Tiger Direct
Encyclopedia
Tiger Direct is a direct online and catalog retailer of computers and consumer electronics. It is a Systemax subsidiary. Its headquarters are in Fountainbleau
, Florida
.
TigerDirect has locations in Miami (corporate headquarters, retail stores); Naperville, Illinois
(distribution center, corporate sales offices, retail stores in Chicagoland
); Jefferson, Georgia
(distribution center, corporate sales office, retail store); and North Carolina
(corporate sales office). TigerDirect.ca has locations in the greater Burlington, Ontario
, area (corporate office, corporate sales office, retail stores).
The online company WorldwideRebates.com performs some of its rebate processing and is owned by its parent company, Systemax.
and Apple Macintosh. In 1989, Tiger Software became a subsidiary of publicly held Bloc Development Corporation (NASDAQ:BDEV). Bloc Development was also the parent company of BLOC Publishing, which continued the development and publishing of the company's flagship product FormTool, and 20 other products; and SoftSync, former publisher of the "EXPERT Software" titles and the Macintosh accounting software "Accountant Inc."). BLOC Development later changed its name to Tiger Direct (NASDAQ:TIGR).
TigerDirect evolved from TigerSoftware when the company began selling build-it-yourself PC kits and inexpensive computers, using manufacturers in the United States
and Canada
to build its custom desktop and notebook configurations. In 1996, it was acquired by Systemax (NYSE: SYX) The commercial website TigerDirect.com was launched in the late 1990s, selling computer and electronics, books and software. In 2000, TigerDirect expanded its product offerings to include "refurbished" and "recertified" products, brand-name computers from IBM
, HP, eMachines
, Gateway
and others.
On January 6, 2008, Tiger Direct's parent company Systemax Inc. announced an agreement on the acquisition of the CompUSA
brand, trademarks and e-commerce business, and as many as 16 CompUSA retail outlets in Illinois
, Florida
, Texas
and Puerto Rico
.
Infoworld
's Robert X Cringely reported in 2006 that "Tiger's sister company OnRebate.com, which handles payouts for the discount dealer appears to specialize in the 'insufficient documentation' gambit," and, commenting on the volume of complaints on the Internet, that "Tiger's rebate promises appear to be toothless."
Consumer-reported difficulties obtaining the rebates led to an investigation by the Florida Attorney General
and a failure to maintain a satisfactory BBB rating. According to a former controller
at Tiger Direct, improperly unpaid rebates were intentional: "...the concept was that if the customer complains you send them out the check to make them happy. But if they don't complain, they totally forget about it, that is the concept of these rebates. People forget that they sent them out."
On November 4, 1999, case C3903, the Federal Trade Commission
issued a decision and order (which expires in 20 years) against Tiger Direct for violations of the Pre-sale Availability Rule, the Disclosure Rule and the Warranty Act. Without admitting any wrongdoing, Tiger Direct agreed to:
against Apple Computer Inc. (now Apple Inc.), alleging trademark infringement, dilution and false designation of origin with Apple's introduction of Mac OS X v10.4
, marketed with its codename "Tiger". Although TigerDirect had registered several tiger-related names with the United States Patent and Trademark Office
, Apple received trademark approval for version 10.4 (Tiger) of its OS X operating system in 2003. Tiger Direct registered opposition against Apple's filing with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
, and on May 13, 2005, Apple won an emergency hearing. The judge ruled in Apple's favor, noting "the Court finds that the marks are distinctly different."
filed a lawsuit against Tiger Direct, alleging trademark infringement, false advertising and misleading representations of Dell's products, unfair competition, trademark dilution, breach of contract, among other complaints related to TigerDirect's handling of Dell products. TigerDirect, a former authorized reseller of Dell products, represented to its own customers that Dell products were new and under a Dell warranty. Dell alleged that TigerDirect was not an authorized reseller and that TigerDirect sold discontinued and outdated Dell products as new and represented that the Dell products were under a Dell warranty. Dell also alleged that TigerDirect, which referred to itself as a Dell representative, purchased the Dell products from a third-party, and the company advertised the product using an unauthorized, modified version of the Dell logo in TigerDirect catalogs and on its website. Dell became aware of the unauthorized sales by TigerDirect when customers contacted Dell to demand price matches of the same Dell products sold by TigerDirect.
Bill McCollum
filed suit against TigerDirect, OnRebate, and their parent company Systemax, charging the companies with failing to provide rebates to customers. Systemax responded that a separate class action
lawsuit making similar allegations was filed in federal court in 2007 and was dismissed on August 31, 2009. The company denied the allegations in the Florida Attorney General complaint and said it intends to defend itself vigorously. This suit was dismissed by the Florida State Attorney on October 26, 2010 under a settlement agreement with no admission of wrongdoing.
Fountainbleau, Florida
Fountainbleau is a census-designated place in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The population was 59,764 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Fountainbleau is located at ....
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
.
Overview
The company operates various marketing channels, including eCommerce, retail store, business-to-business and catalog computer electronics sales.TigerDirect has locations in Miami (corporate headquarters, retail stores); Naperville, Illinois
Naperville, Illinois
Naperville is a city in DuPage and Will Counties in Illinois in the United States, voted the second best place to live in the United States by Money Magazine in 2006. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 141,853. It is the fifth largest city in the state, behind Chicago,...
(distribution center, corporate sales offices, retail stores in Chicagoland
Chicagoland
The Chicago metropolitan area, or Chicagoland as it is commonly called within the area, is the metropolitan area associated with the city of Chicago, Illinois and its suburbs. It is the area that is closely linked to the city through social, economic, and cultural ties...
); Jefferson, Georgia
Jefferson, Georgia
Jefferson is a city in Jackson County, Georgia, United States. The population was 3,825 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seat of Jackson County. Jefferson is known for its superior recreation department...
(distribution center, corporate sales office, retail store); and North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
(corporate sales office). TigerDirect.ca has locations in the greater Burlington, Ontario
Burlington, Ontario
Burlington , is a city located in Halton Region at the western end of Lake Ontario. Burlington is part of the Greater Toronto Area, and is also included in the Hamilton Census Metropolitan Area. Physically, Burlington lies between the north shore of Lake Ontario and the Niagara Escarpment...
, area (corporate office, corporate sales office, retail stores).
The online company WorldwideRebates.com performs some of its rebate processing and is owned by its parent company, Systemax.
History
The company was founded as Tiger Software, a publisher of titles for both Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
and Apple Macintosh. In 1989, Tiger Software became a subsidiary of publicly held Bloc Development Corporation (NASDAQ:BDEV). Bloc Development was also the parent company of BLOC Publishing, which continued the development and publishing of the company's flagship product FormTool, and 20 other products; and SoftSync, former publisher of the "EXPERT Software" titles and the Macintosh accounting software "Accountant Inc."). BLOC Development later changed its name to Tiger Direct (NASDAQ:TIGR).
TigerDirect evolved from TigerSoftware when the company began selling build-it-yourself PC kits and inexpensive computers, using manufacturers in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
to build its custom desktop and notebook configurations. In 1996, it was acquired by Systemax (NYSE: SYX) The commercial website TigerDirect.com was launched in the late 1990s, selling computer and electronics, books and software. In 2000, TigerDirect expanded its product offerings to include "refurbished" and "recertified" products, brand-name computers from IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, HP, eMachines
EMachines
eMachines is a brand of entry level PCs, based in Irvine, California. eMachines employed about 135 employees and sold between 1 to 2 million computers each year before its purchase on January 30, 2004, by rival Gateway Computers...
, Gateway
Gateway, Inc.
Gateway Computer Corporation, is a computer hardware company headquartered in Irvine, California, USA which develops, manufactures, supports, and markets a wide range of personal computers, computer monitors, servers, and computer accessories...
and others.
On January 6, 2008, Tiger Direct's parent company Systemax Inc. announced an agreement on the acquisition of the CompUSA
CompUSA
CompUSA is a retailer and reseller of consumer electronics, technology products and computer services. Its headquarters are in Miami, Florida.Until its reorganization, CompUSA, Inc. was a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. Commercial Corp S.A.B...
brand, trademarks and e-commerce business, and as many as 16 CompUSA retail outlets in Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
and Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
.
Infoworld
InfoWorld
InfoWorld is an information technology online media and events business operating under the umbrella of InfoWorld Media Group, a division of IDG...
's Robert X Cringely reported in 2006 that "Tiger's sister company OnRebate.com, which handles payouts for the discount dealer appears to specialize in the 'insufficient documentation' gambit," and, commenting on the volume of complaints on the Internet, that "Tiger's rebate promises appear to be toothless."
Consumer-reported difficulties obtaining the rebates led to an investigation by the Florida Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
and a failure to maintain a satisfactory BBB rating. According to a former controller
Comptroller
A comptroller is a management level position responsible for supervising the quality of accounting and financial reporting of an organization.In British government, the Comptroller General or Comptroller and Auditor General is in most countries the external auditor of the budget execution of the...
at Tiger Direct, improperly unpaid rebates were intentional: "...the concept was that if the customer complains you send them out the check to make them happy. But if they don't complain, they totally forget about it, that is the concept of these rebates. People forget that they sent them out."
On November 4, 1999, case C3903, the Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...
issued a decision and order (which expires in 20 years) against Tiger Direct for violations of the Pre-sale Availability Rule, the Disclosure Rule and the Warranty Act. Without admitting any wrongdoing, Tiger Direct agreed to:
- Not represent that it provides On-Site Service unless all limitations and conditions that apply are disclosed;
- fulfill obligations under the warranty within a reasonable period of time after receiving notice from the consumer; and
- shall cease and desist from failing to make warranty text available for examination prior to sale, failing to disclose what is not covered under any given warranty or the procedures needed to have warranty work accomplished and failing to disclose that certain states may give the consumer legal rights in addition to those provided by the warranty.
2005 Apple Computer lawsuit
In early 2005, the company filed suitLawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
against Apple Computer Inc. (now Apple Inc.), alleging trademark infringement, dilution and false designation of origin with Apple's introduction of Mac OS X v10.4
Mac OS X v10.4
Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger is the fifth major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Tiger was released to the public on 29 April 2005 for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X Panther , which had been released 18 months earlier...
, marketed with its codename "Tiger". Although TigerDirect had registered several tiger-related names with the United States Patent and Trademark Office
United States Patent and Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.The USPTO is based in Alexandria, Virginia,...
, Apple received trademark approval for version 10.4 (Tiger) of its OS X operating system in 2003. Tiger Direct registered opposition against Apple's filing with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board is a body within the United States Patent and Trademark Office responsible for hearing and deciding certain kinds of cases involving trademarks. These include appeals from decisions by USPTO Examiners denying registration of marks, and opposition proceedings...
, and on May 13, 2005, Apple won an emergency hearing. The judge ruled in Apple's favor, noting "the Court finds that the marks are distinctly different."
2009 Dell lawsuit
On April 17, 2009, Dell, Inc.Dell
Dell, Inc. is an American multinational information technology corporation based in 1 Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest...
filed a lawsuit against Tiger Direct, alleging trademark infringement, false advertising and misleading representations of Dell's products, unfair competition, trademark dilution, breach of contract, among other complaints related to TigerDirect's handling of Dell products. TigerDirect, a former authorized reseller of Dell products, represented to its own customers that Dell products were new and under a Dell warranty. Dell alleged that TigerDirect was not an authorized reseller and that TigerDirect sold discontinued and outdated Dell products as new and represented that the Dell products were under a Dell warranty. Dell also alleged that TigerDirect, which referred to itself as a Dell representative, purchased the Dell products from a third-party, and the company advertised the product using an unauthorized, modified version of the Dell logo in TigerDirect catalogs and on its website. Dell became aware of the unauthorized sales by TigerDirect when customers contacted Dell to demand price matches of the same Dell products sold by TigerDirect.
2009 State of Florida lawsuit
On 4 September 2009, Florida Attorney GeneralFlorida Attorney General
The Florida Attorney General is an elected cabinet official in the U.S. state of Florida. The attorney general serves as the chief legal officer of the state....
Bill McCollum
Bill McCollum
Ira William "Bill" McCollum, Jr. is a former Florida Attorney General. A Republican, he was Florida's 36th attorney general, taking office in 2007...
filed suit against TigerDirect, OnRebate, and their parent company Systemax, charging the companies with failing to provide rebates to customers. Systemax responded that a separate class action
Class action
In law, a class action, a class suit, or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued...
lawsuit making similar allegations was filed in federal court in 2007 and was dismissed on August 31, 2009. The company denied the allegations in the Florida Attorney General complaint and said it intends to defend itself vigorously. This suit was dismissed by the Florida State Attorney on October 26, 2010 under a settlement agreement with no admission of wrongdoing.