Purely You

Something very strange happened to me today.

At the end of last year I bought a Dell Inspiron notebook. I chose Dell for many reasons (customer service, excellent build quality), but I had also just read a story about about Dave Mitchell, a reporter from the UK, who was able to obtain a refund for his unused Windows XP Home Edition notebook license. He had simply declined the end user license agreement and installed Linux.

Apparently although Dell policy does not allow for this... it does not disallow either. When I received the notebook, I was careful to decline the end user license agreement and erase Windows Home from the notebook, installing SuSE instead. That was some months ago now and I had been meaning to call Dell to request the refund. Due to a combination of working and traveling, this issue was very much at the back of my mind.

Until today that is. I came across an article by Serge Wroclawski entitled How to get a Windows tax refund. (He humorously refers to it as the Windows tax). This article goes in to great depth about possible responses and counter arguments that you may receive when talking to Dell. So now a couple of months on and armed with this document and a refreshed dislike of the forced Windows tax... I headed to my phone and dialed Dell Small Business Customer Service (1-800-456-3355).

After exchanging details with the representative I made my case. As expected the representative (Madhu), claimed that the license was actually free and bundled with my notebook. I countered by arguing that Dell has to pay for every license, and that the EULA allowed me very specifically to "return the product for a refund". After stressing my point a couple of times and reading excerpts from the EULA, the representative put me on hold.

Some minutes later, she returned; She asked how much of a refund I was requesting. Using the article as a guide I reported that the license retailed at $89. I should point out at this stage that the article owner received $52.50, which seems to be the price that Dell as an OEM partner would pay for each home license. I of course expected at best the $52.50. To my amazement, she very quickly agreed, and informed me that the amount of $89 would be credited to my Master Card. A reference number later the call was over.

I left the call feeling rather confused. Something which has clearly taken a good many people much effort was over for me in one quick ten minute call. Furthermore, I was awarded the full retail price for the license, something that I had not anticipated for one moment.

When it comes to issues such as this I seem to be very lucky. I seem to be successful in the most unlikeliest of places sometimes. Perhaps this is some new directive from above? Considering this notebook was a low cost notebook to begin with I am very pleased. Just one of the reasons I recommend dell so vehemently to both consumers and investors.

Update (January 18th) The credit was processed today. I received an email containing a credit memo (see right) and the following note:

Dear O'CONNELL LUKE,

Dell has processed your credit, and the credit has been sent to your financial institution. Please be aware that there may be up to a 5 business day delay before this credit becomes visible to representatives at your financial institution.

Please contact your financial institution with any questions about the posting of this credit to your account.

The details of the credit are as follows: Account Type: MASTER CARD (account number ending in 1940) Amount of Credit: $94.34 Date the credit was closed by Dell: 2007-01-17 Time the credit was closed by Dell (Central Time): 18:04:29

Thank you for choosing Dell.

It would seem that they have also refunded tax at 6%. Madhu @ Dell Small Business (1-800-4563355) Ref: 83543337