Chinese woman claims Asus had her locked up

10 months for complaining about her laptop

3 November 2008 17:18 GMT / By Katie Scott

This must be the most curious story of the year to date.

A Chinese woman is claiming that she was jailed for complaining about faults with her Asus laptop.

According to the Beijing Times, Huang Jing bought her ASUS V6800V notebook in February 2006.

She then claims that she had constant problems with the machine including freeze-ups.

But things got nasty (and ridiculously out of hand) leading to Jing, and her lawyer, being arrested.

Jing was accused of extortion and spent a whooping 10 months festering in a Chinese jail before being released in December 2007 after a Haidian District procurator found there was not enough evidence against her.

Why extortion? Jing claimed that her Asus machine was repaired using an Intel engineering sample that should not have made it to market, and she demanded $5 million.

"If the news was released to the media, the loss of market share would be far beyond 5 million US dollars", Huang Jing reportedly said early in her wranglings with Asus, and before she was sent to jail.

Jing is now suing Asus for defamation, false accusation and selling defective products.

She is also seeking reparation from the state for being jailed for 10 months.

Bet she wishes she'd bought from someone else!

Full tags

Biz, Lawsuits, Hardware, Laptops, Asus