The New York Times reported on June 28, 2010 that Dell Computers was under fire for not properly disclosing to its customers that faulty electrical components were leaking chemicals and causing the malfunction of their desktop PCs. Dell sold millions of these computers from 2003-2005 to major companies like Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo and institutions like the Mayo Clinic.
The problem affecting the Dell computers stemmed from an industry wide encounter with bad capacitors produced by Asian PC Component suppliers. Capacitors are found on computer motherboards, playing a crucial role in the flow of current across the hardware. They are not meant to pop and leak fluid, but that is exactly what was happening earlier this decade.
Documents recently unsealed in the three-year-old lawsuit against Dell show that the company’s employees were actually aware that the computers were likely to break. Still the employees tried to play down the problem to customers and allowed customers to rely on trouble-prone machines, putting their businesses at risk.
As complaints mounted, Dell had hired a contractor to investigate the situation. According to a Dell filing in the lawsuit, the contractor found that 10 times more computers were at risk of failing than Dell had estimated. making the problems worse. Dell didn’t fix the problem, but replaced faulty motherboards with other faulty motherboards, according to the contractors findings.
In fact, the very law firm defending Dell in the lawsuit was affected when Dell balked at fixing their 1,000 suspect computers. The documents to the lawsuit revealed the failure of the PCs, which has now created the big decline of one of the most celebrated and admired companies in the world.
