Barry Fox

Better late than never. Our great and good Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has woken up to the fact that we need protection against companies that take liberties when they 'distance sell' over the internet.

Online consumers forfeit the powerful chance to take things back and complain loudly in front of a shop full of potential new customers.

So the OFT is looking for ways to make online companies obey two rule books: the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations, and the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations.

We should have the right to a clear contract before we click 'Yes', and the right to cancel if we click in the wrong place. We are also entitled to stuff that works, and not be stuck with the cost of return shipping if it does not.

The OFT's ideas for a better deal cane be seen here, and you have until the end of January to comment.

One intriguing proposal is that, if defects appear within six months, "the law presumes the goods were faulty at the time of sale".

So what will happen if a PC is supplied with virus protection that does not work, and is then wrecked by infection?

What happens if a PC is supplied without Windows update set for automatic, and the PC misses a Critical Security Update and falls foul of a Trojan hijack? What if a PC is clumsily set up and behaves as if faulty? These are not flights of fancy, they are very real.

Just about every computer I have ever bought has been a Dell and I have recommended Dell to many others. Why? Because Dell invented the idea of distance selling PCs, and has honed it to a fine art, with permanent free helpline support on the basic system and good access to spare parts for DIY repairs.

My last Dell had Norton Antivirus (NAV) pre-installed and a three-month free update subscription; but NAV's Auto Update was set to off instead of on. When I ran Windows Update, XP found 14 Critical Updates.

So, as supplied, the virus and security protection was useless. There is a very good chance the PC would have been knocked out within six months, and eligible for free replacement under the new OFT guidelines.

The PC came with a 17in LCD as standard. Picture quality was so bad I thought the screen was faulty. There was no manual, just a protective film for the screen with the cryptic numbers '1,280 x 1,024'.

I dug into the screen firmware menu and Windows Control Display Settings, found that the resolution had been pre-set to 1,024 x 768 and changed it to 1,280 x 1,024. Picture quality improved immeasurably.

Without advice and a manual, the average punter would not have a clue what to do. So would the PC have qualified for free replacement? A good helpline would help, but what if the helpline is poor?

One peripheral (an uninterruptible power supply) was faulty. No problem, I thought. The Dell helpline has always been terrific over replacing faulty components.

The support services have been relocated to India. The phone tie-line has the underwater sound of a low-bandwidth Voice over IP network.

I spent the best part of two hours trying to hear what recorded announcements in an Irish accent were telling me to do and being bounced between departments because the Indian support staff could not hear what I was saying.

With the OFT's plans in mind I put all this to Dell. A spokeswoman, ignoring the reality of what I had told her, said: "All our panels ship at their native resolution as default. This is 1,280 x 1,024 for the 17in flat panel.

"The best protection against any form of virus is to get regular updates from Symantec ... The automatic live update is 'turned off' as default on new system shipments."

For God's sake, wouldn't it make more sense to turn it on?

So is the OFT really going to help us fight this kind of nonsense? AOL is advertising broadband at £27.99 a month. AOL gives a good, largely reliable 512Kbits/sec service, with a free, often helpful helpline.

But customers are starting to receive pop-up invitations to upgrade 'at no extra cost' to a faster service (1Mbit/sec), with an invitation to click for more information.

I clicked and was asked to pay a greatly increased fee (£39.99 a month) and click yes to lengthy terms and conditions, but AOL has ensured that you can't print them.

Replies to the offer email address are bounced with the advice to look at AOL's Help files, which offer no help.

I asked the OFT what it thought about this kind of distance selling for a 'no extra cost' upgrade that actually costs an extra £12 a month, with no chance to capture the terms and conditions before or after clicking to commit.

The OFT replied promptly, passing the buck: "I have forwarded your complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority ..."

I had also, as part of the consumer test, raised the matter direct with the ASA. After nearly a month I've still heard nothing.

Come on OFT. If you really want to help the IT consumer as well as look good to the government, you'll have to try harder than this. And come on Dell. Good reputations take years to build but only weeks to ruin.

Office of Fair Trading
Advertising Standards Authority

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