Dell Closes Fraud Case with NY State

Dell and Dell Financial Services ended its legal battle with the State of New York and its politically motivated Attorney General Andrew Cuomo yesterday by paying $4 million. Dell and its subsidiary were accused of “fraud, false advertising, and deceptive business practices, including offering misleading financing, and failing to honor rebates, warranties, and service contracts”.

The jury portion of the suit was settled last May when the company was found guilty and the announced cash settlement “would be used to compensate customers who were affected by Dell’s practices”.

The reality of the case is that the Attorney General’s office stated that promotional financing rates were used to advertise and drive demand for Dell’s products, while very few of the customers ever received the promotional rate. The low dollar value of the award to Dell customers shows that the actions by Dell were either not very agregious or Mr. Cuomo had gotten all the political capital out of winning a judgement against a large corporation and the need to actually provide relief to the voting public was not beneficial to his campaigning for the Governor of NY.