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Office Depot Employee — "We Changed Prices Too"
Avram Piltch writes "Last week, LAPTOP reported that Office Depot employees were routinely lying to customers about notebook inventory, telling them that systems were out of stock if they didn't want to buy extended warranties or tech services. Now LAPTOP has spoken to more Office Depot associates, one of whom goes by the name Alex and reports widespread altering of prices in his region. He says he even Photoshops higher price tags on clearance notebooks so that associates can tell customers that they're getting a free warranty or tech service, when the price has been raised to cover it. LAPTOP also talked to a representative from the FTC, who would not comment on Office Depot specifically, but said that the sales practices described by LAPTOP clearly violate federal law."
Sadly, this is the attitude of many in sales in this country. Good Business is how much you can milk from your customers and how fast regardless of the consequences. I sat with a couple of sales guys (friends at that) last weekend who bragged back and forth about how they were literally screwing associates.
Paraphrasing a quote from The Grapes of Wrath, "Steal a tire and you're a criminal. Sell a man a tire with a hole in it and that's just good business."
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Well, except that for once sales people admit that they lie to customers.
Apparently the rogue salesman wasn't impressed with my wanting a "cheap Linux laptop" and told me there were none left. Never mind I checked the website half an hour earlier before coming in and there were about 270 in stock at that store. So I went up front to customer service. They checked for stock and had two people help me. One to go back and fire the salesman and the other to get my laptop. That store appears to have stopped the practice of giving salesmen credit for purchases soon after. The salesmen no longer act like vultures. Customers do the store and community great service by reporting the problem.
When I worked at Office Depot, anybody doing something like that would be fired on the spot. Of course, that was over a decade ago... (I left because I got a job that paid enough I could stop getting unemployment...)
The managers of these unethical scum are completely aware of what is going on.
"LAPTOP" is not a universally known group, even among geeks. You need to explain who they are. That's just good journalism.
Haven't you ever hung around a person who said "Hey, man, so did you hear about the thing?" and you just look at them dumbfounded because you have no idea what he's talking about?
I used to work there. I can see how their employee incentives would lead to these kind of practices. There's something wrong when your focus has to be selling an "attachment" item over the actual product. And no one ever uses their extended warranty (don't tell me a story about a time you used it, you're the exception, not the rule) It's dishonest. Insurance on an item you can afford to replace is always a bad deal.
I worked for Officemax for 4 months, it was routine for me to lie to customers, change prices, say we didn't have something and stare at it, laughing all the while with my manager. I didn't particularly find it funny, but I needed the money. I quit that as fast as I can like any other respectable person.
Look at it this way though, although they may be screwing their customers, the average person that buys their computers from them have no idea how to use a computer. These are the people from personal experience want to return and or "have us service it in store" at any given time noon or night. I mean honestly how many of you have bought them from the store recently?
Wanna know how to get around shady clerks who don't want to sell it to you? Just go on the internet and have it shipped to the store, that way you can still act like you got it from them, or even easier if you wanna go to the store first just special order it from the warehouse. After I figured out how to do those 2 things at Officemax I had customers tipping me just for being helpful. It really was a learning experience though; working on typewriters older than me.
Target has a daily sales quota for credit cards and for warranties. It is part of your essential job function. You do it, or else. If you didn't meet quota, management gave you a warning. Two strikes and, well, guess you didn't really want that $0.35/hour raise, did you?
This type of behavior is all to do with the profit margins. They have to cut their profit margins wafer thin on the products themselves due to competition, but extended warranties are mostly pure profit. Most people who buy an extended warranty on any product (not just PCs) won't need to claim against it within the time covered, and even if they do, no doubt the small print will have something which exempts that particular issue so they'll never have to actually pay out on it. The small minority who do have to claim and have the warranty pay out often find that one claim pays for the warranty.
The thing that many people don't take into account at the time of purchase, is that if the unit breaks in 4 years, do you want the same thing repaired, or do you want newer technology? If you bought an XBOX which needed repairing 3 years later, wouldn't you rather use that same warranty cash (in part) for an XBOX 360?
I used to work for an electrical retailer in the UK, and the pressure on sales staff to get a certain percentage of their sales figures in extended warranties and instore credit cards (where the compound interest rates were horrendous) was immense. They'd rather you had a little sale with a large percentage of the total price being a warranty, than a large value sale which was all product. They even tried to bully us into visiting the area manager to explain our lack of target achievement.....needless to say, I'm not there anymore. As a customer, it is handy to be able to cut the sales staff off with "I used to sell these things, I know the deal, forget it" when the "would you be interested in....." line comes up.
We got told we could offer discounts ONLY if an extended warranty was being bought at the same time, or they were opening an instore credit card. We were encouraged to just tick the "payment protection" box because it saves time explaining what it is, and it's more profit. I insisted in explaining to the customer as I felt like I was cheating them if I decided for them.
This type of behavior does go further than my ex-employers would go (at the time I worked there at least). It's gonna be interesting how many complaints / lawsuits they get from disgruntled customers who never realized something was fishy at the time but suddenly the penny drops that it happened to them. If this does get through courtrooms / inquiry where the allegations are proven true and they are punished for it, it'll be a hellava hit on their reputation for a while to come. Right now no companies can afford to lose customers.
Why the heck does anyone buy electronics from brick and mortar stores any more? Yes, occasionally you can find "deals" compared to online - but those always HAVE to be at a loss compared to online stores.
The reason is that online stores have several massive advantages. Economies of scale are one : newegg.com and the others can supply the entire United States with electronics using just a few large warehouses, with heavy use of automation. The real estate, labor, energy usage, advertising costs, management...it's all cheaper with a few large warehouses.
The second massive advantage is that electronic goods inherently plummet in value very rapidly. The longer something sits in inventory, the less money the store makes by selling it. Again, the online stores need vastly smaller inventories relative to their total sales, and I suspect sometimes work so efficiently as to unload goods from the shipping containers from china and immediatly send it on the buyers.
I know what most of you are going to say : "instant gratification" isn't there. True. Still, electronics are cheap and light to ship. It's cheaper to have a video card overnighted from newegg than it is to pay the usual price the same video card is listed at in Best Buy.
The overwhelming majority of us don't need instant gratification, we can wait 2 days. If we are doing something where high uptime is critical, then it's still cheaper to order a few extra parts from newegg as spares than it is to buy stuff from Best Buy or Fry's. Or just keep your old stuff for spares.
Do your research online first, then you can pretty much tell who is full of bullshit.
Some time ago I picked up a barcode card for a clearance laptop from the O.D. stacks. Right then I received a phone call and I left the store in a hurry without buying anything.
A couple of days later I was at the same store and noticed that the price was higher, $50 more or so. I bought it anyway... went home, and was able to find the old barcode card in the pocket of the coat I had been wearing the other day
Intrigued, I took the card and the sales receipt back to the store. Well, as soon as they heard my story they INSTANTLY scanned the barcode and gave me the extra money back, on the spot, no manager approval needed, nothing!
At the time I did not realize that maybe, just maybe, something systematic was going on and they had good reason to avoid a fuss and end the matter as quickly and quietly as possible!
And what if that IP leads to some ad/linkfarm/spam/malware site?
... or it's a dynamic IP.
GP has probably just learned what an IP address is and he thinks it's "kewl" to say things like "I no ur IP lolzor pwned" all the time.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Uh, Slashdot already does control based on IP address plus a lot of the worst spam posts are done by bots and through proxies. Showing it will do nothing.
Also, it will create an environment of fear for normal people. Many posts been modded -1 when they didn't deserve it. It happens all the time. Often it doesn't matter if you have a valid point, it's just that people disagree (which is not a valid reason for modding down IMO). Showing their IP address just because they don't agree with the Slashdot heard does not set a good precedent.
I was a commission salesmen for CompUSA for a short stint for some extra cash between jobs. I was amazed when I found out that the same things were going on there, only it was being forced on the salesmen by the General Manager and Sales Manager.
If I couldn't sell a laptop that was on sale without TAP (their protection warranty) we were told to tell the customer that unfortunately the last one just went out. They would change the stock counts so they had full control. Printers, PDAs and cameras were as bad as Laptops; the world stopped and you got a major bitch session if you sold one without TAP.
They even went as far as to reprint their own prices, raising the price of every laptop and some computers and items by at least $100 in the store. If a salesmen was unable to sell TAP then with permission of the sales manager they could "save" the customer $100 of the price of the laptop if they bought TAP... Fictitiously bringing the price down $100-$200.
I don't get it. Who says the cost of an item today should be the same as the cost of the item tomorrow.. or a "couple of days" later. And, that said, who says the listed price is the price you have to pay? What ever happened to the haggle?
How we know is more important than what we know.
This is the same reason I car shop at dealers that offer fixed pricing. No screwing around with what is available, and how much it costs. If you have the product I want at a fair price, I'll purchase it. If you don't, I'll walk out without spending a dime.
Just what would DESKTOP and SERVER think of all this? Let alone how NETBOOK would feel about being left out and poor old MAINFRAME in the corner has been all but forgotten.
Seriously though, I can't help but feel there's something inherently lame about naming your group/publication/whatever after a common peice of hardware then capitalising it.
With the random littering of LAPTOP in capitals throughout the summar it read more like an advert.
...that no one ever uses their extended warranty is just fantasy on your part.
That's assuming you actually can use it. Many times, when you actually try to make a claim, the insurance company that backs the warranty, will not back it up - they'll find something in the fine print of the contract that they'll use as an excuse to tell you to take a hike; which then it becomes a battle. Many times, they don't even have a legitimate reason not to honor the warranty, but they do anyway because they're crooks.
A Consumer advocate's take:
Why extended warranties are a rip
Why extended warranties are no good
I think when the *moderator* applies negative points, his username should be revealed. If you're going to mod some "troll" simply because you disagree with that person (i.e. an abuse of power), then you should do it publicly not anonymously.
Too many times I've seen people express an opinion, and they got modded into invisibility because it happens to be an unpopular opinion. I've grown tired of that censorship. We should learn to tolerate everyone's viewpoint, even if we disagree with it. IDIC.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I think when you get modded -1 troll your IP should be revealed.
His IP is 127.0.0.1, have fun.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
...to make Dunder Mifflin your sole supplier of office goods.
Why am i not shocked?
I'm growing to hate money and all who seek it at the cost of being fair, honest, and humane. Greed is a disgusting thing.
I'm all for public hangings of guilty CEO and politicians.
I work at Office Depot currently, and I can assure you this is not standard practice where I work, and certainly wouldn't be allowed by any of the managers or corporate. With regards to the issue about people lying about laptops being out of stock, yes, there were some salespeople who were doing that. As soon as it was found out, the practice was halted and everyone was informed that under no circumstances was it to be allowed. (And logically, even selling a laptop without the extended warranty is better than not selling it at all.) I so know that if any of this happened at the place I work, the employee responsible would be fired with no hesitation.
It is true that Office Depot does tend to push for these warranties, add-ons, etc, but you'll find that just about every other store, from Best Buy to Fry's does the same. Like it or not, that's how the business is run.
As a customer, it's annoying, but you just have to put up with it and move on in life, just as you put up with club cards, coupons, mailers, and all the other little annoyances that just about every store dumps on you these days.
As an employee, it can be stressful, but it's unlikely that you'll get fired if you don't contribute to the "quota." (And remember, this is retail. Working in retail sucks in general.)
And just as a final word, I'm not a manager, or corporate, or any higher up at OD. I'm just a lowly employee working there to pay for my textbooks because the hours are flexible enough to accommodate for my classes. I don't particularly have much company loyalty, but it does tick me off that people are spreading what is essentially tabloid journalism without giving any thought as to whether it's a widespread practice, or just some individuals who are giving the company a poor image.
Shit, wrong company
OMG. What are the chances that this douchebags root password is the same as mine!?!?!
I'll show him. rm -r *.*
Just like when you play a record backwards you can hear the devil speak---especially rock music or, going from the 50s to the 90s, rap music---the true meaning of LAPTOP is in the reversal:
POT PAL.
Awww, the whatever-it-is wants to be your smoke bloke.
Funny, your post criticizing bad moderators gets labeled 'Troll' - clearly you're just a sockpuppet bent on causing trouble ;)
Nothing in that post looks like a troll to me.
The poster was stating a valid and what I consider to be an admirable opinion.
They say communism didn't work. Capitalism isn't doing so great either. Black and white systems are doomed to fail. People have a right to be pissed.
Or you could just be a house neegra..
I see nothing illegal here. If a buyer is willing to buy a PC for $599 without realizing that there is an included service plan charge, then he must believe it is a good deal. Of course, $519 (the original price minus $80 service plan) would be a _better_ deal, but the original deal is enough for the buyer to buy.
So a deal is made, some profit is made, the user buys an unnecessary service plan but nonetheless is very happy with the price. Aren't we getting a little Victorian about the profit motive here? After all, the goal of business is to profit and survive, not to give up all your profits in service to the customer. That's the road to bankruptcy.
Another way to look at it is to ask if you would criticize the deal were the additional $80 pure profit.
OMG. What are the chances that this douchebags root password is the same as mine!?!?! I'll show him. rm -r *.*
I'd rather you do: /*"
"rm -rf
or
"find / -exec rm -rf {} \;"
In windows you can: /S /Q
C:
CD \
RMDIR .
or a quickie: /s /q
cd %SYSTEMROOT%
rmdir .
thatll do it.
overall, I think message boards provide the most accurate, unbiased information for a particular subject.
Really? There's no asymmetry? I'd think maybe you'd have to like a product very much to voice good opinions, but not hate it quite as much to dis it.
I guess if all products get the same slightly more negative or positive (or in other ways skewed) forum feedback, then it evens out. Maybe.
But I think that the motivation to tell the world how you feel is going to make you deliver a more true message than money (reviewer salary), money (get-the-facts advertisement) or money (volunteer reviews for some organization so they can save money).
Belkin.
Dell.
Office Depot.
Just one more company on my short, but growing, list of companies I just won't deal with at all, ever, because of some galactically stupid screw-the-customer policy.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
I pwn that box!
Some years ago, I saw a printed ad for some Kingston RAM for sale, pretty cheap too, so of course I stop by the store and ask for that specific model. The sales guy puts a package with generic RAM in front of me, and asks for the 20$ higher regular price on that one. "That's not what's in the ad, or what I asked for at all." I said, to which he replied "That's what you're going to buy." I sneered at him and never stepped in that store again. In a way, I'm grateful he acted that way because as a result of his attitude, I found a smaller shop an hour later that had better prices and technically qualified sales clerks.
Actually, they tried to call me up and sell me one of these. I think it was $300'ish for another few years for an all-inclusive warranty. The fine-print that they tried to skip past very quickly though, was that the TV+surround they wanted to "extend" had to be inspected at a regular interval (it was either yearly or bi-yearly). You could have somebody come in to do that at over a hundred bucks a pop, or bring your stuff into Sears and be unable to use it for a few days until they finished inspection.
Most extended warranties are pretty much a scam, but I do remember that Future Shop (now owned by Best Buy, but this was prior to that) was actually really good about their EW when a subwoofer I had warranteed blew. I brought it in, and they swapped it right away no questions asked. Sadly, I know people who have had laptop warranties with them and had a bad laptop spend half the first year in-and-out of the shop before the "three strikes" kicked in and they replaced the defective unit.
There's less money than there is debt. Everyone is constantly trying to cut their costs and ensure future revenue streams because *everyone* has these interest payments to make.
Never wondered why everything is cheap disposable crap these days? It is because a dollar today is worth two tomorrow. We are all chasing inflation.
If money were stable, companies could afford to produce high quality long lasting products and the margins on them wouldn't be a problem, after all they are long lasting. As it is, they can't.
Deleted
People still shop at Office Depot?
When there was a CompUSA in my area. I went to buy a laptop. The sales person tried to sell me the extended warranty. When I refused, he indicated he was able to drop the price of the laptop enough so the end price was still the same with the warranty. When I refused and insisted on the lowered price, he indicated that he was not able to sell at the lowered price w/o the warranty.
A big problem of retailers like this is that the internet has put them in a terrible spot. With prices so low as to be unable to pay people to sell them, they've got to think of something to survive. So they do anything and that sense of doing anything to survive can become pervasive in any culture, government or otherwise.
In the longer term, the only policy item on the table likely to help the retailer will be carbon taxes. Once carbon taxes go into effect, the cost of fuel will rise, and shippers will safely pass the cost. That package that takes $20 to ship might then take $50 or even $100 in fuel surcharges and suddenly the savings of online shopping evaporate compared to the cost of delivery to concentrated distribution centers for local pickup - stores.
But frankly, despite having a Democratic congress, and a Democratic president, I would be willing to bet that carbon taxes are not likely to see the light of day in the USA.
This is my sig.
Try:
# rm -r -f /* &
If you don't background it, it may stop when it removes 'rm'
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Don't forget to use the "&" to background it. It works much better that way.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
I pay a small company in my area to build my boxes for the small business I administrate. I pay about two to three hundred Federal Reserve Notes more for these custom built boxes than I would at your Best Chump or Office Dump. I do not mind paying the higher price because I do not have to spend hours removing the free AOL trial offers, or the Norton AV that will expire, or the unlimited number of bloatware that they also put on these machines.
When I worked electronics at Staples a few years back, 2 or 3 stores in our district were "reorganized" and all management at those stores fired for similar practices. One store was printing the higher price tags for big ticket items to sell warranties and replacement plans without having to even offer them. Another would lie about inventory levels on everything from printers to laptops.
All of this happened about 2 weeks after they sent 2 people from each store to the highest performing in our district for "training". This store had been performing TOO well, and as soon as the training session started, most of us start exchanging puzzled looks, as their methods were clearly against company policy.
Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?
Wait a minute... that's MY IP ADDRESS! Don't send him after me! I'm innocent!!!1
Now does he Photoshop the price tags or does he digitially alter the price tags with Adobe® Photoshop®?
I have a friend that "Photoshops with The GIMP" but I think he does that one to tweak the Adobe fans in our circle of friends.
Haggling has the potential to get a deal for the customer. This way is "better," since the customer's only option is to "shop around" which takes more work and most people are too lazy.
I'm sure someone else has already said this, but as a former Office Depot Manager, I can tell you that this should not be a suprise at all. I was literally fired because I refused to push a particular add-on service to our customers (a $60 computer 'optimization' for people who just bought a brand new computer -- for $60, they'll uninstall all that bloatware HP installs, but they tell the associate to sell it as a "necessary service") I had the best sales in my department of any store *in the region*, and ha for the past 2 years, making 20% increases over the previous year's sales, and 10% over /margin/ goals -- yet, because I wouldn't sell this service, I was fired. Now, I sold warrantees, but I spelled it just like it was; I wasn't going to lie to anyone. But if you sold less than 14/week, you got a warning. Second warning, you got a write up. Second write up, you got fired.
I should point out, however, that this was not Coporate's idea. This was on a store level. A neighboring store photoshopped all of their chair pricetags to include a chairmat & $10 warranty into the price -- they sold enough warrantees that way, and didn't have to push their employees. In a very big way, those employees had it MUCH better.
The problem is bad management, and money-driven sales, rather than customer service-driven sales. I had great sales for a reason: I was good to my customers.
Just my 2 cents.
A small comparison of interest:
Windows: Public School. Mac: Private School. Linux: Homeschool. Assembly: Unschool.
I think the moderators inadvertently proved my point. They didn't like what I had to say, so they subtracted points and labeled me "troll". It's a form of censorship, where the goal is to make the poster's score either (0) or (-1) and thereby invisible to readers.
Heaven forbid a moderator post an actual reply such as, "I disagree" while leaving the poster's score alone.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I worked at CompUSA when I was a teenager, and I saw this kind of thing happen there too. The most successful salesmen would print up a second set of price tags for desktops and laptops that built in the warranty and put them up and then "stake out" that section of the store. They would sell customers that didn't know any better the machine at the inflated price and bundle in the warranty.
I also saw people sell electronics warranties on overpriced items that clearly didn't need them (the worst offender sold a 10 dollar warranty on a 15 dollar network cable. Both outrageous to begin with).
In the long run I think that these kinds of shady practices will alienate the customer and the company will go out of business, as we saw happen with CompUSA (and oh, how I rejoiced).
Often it doesn't matter if you have a valid point, it's just that people disagree (which is not a valid reason for modding down IMO).
I disagree.
(Oh, you're lucky I don't have mod points.)
The brick and mortar stores have every right to charge whatever they want for RAM. Local stores at double the price are for emergencies only. Sure, you can get it online for half the cost. IF you are willing to wait.
It costs a lot to run a local store and maintain inventory -- even before the returns by morons whose computers are STILL broken because RAM wasn't the problem in the first place. They might not be so quick to spend the time shipping it back to Newegg, but they will surely return to the local Office Depot (even if they bought it at Newegg).
In the old days (before internet), local computer stores woulds sell RAM for 900% of mail order price. In those days, an plain (dual floppy) IBM PC would cost about $3600, a generic clone would be about $2500 from the local PC dealer, but you could make it yourself from mail order parts for a little over $1000.
When companies figured out that each PC they bought was overpriced from $1500 to $2500, purchasing was centralized and these overpriced shops went out of business. I know of at least one large defense contractor that started up a miniature PC factory just for their own needs. Workers would build PCs from commodity parts and the IT department would deploy them. Today, it's hard to buy a PC unfit for business use (assuming you can avoid Vista). Meanwhile, the DIY incentive is almost non-existant. Prices are very competitive.
We like to think our IT department is getting the best price and/or quantity discounts. But unless you are a Fortune 500 company, quantity discounts seldom beat the loss leaders (either locally or online) available to the general public. Software is the same story: Most of Microsoft's volume purchase agreements are packed with "management tools" instead of discounts. At best, the IT people get a few perks from the vendors and the "economies of scale" fantasy is kept intact.
We are afraid of overpaying if we decentralize the function. But today's problem is the cost of our own internal red tape. It would probably be cheaper to give each new employee an allowance for a new computer and have them make the purchase directly.
I happen to work in a location where we are the ONLY place to buy certain items. For example; groceries, hiking gear, alcohol. Luckily it's a tourist trap in one of the most beautiful places on the planet. That said, I will freely admit to the customer if I think something we have is overpriced.
In my department, things like fuel(Coleman Propane 16.4oz cans are 8.99, 2.50-3.99 elsewhere) are pretty overpriced. Although the Coleman White Gas 1gal are 17.99, 11.99 elsewhere. So not too bad. Luckily there are a lot of manufacturers who set prices before they hit stores. North Face and Columbia are prime examples.
I will explain to the customer though that sure, our prices might be a little high, but if you really need this or that item, in the long run it will even out as the fuel, or whatever else you need for it will be cheaper at other places.
Though sometimes I will admit that we're it, so buy the item or suffer without.
let's not blame the consumer because they want a fair price. Problem is, that regardless of the item the sales people are selling, they will ALWAYS have an advantage over the consumer because they know the cost of what they are selling.
I recently spent a day explaining to my cousin what the differences were when pricing a computer. The difference between 3Gb L2 versus 1Gb. How AMD markets their chip speed vs Intel. If he would have walked into Best Buy he probably would have been sold on low level PC that wouldn't be able to do what he needed, or some uber gaming box that had alot of WOW, but more than he needed. knowing is half the battle.
Syms use to say it best 'an educated customer, is our best customer'. and the problem with that is that most stores, and sales people in general thrive on swindling the un-educated consumer, or even those that believe they educated(about their purchase) and are not.
Hmmm, stories like this are making me consider abandoning retail for tech purchases altogether in favor of online. Are these places trying to put themselves out of business? You just can't screw your customers like this anymore and expect that the whole world is not going to hear about it.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Even better are those that mark down your post "overrated", which they do to avoid meta-moderation.
And believe me, I've been modded down for posting things that (for example) dared to disagree with libertarianism.
I am officially gone from
they were literally screwing associates.
But surely their sex lives are perfectly fair game for a bit of bragging?
No flame intended, but I can't resist observing this. GP misused the word "literally", but you responded with another figurative use of the word screw! Unfortunately, while your post was amusing, my post is about as funny as a guy literally screwing his associates.
That wouldn't exactly be nice. I posted a journal entry on moderation. One specific post went all the way down to -1 Troll, and all the way up to +5 Funny. It all depends on what people think about you.
What's funny to 99% of the people here may be a blatant insult to the other 1%. It really matters who happened to get mod points, and which comments they felt like scoring.
Just because a user (or even a couple) didn't like what I said, is it fair to give up my IP to everyone? Not really.
But for real trolls, just ignore them. Eventually they'll get bored and go away. As long as you feed them, they'll keep hanging around. Kinda like a stray cat, or that girl you picked up at the bar last month. If you stop feeding her, she'll find another place to stay. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
At Sears, and probably at many other retailers of which I am unaware, a customer can order and pay for goods on the company website and then pick up the purchase at the local branch store. It can be a very convenient and hassle free service. For one thing, additional warranties or other items can't be tagged on at the pick-up location. The customer just walks in and walks out with the goods.
This is the way that I generally prefer to shop. If more companies would offer such a service, they could certainly lower operating expenses and the client could be spared having to endure those totally "canned" and scripted sales pitches that pass under the name of "customer service."
People that disagree with Libertarianism should be arrested by the Secret Political Police and then sent off for Class IV Special Treatment at the Ministry of Free Expression. Freedom and democracy are under attack, and freedom and democracy must be defended.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Who cares what price mechanics go on behind the label? The market is big enough to self-correct. This is one of those times and places where the religion of, "Competition" is entirely valid. --Like Newtonian physics, there is a scale at which that math works perfectly.
And so we have the marvel of comparison shopping. If the Business Depot is selling at more than what I can get elsewhere, then I won't buy it from them.
Incidentally, one intangible and hard-to-come-by substance which the Business Depot sells better than most is, 'Convenience'.
I've sometimes needed big portions of that stuff, and I've paid top dollar for it. The only computer items I ever buy at the Business Depot are during times of emergency, when I need something NOW. (I've often lived within a few blocks of a Business Depot). My biggest purchase like this was a laser printer; I was in the middle of some big project and my existing printer died. I might have even gotten a good deal, but it really didn't matter at the time. I had $500 and I needed to be printing documents before 1 PM. They came through. No internet company on the planet can do that.
When I haven't had that kind of need or financial luxury, --or as is most often the case, when I just feel the need to go hunting for the best deal, the Business Depot is the last place I'd ever shop. But that's their problem. I will respectfully allow them to price stuff however the heck they want. So long as I can get the same or a similar item somewhere else for a better price, then who really cares?
-FL
"Another annoying practice Sears had was to offer "rebates" that had to redeemed from the central Chicago office. So customers come-in expected a sale, but instead they pay full price, and have to go through the hassle of mailing stuff to Chicago to get their refund. I had a LOT of customer come-in and complain they never received the check in the mail. At first we simply refunded the money out of the drawer, but then the stores stopped doing that."
We got screwed out of about $400 that way when the clerk made the mistake of saying we were taking the "free financing". We paid off the bill in 30 days. We appealed to the manager, but he/she (can't remember) said "My clerks never make mistakes". We pointed out the problem to sears, went all the way up the chain, they all said "sorry, that's the way it goes". I sent a letter to the president of sears and he sent us back to the same woman who said "sorry that's the way it goes".
I explained to sears that I buy thousands of dollars of appliances, tools, tractors, etc a year from them. They didn't budge.
You know how much they've gotten from us in 2 years? Nothing. Sears will fail *because they treat their customers poorly*. Sears saw the issue, said no, it didn't make any sense and then proceeded to screw me out of $400.
The thing is, I'm sure management gave itself a bonus because they eliminated good customer service, and then customers like me, lifetime customers for decades, are left holding the bag.
Doesn't Sears realize that Costco has better customer service and they're way cheaper? I don't think they understand they have competition.
Sears stole money from me, acknowledged it and won't pay it back. That's all I know. Nobody in that whole corporation has accountability. So I won't do business with them.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
*sigh* Overrated & Underrated moderations have been M2'd for years, now. Please stop perpetuating the myth that they are not.
The same principal was applied to me in the 1970's when I worked in a gas station. It didn't matter how much gas was pumped during my shift, what mattered was the volume of TBA (Tires, Batteries, and Accessories) sold during the shift. This was in the days before self-service. We had to pump the gas, wash the windows, and check under the hood for things like being low on washer fluid, oil, bulging hoses, frayed belts, etc. And just like the Office Depot stories, we had a quota to meet. One fellow got really good at selling brake fluid by dipping a towel into the reservoir. Anything to get by. I had it easy -- I knew how to change belts and hoses so I could concentrate on things that were actually wrong.
I just saw this happen a few weeks ago. A customer at the Office Depot near me turned down an extended warranty on a laptop, and was immediately told by the manager that they had no stock. This manager had just spent the last 5 minutes trying to sell this same laptop to the customer. Why would anyone deliberately try to sell someone an item that was out of stock. I would be tempted to take those little slips next to the hardware and tear them up stating "it doesn't matter, it's out of stock." Unless LAPTOP magazine spoke to my store, I'm sure that this is very wide spread throughout the company. They even started their own Firedog/Geek Squad service called Tech Depot.
Lived in South Beach for a while, and did some delivery to make some extra cash while looking for a day job.
There is a English college down 25 blocks on Alton RD that the student order 5 or six times a night You would be lucky if you would get change. Yes the change, as in coins. I got 4 cents one night from one of the euro kids.
Drivers got tired of it so we started adding $2 to every order to the school at the phones. The slip would have the original price but the drivers all knew to tack on the "Delivery fee" for that particular address.
Mysteriously all the receipts got lost between the shop & the school, only to be found again after the delivery was made.
It's only Slashdot people. If you get modded up or down it isn't the greatest day of your life/end of the world. At least it isn't for me. Big deal, so someone doesn't like what you said. It's a big world, best to get used to it now. Someone somewhere is always going to not like what you say.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Too many times I've seen people express an opinion, and they got modded into invisibility because it happens to be an unpopular opinion. I've grown tired of that censorship. We should learn to tolerate everyone's viewpoint, even if we disagree with it. IDIC.
I like the idea of being able to see who modded posts. While I support the ability to post anonymously, I'm not sure anonymity offers the same advantages in moderating.
At the same time, I like the moderation system. It exists not for a need to censor unpopular opinions but rather because of the nature of the Internet (I think this is where the infamous Penny Arcade strip goes). Modderation is a way for the community to deal with the community.
It gets abused. It gets misused. But it also handles some of the clutter. A big difference in this form of "censorship" is that even the worse modded posts are still there for your viewing if you're so inclined. I occasionally am. Rarely am I rewarded for the effort.
We should be able to tolerate other's viewpoints in so far as we respect the right to have them and, in the right context, express them. However, this toleration does not mean we must also accept them. Especially when such viewpoints are not always honest.
I believe this moderation system does tolerate opinions while doing a fare job at maintaining signal-to-noise ratios (to varying degrees of success). Dissenting views are still available to be read even if moderation is abused. And I've often seen dissenting views get positive moderation as well.
format c: /u/autotest >NUL
Used to add that to the end of the Autoexec.BAT files at Walmart...
Mod -2: Troll Hater
The extended warranties and service plans would be FAR easier to sell if *those* things were honest in the first place!
Honestly, I tend to *like* the service plans, in theory, on many of the things I'd buy at a store like Office Depot. My resistance to them comes from being screwed over on multiple occasions when I went to actually USE one of them!
As one example, years ago, I purchased the 2 year extended plan for an HP inkjet printer I got for my work. I knew that out in the shop where it was used, they had a track record of breaking or wearing out the things on about a 1 1/2 year basis, so I figured it was a good gamble we'd use the plan. Sure enough, it broke down - so I called the ext. warranty toll-free number and tried to make a claim. Turns out the company went bankrupt and all warranties were transferred to a different firm. When I called THAT firm, they had "no record" of my warranty - and told me I needed to go to Office Depot and have them look it up in their file, and fax over proof.
I went through that whole fiasco, only to have the place refuse to pay to replace the printer with a comparable unit. Instead, they said all they were willing to do was mail me a check for the cost of the extended warranty and wash their hands of it!
As another example? I paid about $100 for a furniture warranty on a new sectional I bought at "Weekends Only". The microfiber started tearing in a corner, so I called to make a warranty claim. The place was *impossible* to work with though! They kept putting me on hold for 30 minutes or more and hanging up on me, or insisting the person handling the "Weekends Only" warranties was out of the office, and to "leave a voicemail". After leaving numerous messages, I got them to return my call a total of 2 times, both at odd hours (like late evenings, at my work number, when I was already long since back at home), so they left me messages simply saying they "tried to reach me" and to "give them a call back at my convenience". Never was able to get any service before the warranty expired, and I *still* have holes in my sectional!
I wouldn't dream of buying a prebuilt computer. I'm a programmer and electronics nut, and I like handling every piece and figuring out what to buy for the best performance and price, for my needs.
Millions of people that don't want to deal with the hassle of this, that get covertly taken advantage of, sounds a bit like poetic justice. I try to tell everyone I know bits of common sense about consumer electronics, but very few people listen. (not that I'm a peach, but I'm not blinded by marketing either)
I knew a guy my age (20-ish) at a cabinet shop I worked at a few years ago, that was all enthused about buying an iPod. He asked me about what storage capacity he should buy (it was 1GB or 2GB back then, I think). I told him he could buy an SD/MMC mp3 player for under a hundred bucks, which does the same thing, and had the same capacity. But, he didn't want an mp3 player, he wanted to join the trend and be a proud owner of an iPod, and he was.
I had a boss that leased decade old computers for $100 a month, and thought it was a bargain. Not owning your own computers is a recipe for problems without real solutions. I offered to build better computers, for less than he pays per year and explained hardware reusability. He said maybe, someday in the future he might let me do that (when they turn back into dust). It didn't happen, because it was just the tip of the iceberg there. I wasn't around long after that, so from his perspective being slow to change saved him the trouble of dealing with it when I was gone.
Ignorance must be bliss.
Here's a prime example of how people get f---ed at the stores.
http://f---you.com/2008/12/55-for-one-f-in-usb-cable.html
I had a friend who worked in one of those mall kiosks selling cell phones and service plans. Often he'd get people complaining that all they needed was a phone to replace the one they had just broke and couldn't afford the price of a new phone that wasn't subsidized by the contract. He caught on to this and began buying cheap phones from eBay, then selling them out of the back of his car, telling the customers to meet him at 5:15 in the parking lot near Sears. Eventually he was selling more from his car than from the kiosk, and always had wads of cash in his wallet. That is, until he got busted by the company. Not too long ago I had a similar experience at a Verizon store, where the associate proposed that I come back "after five" with $50 cash after he couldn't fix a faulty battery connection in the phone.
Reveal usernames for positive or negative posts, or keep them secret for both. No reason to discriminate here. I don't disagree with hiding or showing, just do it for both.
I usually only mod down.
Bob Barr, is that you?
Anyway, I've been modded down for posting things supportive of libertarianism. The only really "safe" political opinion on Slashdot is the intersection of libertarianism and modern liberalism, and even there I bet there's a few reactionary nutcases ready with the old -1, Wrong mod.
Bong!
Sweet, he has the same root password as me. Time to mess up hi %$^%%$&&#%#$ -- NO CARRIER
Help find a cure for cancer!
see this reference
Ask Me About... The 80's!
I currently work at Office Depot, and I'll admit to being tempted to saying we had none in stock, though never have. Perhaps once I did, but the customer was not being very cooperative to begin with.
In terms of Photoshopping the price tags, that's perfectly legitimate. I've done it before, where I add up the price of all the addons and make a large total number in bold. Though I always include a list of what I put on the price as well as take 10% off of the attachments.
My mistake: I've been around for a while, and had an email conversation with CmdrTaco about this hole in M2 back when Over/Underrated was immune from M2.
I am officially gone from
Pinging 127.0.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time1ms TTL=128
OMG HE'S IN MY HOUSE
Remember how if you didn't walk a lap around the cruiser before getting in, it'd blow up and kill you because there was a planted bomb that you neglected to check for?
[ Yeah, I do a safety walkaround. ;) ]
I think it would be fun if mods could comment on WHY they chose a certain rating. Too often, the blatant trolls just don't seem to get it. And I'll often mod someone insightful for a single part of his post while the rest of the post might be moronic, leaving him feeling insightful when he should really feel only partially insightful (and otherwise moronic).
How about "off topic", which this entire thread (and the original submission) definitely is.
Most of us don't come here to read whines about the moderation system...
The trolls get it. You don't.
Ummm...I know what a troll is. wtf are you talking about?
You see, there we go again / aliquis :D
Haggling pisses me off. It forces vendors to build haggling into their price to maintain their margins, so haggling becomes the only way to get the price they actually wanted to get.
I'm in a town where haggling is rampant, and everything costs hundreds of dollars more than anywhere else, because it's expected you'll walk in saying "Hey, be a buddy, give me a deal".
It's been a long time.
Time is money. Do something that frees up my time, and it is worth some amount of money. The less I make, the less I am willing to pay others to do something I can do. If an oil change costs $12 for oil and parts, or $30 to have someone do it at a while-U-wait shop, or $40 to have someone do it at my office while I'm working, guess which option I choose? It's the $40 option unless I can somehow make productive use of Jiffy Lube time. It's worth it to get home earlier, it's worth it to know it will just be done when I need the car next, and it's worth it for the feeling that I'm somehow multitasking even though someone else is working on my car.
The FixCarNow van comes around our complex every Thursday. His prices are about 30% higher than most garages. He still gets plenty of business anyhow, because he is freeing up valuable time. It's not all that bad a deal for him either -- it takes about the same amount of time to change the oil no matter where he is, and he is only driving to one work site a day. Heavier work does take longer, but if it's excessive he'll turn it down or ask to wait until the following week when he can bring the proper tools for the job. Sometimes he might have someone bring him the tools, if the job is worth it. I try to give him advance notice and have parts in advance (I have a semi-exotic car, parts aren't expensive but they usually aren't in stock either), and if he doesn't want to take a job at all, no problem. I wasn't expecting him to do it that day anyhow, so I can still make other accommodations. If I did want something done this Thursday, I have his business card and would just call him.
Now if I weren't working, I would choose to save $28 and do it myself. Put enough people like me out of work, and FixCarNow goes under too, no matter how good their service is. People just can't afford them.
People who drive 90 minutes to save $10 put little value on their time, unless they are incorporating it into a trip they needed to make anyhow. These big box stores position themselves so people don't have to drive 90 minutes, or at least so they can do it on the way home from work or on the way to the movies or while the car is getting a tune-up. Then they go and squander this time-value added by hard-selling the extras -- at some point we realize the balance has tipped and it is once again worth it to go elsewhere. Problem is, "elsewhere" may have gone under by then.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
I was going to buy a laptop at Futureshop a few years ago. After asking about a laptop the sales person said if I wanted I could get the floor model for a significant discount. I inspected the floor model and it looked great. I then said I was going to buy it. He then went on to explain one of them warranty programs they have. I said no thanks. He then preceded to say that he was going to give me the discount based on the thought that I would also get the warranty for the laptop and that I could not get the discount without the warranty. I told him it was dishonest to tell me that he was going to give me a discount and THEN when I agree to it tell me I can only get it if I also get the warranty.
David
The trolls are trying to be stupid/obnoxious/off-topic. What do you think they "don't get"?
"The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil."
Keep in mind that mom and pop want to open up at 10am, close at 5pm, and not work weekends. When you close the door when shoppers can come, it is no small wonder you can't compete against Walmart that is open from 7am-11pm. Oh yea, and always has it in stock instead of saying (we can get that in for you in x days).
It's not all about price, but availability. Note Home Depot is doing just fine competing against the local lumber yards with crappier product (lumber) priced 1.5-2x as much, but by remaining open when the general public can actually get to the store.
Whenever I have mod points, I take an objective lurking standpoint - I read every post objectively (because I have no real stake either way in most conversations to begin with), and moderate objectively (to the best of my ability, anyway). Of course, not everyone can be 100% objective, 100% of the time, but I do my best, because I has integrity.
When I was 17 I worked in a supermarket that made a big deal about the quality of its beef. One day, a pissed-off butcher for whatever reason accidentally-on-purpose left a mamagement memo on the sweet tray at the checkout. The memo advised butchers on how best to remove aluminium streaks caused by the shipping containers from the meat and how to disguise 'greeness' (from mould) with gravy.
When I was 21 I worked in an American owned animation studio that enforced a quota system which rewarded quota achievers with extra money and people who worked for quality, with the sack. One day someone (accidentally-on-purpose?) left a memo from company HQ in a photocopier tipping management off to a plan to tell staff they would have their jobs for at least a year more, while actually our budget was being diverted to Los Angeles.
That was 1991.