ASUS charges customer with extortion, customer countersues

According to Danwei Beijing Times has reported that Asus has accused a young woman named Huang Jing of extortion, which resulted in her being jailed for ten months before being released due to insufficient evidence. She has since then decided to countersue for defamation, selling defective products, and false accusation.

Huang's ordeal started back in Feb 2006 when she bought a V6800V model ASUS laptop from a Beijing retailer. The unit had many problems included frequent BSODS, forcing her to have it repaired by Asus several times. For the last repair, Asus allegedly put in an engineering sample CPU that overheated.

This prompted Huang to hire a lawyer, Zhou Chengyu, who demanded Asus pay $5 million compensation, threatening to break the news to the media and take ASUS to court. After failed negotiations, Asus had the two arrested on March 7, 2006. But in December 2006, Huang was released from jail, and in 2007, Asus' case against her was dismissed.