Yeah, but the problem is that they're even taxing digital downloads so Netflix, iTunes might not even work. The good news is that since tax is a percentage of price, if price is $0 so is the tax. So Hulu might be an alternative to TV, Skype, iChat, Google Video might be alternatives to phones, but it'll be hard to avoid the tax altogether.

1) Dispute charge with your credit card issuer (as others have recommended)
2) Check out the consumerist blog (consumerist.com) and use their guidelines to get consumer satisfaction.

Don't let them BS you - put the beef out in public and you're more likely to get results. Dell and other large companies don't care about you, an individual consumer - make it public and affect thousands of buying decisions and you'll likely fare better.

Note: If they resolve this to your satisfaction, also post/email/whatever a follow-up showing that they made good on a bad situation. If they do not, of course you should let everyone know that as well.

Good luck!

This topic was discussed on March 31 2001 at @lanta.con in Atlanta, Georgia.