A pricing blunder at Dell Ireland's online store led to it inadvertently selling PCs for €100 and less.

In a statement, the company said that on Thursday (Nov 27), human error led to an incorrect price being posted on the Irish store, Dell.ie. One Dell Dimension system was featured, retailing at the incorrect price of €111.61. Given the fact that customers can customise their systems, options selected by the individual customer meant the price could have appeared as low as €28.

According to Dell, the correct retail price should have been €1,116.10 including VAT and delivery. The company said that the error was quickly identified and rectified by its pricing monitoring team. A system is in place to identify irregular purchasing patterns on the site.

However, the 90 pe rcent discount was in place long enough for several hundred orders to be placed. The company said that approximately 430 people ordered the incorrectly priced system.

Dell said it regrets the error, but stated that it is not legally obliged to honour this price, as all orders submitted to Dell are subject to order confirmation with customers and this was a clear and obvious mistake to all concerned. "Our automatic e-mail acknowledgement of receipt of orders also points out that we are not responsible for typographical or other errors, and that we reserve the right to cancel any orders resulting from such errors," Dell said. The company is to offer customers the choice of cancelling their order, or ordering at the correct price.

Word of the pricing gaffe spread quickly over the Internet. Several visitors to online bulletin boards claimed that they had ordered machines with some individuals saying they had ordered several machines.

© ENN