That's some mighty sound logic, there. That average salaries for some segments of the economy have gone up at varying rates based on type of work has little to do with how big a raise you have managed over the years.
Consider any one part of your career. How much have starting salaries at your current job changed in 20 years? Is your salary now 2000% higher than the salary of a person in the same position 20 years ago?
Funny you should ask....
on
TMBG on DRM
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· Score: 5, Funny
Why do Slashdotters like TMBG so much?
For the same reason they keep coming here, despite the overwhelming flood of crap posts like this one. In other words, there's no accounting for taste. People like what they like.
The MAME and Retrocade (and any other project) reverse engineers and developers have my undying gratitude and unending awe. *Especially* for oddball hardware like "I, Robot."
I think there's some words missing from your sentence, or possibly a typo. Either way, I can't tell what you're saying.
If you mean "you're putting your DivX on Bittorrent," no. I'm too lazy for that. And if I wasn't, I'd use xvid.
If you mean "You're paying for your own DivX Bittorret," it's sorta like that, except I get non-recompressed DVD quality, minus all the illegalness.
If you mean something even more bizarre, like "I'm paying for bittorrent with DivX" or "You're playing your DivX on Bittorrent," then I'm not even sure how to answer.
Please check to make sure all the important words are present in your sentences when you post. Otherwise, it is difficult for the rest of us to convert the little symbols back into coherent ideas.
I started watching the old episodes in order via Netflix after I gave in to the repeated recommendations my friends gave it.
I must say that I MUCH prefer this method of watching/paying for TV. Screw commercials and schedules-- I want everything on my own terms, in high quality, from now on. Now if only they'd start doing releases on the same day as the show first runs or the movie opens, I'd be very happy.
But I digress. Netflix, for $20/month, will get you through the first six seasons (they don't have the seventh yet, but i assume they will) pretty quick.
It's got to do with our perception of artistic representation of faces. The phenomenon is known as the "Uncanny Valley." We cut things a lot of slack when they don't look realistic at all (mario, for example) but when they get really, really close to real-- the tiny bit of difference sticks out like a sore thumb. There's this nasty place just before 100% realistic where even the tiniest imperfection makes things look awful. And they generally end up looking like dead people.
Consider the faces in games containing models of real people-- The Matrix, or Alias. They look like walking mannequins, and can be kinda unnerving.
It's a licensing/software limitation. I suspect you could get around this with VideoLAN for free-- my workaround is a MyHD MDP-100 (for hardware 1080i conversion) and Slysoft AnyDVD (for removing that pesky "protection"). Probably any rip/remove protection/playback as raw MPEG solution would get you there, too.
I don't know if the adapter works under linux. I've gotten old and lazy, and use windows for my HTPC.
All too often, they don't exist. The good ones are rare, and I have *truly* appreciated their help on projects. Sadly, I don't run into a lot of good ones.
Yeah, it sucks that there isn't much of a "cheap road bike" market anymore. The casual riders all buy mountain bikes, so that's where all the $300 bikes are. Road bikes start at like $700, and it's hard to find one that's low-end.
Front suspension is not *nearly* as awful on a road-ridden mountain bike as full suspension. And knowing how to ride it will prevent you from bouncing in the first place, which it sounds like you know how to do.
I didn't mean to tear into anybody who buys a mountain bike for mixed-use riding like you, but rather VERY inexperienced folks who drop $1000 or more on a bike designed for downhill riding in rocky terrain and use it to pogo-stick around their neighborhood.
That said, you might look around-- I know my local bike shop still has bikes from 2002 and 2003 in stock without suspension in the $300 ballpark. Personally, I'd keep the fork. I have a low-end suspension fork on my cheapo mountain bike, which I use when I bike-commute. I spend a lot of time on really ragged and potholed roads, along with the occasional "hop into the ditch" to avoid unaware drivers. I love my road bike, but I won't subject it to my daily commute.
Nothing funnier than an inexperienced rider on a full-suspension bike standing up to stomp on the pedals.
All that effort, and they just bounce around.
Hell, just getting a pair of cheap rims with slicks would give those guys better street performance. But for some people, it's not about *actual* performance, it's about flash. Like those kids in civics with tri-level spoilers and coffee-can exhaust pipes. I suppose I shouldn't complain-- those folks are the ones who keep a steady supply of cheap, used high-end gear flowing into the hands of wiser shoppers.
Don't take this the wrong way-- I'm a practical bang-for-your-buck sort of guy. But don't confuse tube amps used for audio replication (like in your home stereo) with those used for performance (like in a guitar amp). In the latter case, the tubes and the amp are themselves part of the instrument, and part of making that sound what it is-- feedback, distortion and all.
That said, after that lovely guitar/tube amp sound is recorded somewhere, I'll be playing it back on a nice transistor rig at my house. Because at THAT point, all I want is accuracy. Affordable accuracy, as I use it to cleanly reproduce distortion somebody else made.
Two separate things: amplifier as instrument, and amplifier as sound playback device.
Amen. That's why my linux box sits idle and gets used mainly for the occasional SSH session back to my house, while I run my home theater, work, communicate, and play video games on windows.
I like Linux. I really do. I probably would like it more if I was back in college or high school, with more free time than money. But these days, I'm busy and want things to work quickly.
That said, I accept that linux is hard to use primarily because it's FREE. Having any expectations of it at all is a little unfair.
People who say things like that baffle me. It's like the people who won't carry a cell phone because they don't want to be bothered-- while simultaneously failing to realize that you aren't compelled to answer it, or even to have it turned on.
WiFi everywhere is handy. But just because I can get signal everywhere doesn't mean I'm somehow compelled to work. Hell, you don't even have to be working when you USE the WiFi. I prefer to waste a bunch of time on slashdot.
Fair enough. That means the writeup comes down on the sexist side, to be sure. Please don't take my post as trying to justify sexism, or even the mere "rudeness" that is typical on slashdot. I meant it more as a "god, look how ruthless a horde of geeks is if you fail to do something they've done."
It's no wonder converting people to linux is hard-- the people singing its praises will tear you to shreds if you have to ask for help.
Some of the crap being posted is definitely sexist, but the majority of it is not. Had a guy written the same article, slashdot would be full-force mocking his inability to get a videogame installed as well. Especially if he claimed that the process "ended in tears." Plain and simple, if you admit you've failed to do something that they've done, they'll tear you up. Equal-opportunity newbie-bashing, as it were. Rude, yes. Sexist, no.
Just to illustrate the point, here's a couple of posts from *this very article* where guys are ripping apart other guys for similar professions of technical ineptitude:
It's an honor to be trolled, sir, and I'm bored enough to answer.
That's an odd definition of "stealing," but just to give everyone else involved an idea on how disorganized they are, I *DID* call to tell them they over-refunded me, and the guy who answered said that that was impossible, because Dell doesn't issue credits for past sales at all. I laughed, assured him they'd given me money, and tried again-- but he told me I must be mistaken.
At some point, you just walk away. Did you miss the part where I placed three separate orders that they lost? It took SEVEN WEEKS to get a single order through their system.
To use your rather bent girlfriend analogy, that's a little more like your wife teasing you nonstop for six weeks while witholding sex, and then finally consenting to it, but only if you get a second full-time job. At which point, you are forced to spend a week and a half in and out of a divorce court that continually loses the evidence of mistreatment you bring them, and can't even find its copy of the law books regarding marriage. At some point, a randomly assigned court clerk mistakes you for a bum and drops $170 and a gift certificate for a free mail-order bride into your coffee cup, which you try to return, but he refuses, claiming that he never gives money (or free brides) to anyone, and that's impossible. He then forgets he's ever seen you, assigns you to a different amnesiac court clerk, who refuses to believe you were ever married in the first place and tells you there's nothing he can do. At which point, you take your dirty, tired, self home and enjoy the $170-- because it's as close to fair and equitable as anyone's ever going to get.
But seriously, the extra $80 I made was nice-- I won't complain about that. But the fact that I spent at least eight hours on the phone over the course of a week and a half to correct an order they had managed to lose three consecutive times, and during which they were unable to consult neither records of my previous order attempts nor current item prices.
It's only illegal descrimination when you're manipulating prices or offers based on the so called "protected classes" mentioned in the laws. "One who frequently breaks stuff" is not such a class...
This is a good point. This was a question on the company harrassment test we had a few months ago-- it involved a company run by dog owners letting a hard-working guy go because he didn't like dogs. I automatically assumed that was discriminatory-- but it's not! Since "People Who Don't Like Dogs" are not a protected class of people under US anti-discrimination laws, you can discriminate against them as much as you'd like.
This is just them trying to avoid paying the rebate. I get something like 1 in 3 back with a note saying something was missing, when I know it wasn't. Fortunately, I keep copies. Rebates are like a sale companies don't have to honor. Here's a rough rebate-screwing howto:
1. Offer big rebate, so customer thinks item is cheap. 2. Majority of customers fail to even mail in rebate. 3. Of those you receive, wait the maximum stated amount of time (10-12 weeks) while earning interest on the money, and then send "missing items" letters to as many as you can. Majority of these will not have or not re-send the needed info. 4. Repeat step three as many times as necessary. 5. When finally forced to send checks, immediately cut the check with a 30-day expiration date, and then wait 10-12 weeks AGAIN before sending the check.
I really, really, fucking hate it when I get a rebate check with an expiration date that ended BEFORE I got the damn check in the mail. Screw Homeland Security-- we need a Department of Customer Satisfaction with access to the same spies and military weapons to enforce customer-service justice for the little guy.
A-freaking-men. I did that to them a couple of years back in a weak moment. (I try to never go back there, after a much larger screwing involving an expensive monitor they wouldn't replace)
Trying to buy an XBox on sale for my stepdad, and they had a good game bundle. They tried the same "if it breaks you can't bring it back" line with me, and when that failed, they actually SAID something like
"Well, we've been having a lot of trouble with the drives breaking in these pretty quickly, and without the extended warranty, you'd be out of luck."
"You're kidding, right? You're actually TELLING me this thing is going to break soon?"
"Well, er... not exactly."
"Then I *don't* need the warranty, after all."
"No! We've had a lot of trouble with these!!"
"Then clearly, I don't want it. Thanks for the warning! I had no idea these were so unreliable!"
After which I moved on to buy one someplace else. Every time I get lazy, forget how bad they screwed me the first time, and wander into the store, they do a nice job of reminding me why I shouldn't shop there.
Good point. Amex has screwed up on me before, but they do somewhat better than other companies fixing things. Just two weeks ago they raised my card rate for nonpayment of a bill. That they sent to the wrong address. After I called and told them my new one. (And yes, the address was changed well before this bill was mailed. They tried to pull that on me, too.)
I called as soon as I got the (much delayed) forwarded bill from the old address, and they did at least straighten things out quickly. Mistakes will happen, I guess. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
A few more gems:
My girlfriend has been paying the gas bill through automatic debit-- when we moved, and transferred the account, the automatic debit stopped and they charged us late fees, even though she had *specifically asked* if the automatic debit would continue with the new address.
We bought a bunch of furniture at Ikea-- we got a bookshelf with the back panel missing, a light with two wires cut, another light with a dead bulb, and a table with a scratched top. They replaced it all, but MAN. Can we get some quality control?
Dell is the worst of all-- but in some ways they can be fun. I had three consecutive orders for a CF card just "disappear" without a trace. The sale I'd been trying to get was over, and they wouldn't give me the sale price. But if you play around with Dell long enough, you can use their horrible disorganization to your advantage. They had to *ask me* what the current price was on the website, because they couldn't look it up. They had no record of previous sale prices. The confused rep ended up crediting me the price difference, and telling me to go buy it on the web after I hung up. Only it turns out he credit me the current price, not the difference, and by the time I ordered it was on sale again. $170 credit - $90 sale price = $80 profit + free CF card. Not enough to make up for the hours I spent on the phone trying to figure out how they could completely lose all trace of three separate online orders, but still fun to be able to say I made a profit from somebody's customer service dept.
"Get real," yourself. A refund hardly seems out of their reach, or asking too much. The monitor was still being manufactured, Best Buy had just stopped carrying it. And if they couldn't provide a replacement that did what the original did-- a plain old refund seems like the best option. Store credit is no help if the store no longer stocks what you're after. I ended up with a crappy monitor and $200 left over to spend at Best Buy, when what I wanted was a good monitor.
If I had been older, richer, and had the time, I would have sued them. The terms of their warranty were clear-- they agreed to uphold the terms of the manufacturer's warranty. THAT warranty was quite clear that replacement, if the original model was unavailable, would be with an equal or better product. As it was, I was a poor recent college grad, and didn't realize I had such a high chance of winning. Lesson learned, though-- the next time it happens, we're going straight on to small claims court. Nothing else will work when a company refuses to do the right thing.
And while we're at it, why does *everything* suck so much? My recent experiences include the previously-mentioned fiasco with HHGregg ("it will be done in a week" when the part wasn't even ordered for another three weeks, despite knowing what was wrong) as well as:
1. Moved, set up new phone line. Three days later, SBC cancels both new AND old phone lines, removes DSL orders. 7 hours of phone calls later, I had my line and a $150 credit. But it shouldn't have happened, and it shouldn't have been that hard to fix.
2. Had Brighthouse cable at old house. Picture was snowy (not just "i'm a picky video nut" snowy, but roughly 50% noise) but technician claimed that quality was acceptable. When asked, technician was unable to read text on CNN on a 43" screen.
3. T-Mobile sidekick. So poorly built that I needed four replacement units in six months. Service was terrible-- calls never ring, etc...
4. DirecTV installer missed two appointments, failed to install grounding block (while lying to say that he had, and I just couldn't see it from the ground...) Installer at new house was better, but was still three hours late for his four-hour appointment window.
5. HHGregg delivered TV to wrong address.
6. Hotel on vacation last month tried to double(!!) my booked rate on checkout. I was lucky to have a printed receipt with me-- they claimed they had never offered the lower rate.
Does ANYBODY have good customer service anymore? Or is screwing us just "good business" now? I spend an awful lot of time fighting just to get the things I paid for. Which makes me laugh about this article-- the article makes it sound like Best Buy *just recently* decided that it wanted to treat customers like crap. It's been standard operating procedure there for years.
At least you won. I purchased an open-box Viewsonic monitor years ago, with the promise (printed on the box in huge letters) that Best Buy would honor the manufacturer's warranty. Six months later, the monitor went Kaput. Best Buy no longer carried it, or ANY monitor that met the specs it had-- and refused to replace it. I was offered store credit only. Nothing they had would match the refresh rate and resolution of the broken monitor. I went around and around with them for months, finally receiving an email from customer service that "this was the last email I would receive on the subject."
While I'll admit to having bought a DVD or two there in the intervening four years, they haven't seen a dime for hardware or software. Which, as in your case, has been a significant amount.
The problem, though, is that there is no real alternative. When BB screwed me, I tried other stores-- but when my HDTV failed it took HHGregg (local electronics chain) 4 house calls followed by SIX WEEKS in the shop to diagnose and repair it, despite promising 1-week turnaround. They missed four promised delivery dates to return the set after that.
Circuit City hasn't done it yet, but I can't imagine they're any more honorable than the rest.
What do you do when ALL your choices are like that? Stop buying, I guess.
Slashdot Mirror
That's some mighty sound logic, there. That average salaries for some segments of the economy have gone up at varying rates based on type of work has little to do with how big a raise you have managed over the years.
Consider any one part of your career. How much have starting salaries at your current job changed in 20 years? Is your salary now 2000% higher than the salary of a person in the same position 20 years ago?
Why do Slashdotters like TMBG so much?
For the same reason they keep coming here, despite the overwhelming flood of crap posts like this one. In other words, there's no accounting for taste. People like what they like.
The MAME and Retrocade (and any other project) reverse engineers and developers have my undying gratitude and unending awe. *Especially* for oddball hardware like "I, Robot."
Oct. 19th, according to Amazon, but maybe NetFlix will get it quicker. We'll see.
I think there's some words missing from your sentence, or possibly a typo. Either way, I can't tell what you're saying.
If you mean "you're putting your DivX on Bittorrent," no. I'm too lazy for that. And if I wasn't, I'd use xvid.
If you mean "You're paying for your own DivX Bittorret," it's sorta like that, except I get non-recompressed DVD quality, minus all the illegalness.
If you mean something even more bizarre, like "I'm paying for bittorrent with DivX" or "You're playing your DivX on Bittorrent," then I'm not even sure how to answer.
Please check to make sure all the important words are present in your sentences when you post. Otherwise, it is difficult for the rest of us to convert the little symbols back into coherent ideas.
I started watching the old episodes in order via Netflix after I gave in to the repeated recommendations my friends gave it.
I must say that I MUCH prefer this method of watching/paying for TV. Screw commercials and schedules-- I want everything on my own terms, in high quality, from now on. Now if only they'd start doing releases on the same day as the show first runs or the movie opens, I'd be very happy.
But I digress. Netflix, for $20/month, will get you through the first six seasons (they don't have the seventh yet, but i assume they will) pretty quick.
They look like dead people, because they're about the right shape and color, but lack all of that "whatever" that makes a person alive.
Hence, funereal, or having to do with a funeral.
It's got to do with our perception of artistic representation of faces. The phenomenon is known as the "Uncanny Valley." We cut things a lot of slack when they don't look realistic at all (mario, for example) but when they get really, really close to real-- the tiny bit of difference sticks out like a sore thumb. There's this nasty place just before 100% realistic where even the tiniest imperfection makes things look awful. And they generally end up looking like dead people.
Consider the faces in games containing models of real people-- The Matrix, or Alias. They look like walking mannequins, and can be kinda unnerving.
It's a licensing/software limitation. I suspect you could get around this with VideoLAN for free-- my workaround is a MyHD MDP-100 (for hardware 1080i conversion) and Slysoft AnyDVD (for removing that pesky "protection"). Probably any rip/remove protection/playback as raw MPEG solution would get you there, too.
I don't know if the adapter works under linux. I've gotten old and lazy, and use windows for my HTPC.
No, that just means you left local echo enabled.
All too often, they don't exist. The good ones are rare, and I have *truly* appreciated their help on projects. Sadly, I don't run into a lot of good ones.
Yeah, it sucks that there isn't much of a "cheap road bike" market anymore. The casual riders all buy mountain bikes, so that's where all the $300 bikes are. Road bikes start at like $700, and it's hard to find one that's low-end.
Front suspension is not *nearly* as awful on a road-ridden mountain bike as full suspension. And knowing how to ride it will prevent you from bouncing in the first place, which it sounds like you know how to do.
I didn't mean to tear into anybody who buys a mountain bike for mixed-use riding like you, but rather VERY inexperienced folks who drop $1000 or more on a bike designed for downhill riding in rocky terrain and use it to pogo-stick around their neighborhood.
That said, you might look around-- I know my local bike shop still has bikes from 2002 and 2003 in stock without suspension in the $300 ballpark. Personally, I'd keep the fork. I have a low-end suspension fork on my cheapo mountain bike, which I use when I bike-commute. I spend a lot of time on really ragged and potholed roads, along with the occasional "hop into the ditch" to avoid unaware drivers. I love my road bike, but I won't subject it to my daily commute.
Nothing funnier than an inexperienced rider on a full-suspension bike standing up to stomp on the pedals.
All that effort, and they just bounce around.
Hell, just getting a pair of cheap rims with slicks would give those guys better street performance. But for some people, it's not about *actual* performance, it's about flash. Like those kids in civics with tri-level spoilers and coffee-can exhaust pipes. I suppose I shouldn't complain-- those folks are the ones who keep a steady supply of cheap, used high-end gear flowing into the hands of wiser shoppers.
Q: What's the cheapest way to shave 500g off your bike weight?
A: Lose 500g.
Don't take this the wrong way-- I'm a practical bang-for-your-buck sort of guy. But don't confuse tube amps used for audio replication (like in your home stereo) with those used for performance (like in a guitar amp). In the latter case, the tubes and the amp are themselves part of the instrument, and part of making that sound what it is-- feedback, distortion and all.
That said, after that lovely guitar/tube amp sound is recorded somewhere, I'll be playing it back on a nice transistor rig at my house. Because at THAT point, all I want is accuracy. Affordable accuracy, as I use it to cleanly reproduce distortion somebody else made.
Two separate things: amplifier as instrument, and amplifier as sound playback device.
Amen. That's why my linux box sits idle and gets used mainly for the occasional SSH session back to my house, while I run my home theater, work, communicate, and play video games on windows.
I like Linux. I really do. I probably would like it more if I was back in college or high school, with more free time than money. But these days, I'm busy and want things to work quickly.
That said, I accept that linux is hard to use primarily because it's FREE. Having any expectations of it at all is a little unfair.
People who say things like that baffle me. It's like the people who won't carry a cell phone because they don't want to be bothered-- while simultaneously failing to realize that you aren't compelled to answer it, or even to have it turned on.
WiFi everywhere is handy. But just because I can get signal everywhere doesn't mean I'm somehow compelled to work. Hell, you don't even have to be working when you USE the WiFi. I prefer to waste a bunch of time on slashdot.
Fair enough. That means the writeup comes down on the sexist side, to be sure. Please don't take my post as trying to justify sexism, or even the mere "rudeness" that is typical on slashdot. I meant it more as a "god, look how ruthless a horde of geeks is if you fail to do something they've done."
It's no wonder converting people to linux is hard-- the people singing its praises will tear you to shreds if you have to ask for help.
Some of the crap being posted is definitely sexist, but the majority of it is not. Had a guy written the same article, slashdot would be full-force mocking his inability to get a videogame installed as well. Especially if he claimed that the process "ended in tears." Plain and simple, if you admit you've failed to do something that they've done, they'll tear you up. Equal-opportunity newbie-bashing, as it were. Rude, yes. Sexist, no.
Just to illustrate the point, here's a couple of posts from *this very article* where guys are ripping apart other guys for similar professions of technical ineptitude:
"I've been fighting with the Conexant modem driver for -- it has to be getting close to three years!" reply: "took me less than a day to get my conexant hcfmodem working, have you tried google?"
All that said, there are still a number of bizarrely sexist posts in here.
It's an honor to be trolled, sir, and I'm bored enough to answer.
That's an odd definition of "stealing," but just to give everyone else involved an idea on how disorganized they are, I *DID* call to tell them they over-refunded me, and the guy who answered said that that was impossible, because Dell doesn't issue credits for past sales at all. I laughed, assured him they'd given me money, and tried again-- but he told me I must be mistaken.
At some point, you just walk away. Did you miss the part where I placed three separate orders that they lost? It took SEVEN WEEKS to get a single order through their system.
To use your rather bent girlfriend analogy, that's a little more like your wife teasing you nonstop for six weeks while witholding sex, and then finally consenting to it, but only if you get a second full-time job. At which point, you are forced to spend a week and a half in and out of a divorce court that continually loses the evidence of mistreatment you bring them, and can't even find its copy of the law books regarding marriage. At some point, a randomly assigned court clerk mistakes you for a bum and drops $170 and a gift certificate for a free mail-order bride into your coffee cup, which you try to return, but he refuses, claiming that he never gives money (or free brides) to anyone, and that's impossible. He then forgets he's ever seen you, assigns you to a different amnesiac court clerk, who refuses to believe you were ever married in the first place and tells you there's nothing he can do. At which point, you take your dirty, tired, self home and enjoy the $170-- because it's as close to fair and equitable as anyone's ever going to get.
But seriously, the extra $80 I made was nice-- I won't complain about that. But the fact that I spent at least eight hours on the phone over the course of a week and a half to correct an order they had managed to lose three consecutive times, and during which they were unable to consult neither records of my previous order attempts nor current item prices.
It's only illegal descrimination when you're manipulating prices or offers based on the so called "protected classes" mentioned in the laws. "One who frequently breaks stuff" is not such a class...
This is a good point. This was a question on the company harrassment test we had a few months ago-- it involved a company run by dog owners letting a hard-working guy go because he didn't like dogs. I automatically assumed that was discriminatory-- but it's not! Since "People Who Don't Like Dogs" are not a protected class of people under US anti-discrimination laws, you can discriminate against them as much as you'd like.
This is just them trying to avoid paying the rebate. I get something like 1 in 3 back with a note saying something was missing, when I know it wasn't. Fortunately, I keep copies. Rebates are like a sale companies don't have to honor. Here's a rough rebate-screwing howto:
1. Offer big rebate, so customer thinks item is cheap.
2. Majority of customers fail to even mail in rebate.
3. Of those you receive, wait the maximum stated amount of time (10-12 weeks) while earning interest on the money, and then send "missing items" letters to as many as you can. Majority of these will not have or not re-send the needed info.
4. Repeat step three as many times as necessary.
5. When finally forced to send checks, immediately cut the check with a 30-day expiration date, and then wait 10-12 weeks AGAIN before sending the check.
I really, really, fucking hate it when I get a rebate check with an expiration date that ended BEFORE I got the damn check in the mail. Screw Homeland Security-- we need a Department of Customer Satisfaction with access to the same spies and military weapons to enforce customer-service justice for the little guy.
A-freaking-men. I did that to them a couple of years back in a weak moment. (I try to never go back there, after a much larger screwing involving an expensive monitor they wouldn't replace)
Trying to buy an XBox on sale for my stepdad, and they had a good game bundle. They tried the same "if it breaks you can't bring it back" line with me, and when that failed, they actually SAID something like
"Well, we've been having a lot of trouble with the drives breaking in these pretty quickly, and without the extended warranty, you'd be out of luck."
"You're kidding, right? You're actually TELLING me this thing is going to break soon?"
"Well, er... not exactly."
"Then I *don't* need the warranty, after all."
"No! We've had a lot of trouble with these!!"
"Then clearly, I don't want it. Thanks for the warning! I had no idea these were so unreliable!"
After which I moved on to buy one someplace else. Every time I get lazy, forget how bad they screwed me the first time, and wander into the store, they do a nice job of reminding me why I shouldn't shop there.
Good point. Amex has screwed up on me before, but they do somewhat better than other companies fixing things. Just two weeks ago they raised my card rate for nonpayment of a bill. That they sent to the wrong address. After I called and told them my new one. (And yes, the address was changed well before this bill was mailed. They tried to pull that on me, too.)
I called as soon as I got the (much delayed) forwarded bill from the old address, and they did at least straighten things out quickly. Mistakes will happen, I guess. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
A few more gems:
My girlfriend has been paying the gas bill through automatic debit-- when we moved, and transferred the account, the automatic debit stopped and they charged us late fees, even though she had *specifically asked* if the automatic debit would continue with the new address.
We bought a bunch of furniture at Ikea-- we got a bookshelf with the back panel missing, a light with two wires cut, another light with a dead bulb, and a table with a scratched top. They replaced it all, but MAN. Can we get some quality control?
Dell is the worst of all-- but in some ways they can be fun. I had three consecutive orders for a CF card just "disappear" without a trace. The sale I'd been trying to get was over, and they wouldn't give me the sale price. But if you play around with Dell long enough, you can use their horrible disorganization to your advantage. They had to *ask me* what the current price was on the website, because they couldn't look it up. They had no record of previous sale prices. The confused rep ended up crediting me the price difference, and telling me to go buy it on the web after I hung up. Only it turns out he credit me the current price, not the difference, and by the time I ordered it was on sale again. $170 credit - $90 sale price = $80 profit + free CF card. Not enough to make up for the hours I spent on the phone trying to figure out how they could completely lose all trace of three separate online orders, but still fun to be able to say I made a profit from somebody's customer service dept.
Thanks, Dell, you lousy fuckers!
"Get real," yourself. A refund hardly seems out of their reach, or asking too much. The monitor was still being manufactured, Best Buy had just stopped carrying it. And if they couldn't provide a replacement that did what the original did-- a plain old refund seems like the best option. Store credit is no help if the store no longer stocks what you're after. I ended up with a crappy monitor and $200 left over to spend at Best Buy, when what I wanted was a good monitor.
If I had been older, richer, and had the time, I would have sued them. The terms of their warranty were clear-- they agreed to uphold the terms of the manufacturer's warranty. THAT warranty was quite clear that replacement, if the original model was unavailable, would be with an equal or better product. As it was, I was a poor recent college grad, and didn't realize I had such a high chance of winning. Lesson learned, though-- the next time it happens, we're going straight on to small claims court. Nothing else will work when a company refuses to do the right thing.
And while we're at it, why does *everything* suck so much? My recent experiences include the previously-mentioned fiasco with HHGregg ("it will be done in a week" when the part wasn't even ordered for another three weeks, despite knowing what was wrong) as well as:
1. Moved, set up new phone line. Three days later, SBC cancels both new AND old phone lines, removes DSL orders. 7 hours of phone calls later, I had my line and a $150 credit. But it shouldn't have happened, and it shouldn't have been that hard to fix.
2. Had Brighthouse cable at old house. Picture was snowy (not just "i'm a picky video nut" snowy, but roughly 50% noise) but technician claimed that quality was acceptable. When asked, technician was unable to read text on CNN on a 43" screen.
3. T-Mobile sidekick. So poorly built that I needed four replacement units in six months. Service was terrible-- calls never ring, etc...
4. DirecTV installer missed two appointments, failed to install grounding block (while lying to say that he had, and I just couldn't see it from the ground...) Installer at new house was better, but was still three hours late for his four-hour appointment window.
5. HHGregg delivered TV to wrong address.
6. Hotel on vacation last month tried to double(!!) my booked rate on checkout. I was lucky to have a printed receipt with me-- they claimed they had never offered the lower rate.
Does ANYBODY have good customer service anymore? Or is screwing us just "good business" now? I spend an awful lot of time fighting just to get the things I paid for. Which makes me laugh about this article-- the article makes it sound like Best Buy *just recently* decided that it wanted to treat customers like crap. It's been standard operating procedure there for years.
At least you won. I purchased an open-box Viewsonic monitor years ago, with the promise (printed on the box in huge letters) that Best Buy would honor the manufacturer's warranty. Six months later, the monitor went Kaput. Best Buy no longer carried it, or ANY monitor that met the specs it had-- and refused to replace it. I was offered store credit only. Nothing they had would match the refresh rate and resolution of the broken monitor. I went around and around with them for months, finally receiving an email from customer service that "this was the last email I would receive on the subject."
While I'll admit to having bought a DVD or two there in the intervening four years, they haven't seen a dime for hardware or software. Which, as in your case, has been a significant amount.
The problem, though, is that there is no real alternative. When BB screwed me, I tried other stores-- but when my HDTV failed it took HHGregg (local electronics chain) 4 house calls followed by SIX WEEKS in the shop to diagnose and repair it, despite promising 1-week turnaround. They missed four promised delivery dates to return the set after that.
Circuit City hasn't done it yet, but I can't imagine they're any more honorable than the rest.
What do you do when ALL your choices are like that? Stop buying, I guess.