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MSN $400 Rebate in CA and OR Stopped
djneko writes "Looks like it was the real deal with the MSN
instant rebate thing, because Microsoft pulled the deal in California and Oregon today after approximately half the state flocked to Best Buy and Office Depot to get their free toys. " I did hear from several people who got it, and others who didn't.
So if MSN cannot illegally bundle products with a loan why can the cell phone comanies still do it? They build a repayment schedule into the cost of the service for the phones. Why do you think most of them have early termination clauses in the contract?
Why hasn't anyone complained about them?
It was later confirmed that they had planned to step up in $400 increments, until they rivalled some of the State lotteries in America, in an attempt to prove that all MSN subscribers were winners.
Rumours that Microsoft had sent three agents to destroy Slashdot, who's posting of the article on the deal is believed to have caused the massive take-up, were denied. In an issued statement, it was claimed that no such action was even possible, on account of there being no "Start" button.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
And everyone took advantage of their vulnerability and kicked them while they were down. Granted, Microsoft is not exactly the nicest company on the planet. But should we really stoop to their level?
-- Slashdot sucks.
The Silicon Valley News article touched on the debatable morality of taking advantage of a loophole like this. Personally, as much as Microsoft irritates me, and as much as I'd like to see Microsoft in a less dominant position in the marketplace, screwing them out of money this way ain't gonna make things right.
Yeah, I know, the company's worth gazillions, they can afford this mistake, and it is their own mistake. But I don't see how exploiting this loophole does anything other than steal money from them. One of the things I like about the open-source movement and Linux as an alternative to Microsoft's products is that, in the open source world, things take place in the light of day. This, though -- this is the kind of act I'd be embarassed to tell people about.
Imagine that, instead of a discount loophole, this was a security hole in an open-source program. Morally, I'd want to report it rather than exploit it.
Sargent
at any location authorised to refund unused bundled new PC software OS & Application license fees per the EULA.
Boojum
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Best Buy and the others have advertisements in displaying this deal all over California. There are laws that specifically forbid companies from advertising products or services that they don't have in stock.
I don't see how Best Buy can not honor your request for the $400 rebate if you show up between now and whatever date is printed on one of their newspaper advertisements. Taking advantage of the MS loophole may be unethical, but a retailer not honoring an advertisement is akin to breaking a contract and well established legal terrain.
Of all the ideals of our modern culture, I think these are the dumbest:
"don't stoop to their level"
"if you respond in kind, you're no better than them"
"even if you know, from the evidence of your own senses, that someone is guilty of a crime, and you are in a bad situation far from your society's enforced law and order, they must be given a 'fair trial' by some authority who doesn't have first-hand knowledge"
etc.
What these have in common is that they seem to be about justice, but they're really about reserving the right to punish wrongdoers exclusively for the state. Direct action is no less moral, it just takes back power for the individual.
If someone legally, through consentual agreements, yet still against your will (for example, you neither wanted nor had any use for Windows or MS-DOS, but it's cost was unavoidably included in a computer you bought), takes your money, then you shouldn't feel bad about doing the same back to them.
It is just the same as if someone steals your car, and there are no police around to take it back (or car theft isn't illegal...); you would be fully morally justified in sneaking up and taking the car back, or in stealing other goods of equal value, or, for that matter, in beating the hell out of the prick and taking your car, and maybe whatever else he's got lying around, with a warning that next time you'll kill him (punishment has to be greater than the profit from the crime to be an effective deterrent).
However, going out and stealing someone else's car would really be stooping to their level...
I'm sure plenty of /. readers remember the Hitachi Superscan monitor fiasco at buy.com. A weekend error on the retailer's web site listed a near-$600 19" monitor for something like $154.
Hundreds of excited shoppers and capitalists flooded buy.com with orders in an attempt to cash in on the store's mistake. A few days went by and the price was fixed, but the damage had already been done to the tune of several thousand orders.
After much confusion, buy.com announced they would fulfill the orders for the 150-some monitors they had in stock, and cancel the rest. Message boards, newsgroups, and web sites all over lit up with complaints about being "ripped off" or being caught as the victim of a bait and switch. More honest and understanding consumers (like me, of course) realized that we would be lucky to get such a great bargain, but if it fell through, we had no right to complain.
I personally placed an order for a monitor, but when I finally got a cancellation notice two weeks later, I shook it off and went on with my life. What about the people who ordered a dozen monitors and set up auctions on eBay before they even had them in their possession? Those were the guys screaming class action suit, crying that they got ripped off, and demanding justice at the hands (and pocketbook) of buy.com.
Well folks, no one got ripped off in that case. I admit in trying to get a bargain because of the error of someone else. When it fell through, I moved on with my life and kept my eyes peeled for the next poor fool to accidentally list something at one-fourth of the expected price. Best Buy and their phantom $400 rebate from Microsoft--it's the same situation.
A few lucky people took advantage early and walked out with DVD players and stereos for $400 cheaper then they should have. And thousands more were turned away before they could take advantage of a slip-up by the legal department at MS. Yeah, it would have been nice to get away with a nice bonus, however morally questionable--but when you get headed off before you can take advantage, there is no right to complain.
Microsoft and Best Buy responded in the only way we could really expect them to. If you didn't get your free money, let it go and move on. Given the continuing trend for slashed prices and instant rebates, we can expect something like this to happen again soon enough. Just be sure to take the deal before the unfortunate victim catches on!
What I should have said was nothing.
Perhaps the most persuasive argument (to me) however, is this:
- Microsoft has zillions of lawyers and accountants.
- Microsoft has zillions of executives.
- The lawyers, accountants, and executives all decided that this scam of theirs was a good idea.
- They collectively decided that this was a gamble worth taking, and they went for it.
- As so often happens in gambling, the other side (us citizens) won.
Microsoft took a shot, and they lost. Big deal. I feel no guilt in taking the money of someone that bet, and lost -- especially if they can afford it.In fact, I feel pretty good about it . . .
I have no
Let's face it; if Red Hat or Corel or Caldera offered a service deal in a loan, as Microsoft did it's MSN deal, then suddenly morality changes?
Well it doesn't. There is NO MORAL DIFFERENCE between murderring a bad man and murderring a good one. And there is no moral difference between legalized theft from a good company or a bad one.
Just because the law can't punish you doesn't mean it's somehow a correct action! If you were *allowed* to shoot Bill Gates, would you? If your answer is "no, I wouldn't do that" then consider how much it really matterred to you whether you were allowed to do something by the government!
-Ben
"There is NO MORAL DIFFERENCE between murderring a bad man and murderring a good one."
What if he is executed? Do you really think it's moral for the state and not for the individual? Of course not, trials and government authority and other formalities have nothing to do with morality, they are just a practical system for everyone to agree on one course of action (and hopefully the moral one).
Since you seem to be using it as a narrow example to illustrate a broad point, I'll assume you mean that for every crime, not just murder.
How about imprisoning an evil man? Taking back stolen goods?
It is not immoral to punish the guilty. However, this is not about that.
If I could legally take any amount of money (from a dollar to a billion dollars) from Bill Gates I would. Did he earn the money? Of course not, no single individual can earn such a vast fortune, and it's debatable whether he's ever done a useful and productive thing for society (as opposed to hurting society for his own profit) in his work at Microsoft. His only claim to it over mine (or anyone else's claim) is legal; he has no moral claim to this unearned fortune. Therefor, taking his money would be, at worst, a morally neutral act. Morally neutral and personally beneficial, hmm... I wouldn't have to think about it for very long.
I wouldn't shoot Bill Gates, much as I dislike him. It's not like he's a real dictator who orders his enemies tortured and murdered. It would be morally wrong to shoot him for no reason.
"On Thursday, the state Department of Corporations said the law doesn't apply to Microsoft."
How apt!
_____________
"The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." -- Anatole France
Another news that microsoft might soon learn is, that the loophole wasn't only good for ripping off $400 but also gives customers who participated in the program a cheap way out and thus an opportunity to rethink the deal. If they still think it was a good one they can even cancel the old contract and do it a second time (they even get a 'fairer' contract that way :-) ).
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Unlike customers in most states, residents of California and Oregon were allowed to cancel the $21.95-a-month subscription and still keep the $400 because Microsoft believed that state laws required penalty-free cancellation.
- ----------
After California officials said Thursday that Microsoft misunderstood the law, the company decided to temporarily suspend the program, effective today. The suspension comes despite Best Buy advertisements that say it will continue through Feb. 29 and Office Depot ads that say it will continue until March 31.
-----------------------------------------------
So...
Thousands of otherwise uninterested customers signed a clearly quid pro quo contract with every intention of breaking it, so that they could pocket $400 that Microsoft never intended to give away. Why would they do that? Because they can get away with it. In a different context, you might call it looting.
Please, spare us all the bullshit hypothetical "what if Microsoft was handing out $400?" situations and the many clumsy metaphors that have been moderated +5. That's called justification, and it's a cheap technique to make yourself feel better.
You're cashing in on a technical blooper for your own personal advancement -- frankly, opportunism and exploitation are not becoming of Slashdot. If you just get off on sticking it to The Man, go deface a website or something.
My distaste for Microsoft's strong-arm tactics is as strong as the next guy's, but it's a little hard to take the moral high ground when you're fucking your best friend's wife.
The generally agreed upon morality surrounding making a consensual deal between two parties of roughly equal power is that it is each party's responsibility to look out for its own interests; you don't owe it to the other guy to tell him he's making a bad deal. Now, when one party is more powerful than the other, the moral issue may be more complicated by the possibility of the strong party coercing the weak party into making a bad deal (and as I read the explanation, this was precisely the reason for the CA and OR laws prohibiting tying a loan to purchasing a service in the first place), but in this case Microsoft is clearly the strong party, so I don't think those issues apply here.
At the end of the day, Microsoft made one kind of deal (i.e., handing out $400 with no strings attatched in OR and CA), and it wanted to pretend it had made another (i.e., buying 3 years of MSN was required). A theory of morality in which the moral position of taking advantage of the deal they actually made is comparable to the moral position of murdering someone and getting away with it through a legal loophole is at best peculiar, and certainly not in line with the generally accepted theory.
-r