Hewlett Packard the same PC company that got fined millions by the Australian Competition + Consumer Commission last year for misleading consumers about their PC warranty rights has again been hit by authorities, this time for colluding over the pricing of their PC and trying to con consumers into paying a premium price for a low performing processor.
What HP attempted to do in partnership with Intel was to get consumer to pay a premium price for a notebook on the basis that it had a high performance Intel processor. The only problem was that the processors were well known low performing processors.
The class-action suit alleging that Intel and HP colluded in producing processors and computers with known poor-performing first-generation Pentium 4 chips has had lawyers’ for both Companies pleading with authorities.
The same happened when HP was nobbled $3M by the Australian Federal Court who found HP had made false or misleading representations about consumer guarantee rights, including the terms of repairs, product returns and warranties.
At the time HP lawyers said that the US PC Company had taken steps to adjust its consumer policies and practices and retrain staff.
Now HP lawyers have reached another settlement in an effort to minimise the penalties HP faced.
Consumers who bought a new PC with the processor between November 20, 2000 and December 31, 2001 are now entitled to a $15 refund after opting into the class action.
The complaint targets Intel’s marketing of the Pentium 4 processor, code-named “Willamette,” and asserts violation of California’s Consumer Legal Remedies Act, the Unfair Competition Law, and the False Advertising Law.
The plaintiffs asserted that Intel violated the law by failing to disclose material facts about the processors, inflated benchmarks, and colluded with HP to hide wrongdoing. Intel is also alleged to have used benchmarking software it helped create, WebMark 2001 and SYSMark 2001, to artificially boost perceived performance by enthusiast websites and other evaluators.
Intel and HP have not admitted any fault with the processor, and dispute claims of benchmark boosting. Users may only submit one claim, regardless of the number of computers they purchased.
