Because, the negotiations will go like this, albeit with a lot of bullshit pandering and legalese.
Bayer - "Oh crud, you caught us. Ok, we will pay you one cent for every 20 pills we sell" Smaller company - "Don't be absurd, you make a buck fifty a pill." Bayer - "Ok, fine, we will pay you one cent for every 15 pills we sell" Smaller company - "Haha, but no." Bayer - "Ok, fine. If you want to play like that, we will drag this out in court. We will keep on selling Blaritin and by the time we have this all settled (or adjudicated), you'll end up a couple million in the hole because of the damn lawyer fees (Bayer, of course, has their own patent attorneys on staff). If we realize that we are losing the court case, will run our subsidiary company into bankruptcy (after all, legal fees are expensive, and we think that some of board members needed a couple nice bonuses you understand) and you'll be lucky to see 5 cents on the dollar of what we should of have paid you.
I'm not sure if you know that patent lawyers have their own bar - which does the whole DeBeers supply and demand thing and as a result, are quite a bit more pricey than regular lawyers.
Injunctions are there to protect against abuse like this. I realize that you don't want people to just sit on patents, but this is a very negative thing for small companies. At the same time, if a company isn't actively using the patent, I agree that perhaps the patent should expire a bit faster (or a "licensing provision" perhaps be forced on the smaller company). I think we both agree on that point. Then again, a company will just find a loophole to make sure that they are considered as "actively using" the patent (however that is defined).
I too despise these small companies who just sit on bullshit patents (ones that often should never of have been granted in the first place, but that is another discussion) and then turn around 10 years later and demand 10 years of compensation.
By the way, I don't think the numbers that were given in licensing fees, etc, are unrealistic either.
umm... You might want to take a look at the history of amphetamines and who used them, how, etc... Just because the military uses them doesn't mean that they are the only ones. IIRC, the military already has a "wake up" and "knock out" pill, although being awake doesn't necessarily mean you're functioning at full capacity.
So, let me get this straight. Your company invented Claritin. Bayer (or whoever) decides to start producing the exact same allergy medication using the exact same chemical compund and calls it Blaritin. Trademark, etc aside, you have no recourse. Sure, you'll get some licensing fees after giving a bunch of money to your lawyers, but even then Bayer knows that, in the end, you will have to agree on something, and since they can afford to spend tons of money on lawyers and can drag it out in the courts - and you don't - you will get screwed in the out of court settlement.
I'm sorry, but that sounds fucking mental. Injunctions are there for a reason - and although they are abused, essentially doing away with them is not the solution.
No doubt the final text of the bill will include $4.2 million for hog farmers in southern indiana as well as parts which will screw the little guy.
Think for a second boys and girls, think hard - when was the last time that congress passed something that did not benefit the companies that paid for their election campaigns.
I don't want to sound too negative or bitter, but really, you have to be cynical about this.
Many products, MS Windows Terminal Services among others, do not allow the admin to access the user account without his password. But in TS you can remotely control the user's session remotely - and without any notifcation on the users end if you check a box under the user account, which amounts to pretty much the exact same thing.
I'm pretty sure that it is set up that way in order to ensure accountability. A user can't turn around and say "but I didn't do that, su did." if su never knows their password.
I suppose that is a nice thing, especially if you have (many) other sysadmins in your large organization are morons and you don't want to get blamed for fucking up the exchange server by deleting the mail store (or whatever).
Ditto with the file system - permissions might not be granted to domain admins for some stuff like payroll files. The admin can take ownership and modify the permissions, but again, there is a record (and you'd have to log in as that user to re-set the owenership flag)
Besides, an admin can always reset the password - it takes basically no time at all to do it, but there is a entry made in the log that says who did it and where.
All in all though, it works better in theory than in practice (i.e. you can remotely control a TS session, you can use vnc, a hardware or software key sniffer, etc etc) but hey... It keeps the PHB's happy.
Should Bernie Ebbers and Ken Lay simply get a slap on the wrist, pay a fine, and go on their merry way? I dunno, but something like 45,000 hours of community service shoveling shit at the local police department's mounted unit or cleaning sewers of "obstructions" would be something that most people would be happy with. Of course, if you skip town or whatever, throw them in the clink. Fine? Fuck no, but perhaps jail isn't the best thing for all situations.
I don't think that being a spammer should get you locked up Why not?
I'd rather they be given a nice and juicy sentence doing community service, 10,000 hours or something. I'd prefer that over them going to prison and doing telemarketing or booking airline flights. Give them sharp pointy sticks and send them to pick up garbage or something...
Of course, when the government can just sell public spectrum at a tidy profit for its own needs, what do you expect. It isn't like the goverment makes tons of money on selling spectrum. I suppose it depends on what you define as "tons", but it isn't like the companies that buy it don't make a crapload more off it.
It certainly is convienient that a large portion of the written material is about the bomb. To many Americans, the atomic bombs seem to be isolated events where the Americans targeted civilians. This is clearly not the case, but if you ask some of the less educated people in this country, they know nothing of the firebombings of Tokyo, Dresden, etc or any of the other atrocities committed by the Americans (and the Allies). Of course, nobody really likes to hear about atrocities, which is why we tend to cover them up and of course, the winners get to hold the war crime trials.
Nothing would have happend. 60 miles of WAY over the horizen. There was talk of detonating a bomb over Tokyo Bay as a warning. But you have to remember, these things cost billions of dollars to produce. We... uhhh... also didn't have all that many spare nukes lying around.
It should be remembered that the dropping of the atomic bomb wasn't the first instance of atrocities against civilians. Firebombing and saturation bombing killed far more than the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan.
Don't like a place's actions? Don't buy there. You don't have the right to commit fraud. Agreed. But perhaps companies should realize that if you treat your customers like shit, those customers will be unhappy and more likely to defraud you or "hurt" (as defined by the person) you in some way.
1. No reputable B&M store does this. They do make mistakes. They are legitimate mistakes. I honestly don't think "oh shit, we fucked up the ad" would fly as a defense for a car dealership who puts an ad in the local paper and then tries to sell the FTC inspector the same car for more money. There should be no difference between an ad put in the paper / tv / whatever by used car lot or a major retail outlet. Additionally, sticker price, whether it be on a can, a shelf or a website, SHOULD BE HONORED. This is mandated by some states, but nobody really pays much attention to actual enforcement. And this happens much, much more often than you think, even with reputable BM stores - Officemax recently pissed off hundreds of people by advertising (nationwide in an newspaper insert) a network connected hard drive for $99 or something. Turns out very few stores had them in stock. A stock letter was sent to each person who complained, but no action was taken against the store.
2, 3. Rebates are offered by the manufacturer, not the store. Take it up with them. Not all. Most are manufacturer rebates, but there are "store" rebates as well. Circuit city and Best Buy have quite a few of these (They might technically not be "rebates", as you often are sent a cash card / gift card) In either case, if you advertise a price, that price should be honored. Advertising a rebate is an endorsement of the manufacturer and also the rebate company.
6. Fry's no longer puts returned stuff back on the shelf without labelling it as returned. Not because they are angels, but because they got remaed over it in the courts. Haha, someone should tell the Wilsonville, Oregon store.
They had to get a manager, but did they accuse me of stealing? No. I did get accused of theft, being a fraud, and the manager even threatend to call the police on me. This was one of those "incomplete boxes" with the sticker. Same store btw.
7. That's a gray area, given that you can return anything you buy there, I don't see why this is a huge problem for the customer. And besides, don't buy crap you don't need.
Most frys stores aren't... well... close to where most of their customers are. Pretty simple, you're not going to build a big ass store with a big lot on expensive land, but it also serves as an effective detterent to returning items. Every time I go and fix a "wanna be techie's" computer, I find a bunch of crap that they bought which clearly didn't work with their computer. Good for me, as I get all sorts of stuff like PCI express video cards (when they have AGP slots) cards for damn near free, but still... I'm not saying that the consumer bears no responsibility for what he purchases, but if salespeople knowingly mislead customers and sell them bad products...
So your point is what? Possibly something like "let those without sin cast the first stone"? The "oh, we are so victimized, please mr. reporter, tell our horrible, horrible story" whining is a bit incredible which is my biggest problem.
It is interesting that most stores get away with so much - especially in the bait and switch / price "mistake" area when there is clearly legislation and enforcement in place to prevent such things. Moreover, we know that given sufficient motivation, law enforcement and the courts can eliminate such criminal activity - i.e. bait and switch tactics seen in car dealerships.
I'm not going to say that retail fraud isn't a problem and I'm not condoning ripping stores off but at the same time, I won't shed a tear if someone rips off Best Buy or Frys. If you take advantage of your customers, sooner or later, they will retaliate - which means take advantage of you or stop shopping there.
Worked in retail. In several different places. Staples was among the most memorable - Everyone (especially managers) stole everything that wasn't chained down and someone even stole "the cage" by driving a big truck into the loading zone and dragging it out at about 2pm - nobody cared. To be completely honest, I really didn't have all that many horror stories. I remember one guy threaten to wait for me and a manager in the parking lot, which he did until the police dragged him away, but that is just stupid, not evil.
I suppose it was because the store is basically office supplies with a bit of low end computer stuff thrown in as an afterthought that we didn't get too many fraudsters.
Even better, Staples used to offer a plan (they still do) where you would get the full purchase price - i.e. before coupons, price matches and rebates. I got a HP 215 digital camera (POS battery vampire, but this was years ago) for something like $40 after all rebates and when it went bad, I received $250 in store credit. That kicked ass.
They still offer it (or offered 6 months or so ago), but they push another plan in which they send you an equivalent product instead of the cash card. Still nice, but not as nice. Staples is, imho, the best store from which you can purchase an extended warranty. That said, it is an anomaly. All stores should have extended waranties like them. Staples is one of the most customer friendly stores out there.
Lets not forget that the writers of CWS have placed several pages on the Internet that say that Merijn was the creator in an apparant attempt to flood his inbox with complaints.
CoolWebSearch is among - if not the most - annoying, underhanded, and pain in the ass to remove spyware aps out there. Not only were most people infected via a security exploit in MS Java, they constantly release updates that break or modify spyware removal programs, windows utilities such as MSconfig, regedit as well as blocking the sites on which the removal tools are hosted.
I have no problem with the book being thrown at these punks.
Compared to what some of the poor, victimized by evil customers (thank you best buy) retail stores do, the "rampant rise of fraud" pales.
Let's take a look at what some / virtually all of the stores do.
1. Blatantly and regularly violating in false advertising and bait and switch laws by claiming "oh, it was a price mistake that we don't have to honor that price." Virtually every online store engages in such practices, although B&M stores are doing this more and more as well.
1a. Not applying sale prices at the cashier or overcharging the customer 2. Using rebate houses that don't honor / lose / just flat out destroy rebates. (CompUSA, TigerDirect, and pretty much everyone else)
3. Using rebate houses that don't pay on time. I've filed over $10,000 in rebates and I can count on one hand the number of rebates that came on time. It should not take 8 weeks for someone to cut you a check. Again, everyone who offers rebates engages in such behavior.
4. Selling extended warranties that are for the most part entirely useless. (My friend's laptop sitting on a kitchen counter started melting - proc overheated, motherboard got scorched and even some of the keys, and the chasis melted, Circuit City refused to honor the extended warranty because they claimed it was "Abuse")
4a. Claiming something is a "warranty", when in fact it is not. Read the fine print on some of these "warranties", have a laugh / cry.
4b. Training their salespeople to lie about the benefits of the "warranty". If some AG wants to file a suit, I know that Staples stores have a couple training CD-Roms lying around that clearly contradict the policies in the extended "warranties"
5. Getting around pricematch policies by ordering slightly different (yet identical in all features) models from the manufacturer. i.e. a HP PSC 950 and HP PSC 950xi. Perhaps not illegal, but a shady, shady practice that lets retail stores ignore their price match policies for many items.
6. (This is really devoted to my favorite, favorite store, Fry'ed Electronics). Labelling missing items as "containing all parts", even though many parts are missing. Then accusing the person trying to return a half empty box of theft. Or throwing returns back onto the shelf without any indication that the product was returned or is missing parts. I'm sure this violates a whole bunch of laws, but hey...
7. Frys also gets the award for selling accessories that clearly won't work with the product that the customer has. i.e. the sales associates pushing SATA drives onto people who have only IDE controllers, Pentium processors for AMD motherboards, etc, etc.
Of course, every so often, the poor, helpless retail stores get caught and get - at most, a light slap on the wrist.
If you engage in clearly unethical business practices on all levels - from the very top to your store managers and even in the training materials that you give to your associates, you have as much right to complain as someone who paid a drug dealer with fake money and realized that they were sold orageno.
The fraud perpetrated onto the customer by these retail stores far exceeds any losses. Moreover, shady behaviour is encouraged by management and continues, even in the face of the occasional "Martha Stewart" FTC / BBB / "local / regional government agency that handles this sort of stuff" investigation./I think I hear the theme from "Schindlers List" being played, but it is really, really quiet.
Not only busted, but there was a class action formed and a settlement has been proposed. So.. If you got fucked out of $12 (or whatever a movie ticket is now), the courts have generously decided to award you a whopping $5 (plus an additional $5 per child if uhh... you took children with you)
The following movies are eligible Hollow Man, Vertical Limit, A Knight's Tale, The Animal or The Patriot.
Big fucking deal. I had a server running mail, seti, etc, etc for 765 days before I moved. I tried to keep it alive via a ups, but alas, the small one didn't hold out long enough. Dual proc (blazing pentium pro) hp vectra. 2k, but its not like uptime is really determined by whether you have a shitty os or not (anymore), but 1. Decent power (holy shit the power in the USA is bad, I didn't even live in Cali and the local utility - PGE - couldn't keep the fucking lights on for more than a month or two.) A good UPS / power conditioner helps a lot too. 2. Shitty hardware (i.e. the hp burner I just installed in my main machine, sometimes it just dies and does all sorts of weird shit to stuff running on that box. Go HP "Qaulity"...sigh. 3. (perhaps should be number 1) how often you take the box down to replace hardware. Granted, server vs desktop machine, but still... 4. How often you move it / take it to lans / whatnot, again, you probably dont move servers...
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Because, the negotiations will go like this, albeit with a lot of bullshit pandering and legalese.
Bayer - "Oh crud, you caught us. Ok, we will pay you one cent for every 20 pills we sell"
Smaller company - "Don't be absurd, you make a buck fifty a pill."
Bayer - "Ok, fine, we will pay you one cent for every 15 pills we sell"
Smaller company - "Haha, but no."
Bayer - "Ok, fine. If you want to play like that, we will drag this out in court. We will keep on selling Blaritin and by the time we have this all settled (or adjudicated), you'll end up a couple million in the hole because of the damn lawyer fees (Bayer, of course, has their own patent attorneys on staff). If we realize that we are losing the court case, will run our subsidiary company into bankruptcy (after all, legal fees are expensive, and we think that some of board members needed a couple nice bonuses you understand) and you'll be lucky to see 5 cents on the dollar of what we should of have paid you.
I'm not sure if you know that patent lawyers have their own bar - which does the whole DeBeers supply and demand thing and as a result, are quite a bit more pricey than regular lawyers.
Injunctions are there to protect against abuse like this.
I realize that you don't want people to just sit on patents, but this is a very negative thing for small companies.
At the same time, if a company isn't actively using the patent, I agree that perhaps the patent should expire a bit faster (or a "licensing provision" perhaps be forced on the smaller company). I think we both agree on that point. Then again, a company will just find a loophole to make sure that they are considered as "actively using" the patent (however that is defined).
I too despise these small companies who just sit on bullshit patents (ones that often should never of have been granted in the first place, but that is another discussion) and then turn around 10 years later and demand 10 years of compensation.
By the way, I don't think the numbers that were given in licensing fees, etc, are unrealistic either.
umm... You might want to take a look at the history of amphetamines and who used them, how, etc...
Just because the military uses them doesn't mean that they are the only ones.
IIRC, the military already has a "wake up" and "knock out" pill, although being awake doesn't necessarily mean you're functioning at full capacity.
So, let me get this straight.
Your company invented Claritin. Bayer (or whoever) decides to start producing the exact same allergy medication using the exact same chemical compund and calls it Blaritin.
Trademark, etc aside, you have no recourse. Sure, you'll get some licensing fees after giving a bunch of money to your lawyers, but even then Bayer knows that, in the end, you will have to agree on something, and since they can afford to spend tons of money on lawyers and can drag it out in the courts - and you don't - you will get screwed in the out of court settlement.
I'm sorry, but that sounds fucking mental. Injunctions are there for a reason - and although they are abused, essentially doing away with them is not the solution.
Should be the title...
No doubt the final text of the bill will include $4.2 million for hog farmers in southern indiana as well as parts which will screw the little guy.
Think for a second boys and girls, think hard - when was the last time that congress passed something that did not benefit the companies that paid for their election campaigns.
I don't want to sound too negative or bitter, but really, you have to be cynical about this.
Many products, MS Windows Terminal Services among others, do not allow the admin to access the user account without his password.
But in TS you can remotely control the user's session remotely - and without any notifcation on the users end if you check a box under the user account, which amounts to pretty much the exact same thing.
I'm pretty sure that it is set up that way in order to ensure accountability. A user can't turn around and say "but I didn't do that, su did." if su never knows their password.
I suppose that is a nice thing, especially if you have (many) other sysadmins in your large organization are morons and you don't want to get blamed for fucking up the exchange server by deleting the mail store (or whatever).
Ditto with the file system - permissions might not be granted to domain admins for some stuff like payroll files. The admin can take ownership and modify the permissions, but again, there is a record (and you'd have to log in as that user to re-set the owenership flag)
Besides, an admin can always reset the password - it takes basically no time at all to do it, but there is a entry made in the log that says who did it and where.
All in all though, it works better in theory than in practice (i.e. you can remotely control a TS session, you can use vnc, a hardware or software key sniffer, etc etc) but hey... It keeps the PHB's happy.
Should Bernie Ebbers and Ken Lay simply get a slap on the wrist, pay a fine, and go on their merry way?
I dunno, but something like 45,000 hours of community service shoveling shit at the local police department's mounted unit or cleaning sewers of "obstructions" would be something that most people would be happy with. Of course, if you skip town or whatever, throw them in the clink.
Fine? Fuck no, but perhaps jail isn't the best thing for all situations.
Pageviews are useless if the webserver is burning.
Thanks for the link.
I don't think that being a spammer should get you locked up
Why not?
I'd rather they be given a nice and juicy sentence doing community service, 10,000 hours or something.
I'd prefer that over them going to prison and doing telemarketing or booking airline flights.
Give them sharp pointy sticks and send them to pick up garbage or something...
Hanged, not hung. English is awesome for how it sticks to rules.
Of course, when the government can just sell public spectrum at a tidy profit for its own needs, what do you expect.
It isn't like the goverment makes tons of money on selling spectrum. I suppose it depends on what you define as "tons", but it isn't like the companies that buy it don't make a crapload more off it.
It certainly is convienient that a large portion of the written material is about the bomb. To many Americans, the atomic bombs seem to be isolated events where the Americans targeted civilians.
This is clearly not the case, but if you ask some of the less educated people in this country, they know nothing of the firebombings of Tokyo, Dresden, etc or any of the other atrocities committed by the Americans (and the Allies).
Of course, nobody really likes to hear about atrocities, which is why we tend to cover them up and of course, the winners get to hold the war crime trials.
Nothing would have happend. 60 miles of WAY over the horizen. There was talk of detonating a bomb over Tokyo Bay as a warning. But you have to remember, these things cost billions of dollars to produce.
We... uhhh... also didn't have all that many spare nukes lying around.
It should be remembered that the dropping of the atomic bomb wasn't the first instance of atrocities against civilians. Firebombing and saturation bombing killed far more than the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan.
You can upgrade the hard drive in most, if not all, archos products.
Don't like a place's actions? Don't buy there. You don't have the right to commit fraud.
Agreed. But perhaps companies should realize that if you treat your customers like shit, those customers will be unhappy and more likely to defraud you or "hurt" (as defined by the person) you in some way.
1. No reputable B&M store does this. They do make mistakes. They are legitimate mistakes.
I honestly don't think "oh shit, we fucked up the ad" would fly as a defense for a car dealership who puts an ad in the local paper and then tries to sell the FTC inspector the same car for more money.
There should be no difference between an ad put in the paper / tv / whatever by used car lot or a major retail outlet.
Additionally, sticker price, whether it be on a can, a shelf or a website, SHOULD BE HONORED. This is mandated by some states, but nobody really pays much attention to actual enforcement.
And this happens much, much more often than you think, even with reputable BM stores - Officemax recently pissed off hundreds of people by advertising (nationwide in an newspaper insert) a network connected hard drive for $99 or something. Turns out very few stores had them in stock. A stock letter was sent to each person who complained, but no action was taken against the store.
2, 3. Rebates are offered by the manufacturer, not the store. Take it up with them. Not all. Most are manufacturer rebates, but there are "store" rebates as well. Circuit city and Best Buy have quite a few of these (They might technically not be "rebates", as you often are sent a cash card / gift card)
In either case, if you advertise a price, that price should be honored. Advertising a rebate is an endorsement of the manufacturer and also the rebate company.
6. Fry's no longer puts returned stuff back on the shelf without labelling it as returned. Not because they are angels, but because they got remaed over it in the courts.
Haha, someone should tell the Wilsonville, Oregon store.
They had to get a manager, but did they accuse me of stealing? No.
I did get accused of theft, being a fraud, and the manager even threatend to call the police on me.
This was one of those "incomplete boxes" with the sticker. Same store btw.
7. That's a gray area, given that you can return anything you buy there, I don't see why this is a huge problem for the customer.
And besides, don't buy crap you don't need.
Most frys stores aren't... well... close to where most of their customers are. Pretty simple, you're not going to build a big ass store with a big lot on expensive land, but it also serves as an effective detterent to returning items. Every time I go and fix a "wanna be techie's" computer, I find a bunch of crap that they bought which clearly didn't work with their computer. Good for me, as I get all sorts of stuff like PCI express video cards (when they have AGP slots) cards for damn near free, but still...
I'm not saying that the consumer bears no responsibility for what he purchases, but if salespeople knowingly mislead customers and sell them bad products...
So your point is what?
Possibly something like "let those without sin cast the first stone"?
The "oh, we are so victimized, please mr. reporter, tell our horrible, horrible story" whining is a bit incredible which is my biggest problem.
It is interesting that most stores get away with so much - especially in the bait and switch / price "mistake" area when there is clearly legislation and enforcement in place to prevent such things. Moreover, we know that given sufficient motivation, law enforcement and the courts can eliminate such criminal activity - i.e. bait and switch tactics seen in car dealerships.
I'm not going to say that retail fraud isn't a problem and I'm not condoning ripping stores off but at the same time, I won't shed a tear if someone rips off Best Buy or Frys. If you take advantage of your customers, sooner or later, they will retaliate - which means take advantage of you or stop shopping there.
Worked in retail. In several different places. Staples was among the most memorable - Everyone (especially managers) stole everything that wasn't chained down and someone even stole "the cage" by driving a big truck into the loading zone and dragging it out at about 2pm - nobody cared.
To be completely honest, I really didn't have all that many horror stories. I remember one guy threaten to wait for me and a manager in the parking lot, which he did until the police dragged him away, but that is just stupid, not evil.
I suppose it was because the store is basically office supplies with a bit of low end computer stuff thrown in as an afterthought that we didn't get too many fraudsters.
Even better, Staples used to offer a plan (they still do) where you would get the full purchase price - i.e. before coupons, price matches and rebates. I got a HP 215 digital camera (POS battery vampire, but this was years ago) for something like $40 after all rebates and when it went bad, I received $250 in store credit. That kicked ass.
They still offer it (or offered 6 months or so ago), but they push another plan in which they send you an equivalent product instead of the cash card. Still nice, but not as nice.
Staples is, imho, the best store from which you can purchase an extended warranty.
That said, it is an anomaly. All stores should have extended waranties like them. Staples is one of the most customer friendly stores out there.
Lets not forget that the writers of CWS have placed several pages on the Internet that say that Merijn was the creator in an apparant attempt to flood his inbox with complaints.
CoolWebSearch is among - if not the most - annoying, underhanded, and pain in the ass to remove spyware aps out there.
Not only were most people infected via a security exploit in MS Java, they constantly release updates that break or modify spyware removal programs, windows utilities such as MSconfig, regedit as well as blocking the sites on which the removal tools are hosted.
I have no problem with the book being thrown at these punks.
Compared to what some of the poor, victimized by evil customers (thank you best buy) retail stores do, the "rampant rise of fraud" pales.
/I think I hear the theme from "Schindlers List" being played, but it is really, really quiet.
Let's take a look at what some / virtually all of the stores do.
1. Blatantly and regularly violating in false advertising and bait and switch laws by claiming "oh, it was a price mistake that we don't have to honor that price."
Virtually every online store engages in such practices, although B&M stores are doing this more and more as well.
1a. Not applying sale prices at the cashier or overcharging the customer
2. Using rebate houses that don't honor / lose / just flat out destroy rebates. (CompUSA, TigerDirect, and pretty much everyone else)
3. Using rebate houses that don't pay on time. I've filed over $10,000 in rebates and I can count on one hand the number of rebates that came on time. It should not take 8 weeks for someone to cut you a check. Again, everyone who offers rebates engages in such behavior.
4. Selling extended warranties that are for the most part entirely useless. (My friend's laptop sitting on a kitchen counter started melting - proc overheated, motherboard got scorched and even some of the keys, and the chasis melted, Circuit City refused to honor the extended warranty because they claimed it was "Abuse")
4a. Claiming something is a "warranty", when in fact it is not. Read the fine print on some of these "warranties", have a laugh / cry.
4b. Training their salespeople to lie about the benefits of the "warranty". If some AG wants to file a suit, I know that Staples stores have a couple training CD-Roms lying around that clearly contradict the policies in the extended "warranties"
5. Getting around pricematch policies by ordering slightly different (yet identical in all features) models from the manufacturer. i.e. a HP PSC 950 and HP PSC 950xi. Perhaps not illegal, but a shady, shady practice that lets retail stores ignore their price match policies for many items.
6. (This is really devoted to my favorite, favorite store, Fry'ed Electronics). Labelling missing items as "containing all parts", even though many parts are missing. Then accusing the person trying to return a half empty box of theft.
Or throwing returns back onto the shelf without any indication that the product was returned or is missing parts. I'm sure this violates a whole bunch of laws, but hey...
7. Frys also gets the award for selling accessories that clearly won't work with the product that the customer has. i.e. the sales associates pushing SATA drives onto people who have only IDE controllers, Pentium processors for AMD motherboards, etc, etc.
Of course, every so often, the poor, helpless retail stores get caught and get - at most, a light slap on the wrist.
If you engage in clearly unethical business practices on all levels - from the very top to your store managers and even in the training materials that you give to your associates, you have as much right to complain as someone who paid a drug dealer with fake money and realized that they were sold orageno.
The fraud perpetrated onto the customer by these retail stores far exceeds any losses. Moreover, shady behaviour is encouraged by management and continues, even in the face of the occasional "Martha Stewart" FTC / BBB / "local / regional government agency that handles this sort of stuff" investigation.
Not only busted, but there was a class action formed and a settlement has been proposed.
So.. If you got fucked out of $12 (or whatever a movie ticket is now), the courts have generously decided to award you a whopping $5 (plus an additional $5 per child if uhh... you took children with you)
The following movies are eligible Hollow Man, Vertical Limit, A Knight's Tale, The Animal or The Patriot.
Link to PDF of settlement form. Of course, the wonderful "we can't punish Sony too much, so if too many people sign up, we
More info on the case
Big fucking deal. I had a server running mail, seti, etc, etc for 765 days before I moved. I tried to keep it alive via a ups, but alas, the small one didn't hold out long enough. Dual proc (blazing pentium pro) hp vectra. 2k, but its not like uptime is really determined by whether you have a shitty os or not (anymore), but
1. Decent power (holy shit the power in the USA is bad, I didn't even live in Cali and the local utility - PGE - couldn't keep the fucking lights on for more than a month or two.) A good UPS / power conditioner helps a lot too.
2. Shitty hardware (i.e. the hp burner I just installed in my main machine, sometimes it just dies and does all sorts of weird shit to stuff running on that box. Go HP "Qaulity"...sigh.
3. (perhaps should be number 1) how often you take the box down to replace hardware. Granted, server vs desktop machine, but still...
4. How often you move it / take it to lans / whatnot, again, you probably dont move servers...