Hi John,
See what defective Dell computers do !!! They cause severe and permanent personal injuries and emotional distress, and make a wife deprive a husband of her companionship!!
Selden couple sues Dell Computer Corp.
BY RICHARD J. DALTON JR. | richard.dalton@newsday.com
6:50 PM EDT, October 3 2007
Selden couple has sued Dell Computer Corp. for $50.5 million, claiming the company replaced a broken computer with other defective PCs four times and that a tech-support person repeatedly called them late at night and e-mailed vile photographs.
The lawsuit alleges that over a 45-day period ending March 30, 2006, a Dell tech-support agent sent plaintiff Crystal Collette e-mails with the subject "Devil people in East Asia," with photos allegedly depicting Asians dissecting and eating infants.
"This is the most outrageous thing I've ever seen," said Collette's lawyer, John Juliano of East Northport. "When you look at them, you get sick."
"It's the same kind of stuff with all American corporations lately," Juliano said. "They keep outsourcing everything, and what's happening is they're not controlling the people they outsource to."
Dell spokesman Bob Kaufman declined to comment because of the pending litigation.
The suit also claims Collette, 37, bought a defective Dell Dimension 4700 computer in July 2005 and that the company replaced it with the same model, which also was defective. In all, she received five defective PCs, including the original, the suit alleges.
The suit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Central Islip, claims Dell's agents and employees "began calling her at all hours of the night." Collette said the calls, between 10:30 p.m. and 11 p.m., were for technical support.
The actions, Collette said, led her to suffer "severe and permanent personal injuries and emotional distress." The suit claims her husband, Raymond Collette, 43, was deprived of her companionship.
Collette, who has two children, said she has had several miscarriages and so the photos particularly disturbed her. "I was throwing up," she said. "You wouldn't even mail it to a friend. Why would this guy be doing this?"
Collette said she had been dealing with a tech-support person named Sajjad, and the e-mail address of the sender contained the word "Sajjad." She said she complained to Dell about the e-mails and that a company representative said the employee had been fired.
Collette said her fifth Dell computer still goes to a blue screen, which indicates a serious error that requires the PC to be restarted. But she said that when she calls for technical support, she's often told she has to speak with Dell's legal department.
Juliano provided the e-mail printouts and photographs, but Newsday could not verify who sent them. A personal address was listed on the e-mail.
Lance Ulanoff, editor-in-chief of PC Magazine, said consumers are unhappy with outsourcing, complaining that they sometimes can't understand a person's accent or that tech-support staff can't resolve the problem. But this incident, he said, appears to be an "extraordinary" situation unrelated to outsourcing.
He also said that it's difficult to prove that the Dell tech-support person sent the e-mails. Someone could have spoofed the e-mail address or the tech-support person's computer could have been hit with a computer virus that sent out the e-mails, Ulanoff said. |
