Dell vows to tighten up deal registration

Dell has promised to investigate its public sector deal registration process after a sixth-form college reported unscrupulous activities in the supply chain.

Hull-based Wyke College initially contacted CRN’s sister publication Computing to point out the problem, which came to light as it was sourcing new IT equipment.

Martin Stroud, a Wyke College representative, told CRN: “Someone has been registering deals with Dell under our name to get special pricing, and then selling the kit on elsewhere to make a profit. When we came to ask for evaluation products from Dell, we were turned down because a deal had already been registered by a reseller on our behalf without our knowledge. Using our name in this way is fraud in my opinion.

“It also stopped our legitimate reseller partner registering the deal on our behalf. This has happened twice now, once last year and again this year.”

One Registered-level Dell partner, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “This has happened to customers of ours a couple of times in the past, because anyone can register a deal under the current system. Dell needs to look at a better way of policing this.”

A Dell representative said the vendor was looking into the matter.

“Dell is taking this very seriously and we are aware of the problem,” he said. “We will be treating it as a priority.”

However, the issue has not arisen with Dell’s higher-level partners.

Cliff Fox, managing director of Certified VAR SICL, said: “We had one issue with deal registration about 15 months ago, but Dell has tightened up the process a lot recently and we have not had any problems since.”

Dan May, operations director at Certified VAR Ramsac, said: “Since Dell brought the £10,000 deal registration threshold in (CRN, 19 October), we have found the system a lot easier.”