly. They get embarrbutted. It affects their profits. So being able to generate lots of negative publicity is the way to get their attention.

Thanks for sharing. Keep us posted.

*TimDaniels*