D’oh. An online pricing goof at night on June 25 has cost Dell a lot of money. On its site for Taiwan, the company mistakenly put the price of a 19” LCD monitor as NT$500 ($15 US).
Not surprisingly, word spread like wildfire, and in the eight hours before a correction was made, some 26,000 customers purchased 140,000 of the monitors. The correct price was NT$4,800 ($148), and Taiwan’s Consumer Protection Commission received almost 500 complaints when Dell rectified its error.
The agency had told Dell it must honor the mistaken pricing for customers who ordered one monitor and offer discounts where they’ve ordered extra monitors, according to The Register. If the company doesn’t comply it will be considered in violation of Taiwan’s free trade laws.