Too bad...

Story: Deceptive Pricing at CompUSATotal Replies: 10
Author Content
softwarejanitor

Jun 02, 2009
10:08 PM EDT
You aren't in an area that has a Fry's...

Sure, they have the "rebate" disease as bad as anyone... But they generally have things labeled clearly and in print large enough to read.
techiem2

Jun 02, 2009
10:15 PM EDT
Aaah Fry's...I remember those...sometimes decent prices...returned products back on the shelves with parts missing....lol.
gus3

Jun 02, 2009
10:16 PM EDT
That is, when their dot-matrix printer ribbon isn't running out of ink....
caitlyn

Jun 02, 2009
10:18 PM EDT
I did live in California for a time. Fry's is a good store.

The sales help doesn't know Linux, though. I had a PCMCIA WiFi card fail on a business trip to the Bay Area in 2005. Fry's had a huge display of WiFi cards. I asked a sales clerk which ones had a chipset I knew to work with Linux. He insisted that no card in the store worked with Linux. He insisted the all only worked on Windows.

The card they had on sale, the one with the biggest display, advertised an Atheros chipset right on the box. I bought it, took it to my hotel room, inserted it into my laptop, and it just worked. So much for the clerk at Fry.s.
gus3

Jun 02, 2009
10:19 PM EDT
And who cares how much the refrigerator costs, when the WinCE browser in the touch screen has GPF'd?

I LMAO'd so hard at that one I embarrassed my shopping companions.
jdixon

Jun 02, 2009
10:37 PM EDT
My standard policy is not to buy things with a rebate unless the price before the rebate is too good to pass up. In my experience, rebates are only honored about 75% of the time.
techiem2

Jun 02, 2009
11:03 PM EDT
Mine too. I only buy a rebate item if I can afford to get it without the rebate. The rebate is a bonus if it comes. hehe.
klhrevolution

Jun 02, 2009
11:14 PM EDT
I've enjoyed reading your materials for sometime now. I've noticed your name appearing in more places. So I hope that your enjoying the exposure and continued success!
vainrveenr

Jun 03, 2009
12:21 AM EDT
As quoted in this piece:
Quoting:Here's the issue: the only way you'd know there was a rebate was to read some microscopic print on the price tag. I mean really, really tiny print. This is in the "bring your magnifying glass" category of tiny. I kid you not. There are price tags all over the store that have rebates. Most have the words "Final Price" in big, bold, red letters so that you know there is a rebate involved. This one didn't. It also wasn't the only tag like this.
One possibility of thwarting practices such as this one at TigerDirect/CompUSA is to note the clearly-visible price tag on the rebated item to be purchased, and then ring up the item at the cashier. When the item then rings up at the cash-register as its full charge without the microscopically-printed rebate sum, then simply return this for the reason that the rebate clause was not displayed well enough; e.g., a claim of false advertisement, customer dissatisfaction, or another related reason claim. Once TigerDirect's/CompUSA's cashiers and store managers have had enough of the backlog of returned rebated items, then they will perhaps pass along their complaints on the rebated items' advertising and packaging to both upper-level company managers and then (hopefully!) to the manufacturers themselves.

Of course there are other factors to consider before actually carrying this out, such as offers for competitively-priced non-rebated items, restrictive store policies, the presence of restocking fees for returned items, ... etcetera.

caitlyn

Jun 03, 2009
1:15 AM EDT
@klhrevolution: Thank you for your kind words.

This post actually comes from my personal blog. Having said that I am doing more and more writing that I am actually paid for, including writing about Linux. Generally writing doesn't pay nearly as well as doing hands-on technical work but during the current recession it has added steady income that I can count on. It also helps that I enjoy writing :)
azerthoth

Jun 03, 2009
6:54 AM EDT
caitlyn it doesn't hurt that either that others enjoy the products of what you enjoy doing to. While I may disagree with some points, I would be a hypocrite if I didn't also admit that I enjoy and find value in your writings a larger majority of the time.

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