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PC Lemons truth revealed

2.5m faulty PCs shipped in US per year

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Two and a half million faulty PCs are shipped to American households per year.

Around 15.9 million desktops were sold in the US in 1999, and around a sixth of these had serious problems within the first month of ownership, according to consumer testing organisation ConsumerReports.org.

Of these, 800,000 were totally inoperable when the customer set up the machine.

ConsumerReports.org estimates that around 240,000 desktop PCs sold in 1999 in the US were 'lemons'. It defines a PC lemon as a computer in which three components at least had to be replaced on the machine during its first 16 months of ownership.

ConsumerReports.org offers advice to Americans who have ended up with a dud PC. Check out the report here. ®

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