LaCie What you see is not what you get Internet

I purchased a brand new LaCie 500GB external hard drive about 2yrs ago for futer use.  I recently opened it for use and discovered that there are 465GB (92%) of storage and not the 500 all over the box.  After surfing through the 61MB of pre-loaded information, I discovered in a pdf acrobat file that basically stated that after formatting the drive you will loose 5-10% of the space depending on the operating system...I had not formatted anything yet.  I just looked to see how much space was there.  35GB is a huge amount of space to come up short...less the 61MB of pre-loaded information (it takes 1000MB to make a GB). The below is a copy and paste of the info.  I called LaCie and was told that it wold cost about $9 for them to consult on the phone and it was suggested that I go to the web site to address my issues. Just another road block of red tape, which I find is standard business practice among large companies.

" Important Info: 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes. 1TB = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. Once formatted, the actual available storage capacity varies depending on operating environment (typically 5-10% less)."

I purchased a Seagate 325GB and found it 7%/28GB short although the box read 325GB. It's starting to look like standard business practice.  I'd hate to try a terabyte.