[Sussex] Window's Refunds

[Geoffrey Teale]

So...

On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 17:29 +0000, Jon Fautley wrote:
> I think about 4 people in the whole world have. I briefly mentioned 
> this to our then account manager, some months ago. He laughed.
> 
> If you work out the right phrases to say, please let me know :)


... I did the research and found the following key phrase in the Window
XP EULA is:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS EULA BY INSTALLING, COPYING,
OR OTHERWISE USING THE PRODUCT.  IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL OR
USE THE PRODUCT; YOU MAY RETURN IT TO YOUR PLACE OF PURCHASE FOR A FULL
REFUND.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Dell however have added this to their standard Terms and Conditions:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Software
not owned by Dell is supplied subject to licence and warranty of the
Software licensor. Dell encloses the Software licence that you require
with the Product where necessary; you must comply with that licence. If
you choose not to accept the operating system licence at start-up, if
any, Dell will only accept the return of the entire product for refund.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Apparently this clause is not legal in the EU (this is hearsay, not my
opinion or that of anyone qualified to make such a judgement), but in
practise it appears that getting these refunds can be difficult. 

Browsing the web I've found several people who have managed to get
refunds, but usually they have had to resort to small claims court. 

-- 
Geoffrey Teale <gteale at cmedltd.com>
Cmed Technology