There's a Sucker Converted Every Minute

Ponca City, We love you writes "Once the US converts from analog to digital broadcasting next February, those who receive their signals over the air will need a converter box for older, non-digital models. Government-approved converter boxes sell for $60 or less and a government-issued $40 rebate coupon is available for the asking but that hasn't stopped companies like the Ohio-based Universal TechTronics from offering supposedly free converter boxes. The gimmick: the box is free, as long as you pay $88 for a five-year warranty, plus $9.30 shipping. Universal TechTronics seems to specialize in 'high-tech' products of questionable value, marketing the Cool Surge portable air cooler, 'a work of engineering genius from the China coast so advanced that no windows, vents, or freon are needed' that uses the same energy as a 60-watt light bulb. It works by blowing a stream of air over two ice packs that you have previously frozen in your freezer. What's the best tech scam you've heard of lately?"

Comments

Re:Maybe the

[morgan_greywolf]

The real tech scam: you have to upgrade your PC every two years to run the latest and greatest versions of Windows and Office.

Re:Tech scam?

[A beautiful mind]

Mod parent insightful, instead of funny. Various people and some papers have suggested that upgrading network capacity is a better way to handle high traffic than trying to mess with QoS, because 1. it's cheaper 2. it actually works, which isn't really proven to be the case for QoS on a large ISP level network.

Audiophile Hardware

[Dr.Pete]

I'm going to get all the /. audiophiles offside with this, but whatever. Some of the stuff targeted at audio pimpers is truly ridiculous. See http://www.ilikejam.org/blog/audio/audiophile.html For example:

• The CD stop light pen: A giant disregard of optics leads people to believe that the probe light "goes somewhere in the CD" and needs to be trapped.
• Audio-pimp cables: Yes, a good cable with decent materials and a well engineered, within spec connector will help with sound. Some of these audiophile connectors, however, provide no discernible or even measurable benefit. Certainly not for the cost required.
• My favorite, the volume knob: A turned wooden knob. Ha ha, knob. This may be aesthetically pleasing to some, but to claim it has anything to do with audio quality is just wrong.

These audiophile things offend me. I realize some people like to mess with their hardware to make it look pretty in their eyes (ricers, for example) but to claim such "behind-the-scenes" hardware mods do anything except drain the bank accounts of the ignorant is beyond the pale and simply a scam perpetrated by those who know better.

Re:Best Tech Scam

[mxs]

The OP is trying to make himself seem like the good guy in the story. Here is what happened :

Guy goes to eBay. Guy finds lots of speakers that he thinks are worth lots of moolah. Guy thinks to himself, hey, maybe I can bid low and rip somebody off (legally, $1 auctions have been known to net you high-priced goods whenever christmas and easter fall on the same day). Guy proceeds to bid on stuff with impunity without researching what he's bidding on.

Guy waits a day.

Guy actually wins an auction for an item. He didn't bother to read the description and model number the first time. He did not bother to research the item before he placed a bid. Guy thinks he's being scammed because, hey, he actually got an item for the price he bid. Guy is panicking. Guy wants out of this deal. Guy comes up with "They are SCAMMING ! This is not the item I bid on ! This is sub-standard quality gear ! I know, let's be a douchebag and offer to relist the item, I don't want to be held accountable to the bid I entered !"

Seller, meanwhile, gets annoyed. Since he does not want negative feedback (which is bad, bad stuff on eBay), he tries to work out a deal that is to everybody's satisfaction. Buyer offered to pay relisting, so seller takes the deal. Buyer does not believe the fee. Buyer is getting annoying and costing a lot of money in time spent. Seller offers buyer to pay whatever he deems fair as relisting fee. Buyer declines, frothing at the mouth. Seller initiates dead-beat buyer proceedings, as ANY reputable seller would, seeing as how they are the ones being scammed out of their listing fee.
Seller ultimately decides to cut their losses and not deal with buyer anymore, not deal with eBay in this matter, not risk negative feedback, and just moves on, writing this off as the cost of doing business.

Meanwhile, douchebag buyer thinks he's won and really shown them. He hasn't been scammed. The speakers were listed on the eBay listing. He could have researched. Since he feels he is in the righteous right, he posts unanonymized eMails and tries to pass these guys off as scumbags ... I have yet to see any evidence of that. If he had been delivered a box full of bricks, we might have a story. He hasn't.