If the price is too high, it's called price gouging
If the price is too low, it's called predatory pricing
It the price is just the same, it's called price fixing
How convenient a system where anyone doing business is guilty:)
Although I find your general argument curious and not without merit,
explain to me how does your categorisation apply to: If the price is
a lie. No one is arguing that 27.95 is too high or
too low, but advertising 19.99 plan and charging 27.95
should be illegal.
Odd, why only pick Super Mario Bros. 3 and not the entire Super Mario Bros. series like they did with Warcraft? From the article...
Well, they missed the mark here, too. As pointed out by many others, the real precursor of the WarCraft genre is Dune II from Westwood Studios. Warcraft was somewhat better in terms of the interface and graphics, and changed the setting from Dune world to fantasy.
While this is technically true, it is also true to say that very few people either played or remember the prototypes of the modern real-time strategy genre during the 1980s. Indeed, even the first game which mostly resembled the genre in its modern form (i.e. using the mouse to move units, gathering resources, etc...), Dune II from Westwood Studios in 1992, was not widely played and would not be immediately recognized by the average gamer.
Uhm... Not only would DuneII be recognized by an average gamer, it should be recognized by any gamer that was old enough to be playing in the early 90s. That was the only game of such kind back then and so very fascinating. Well before WarCraft.
In my opinion WarCraft wasn't quiate as memorable if more technologically advanced. StarCraft was comparably memorable for having an actual story to go with real-time strategy game
I don't have a problem with it. It has happened and will continue to happen. What I have the biggest problem with is the "Second Chance Offer." I have bid fair price on many (one of a kind) items only to get out bid by something that looks like a shill account. After the auction ends the seller makes a second chance offer to me at the price of the highest bidder.
2nd chance offer has valid uses, and most importantly -- they are optional. You don't want to pay your last highest bid - just walk away. I have sold non-unique items and when bidding war went high, I was quite happy to send a 2nd chance offering to sell a 2nd item at the runner-up price.
Plus in the situation you're describing you should probably snipe and surprise the cheating seller:)
he Second Chance is now an offical Ebay thing... which of course is being abused by the Shrills...
How can you possibly abuse the 2nd chance offer?? It is entirely optional! So if they outbid you, they can only nicely ask -- are you still interested in paying your max bid for the item? Ridiculous overpricing happens when people get caught up in bidding war - not a problem with 2nd chance offers.
I have used 2nd chance offer when people have bid up higher than I expected on what I was selling and I was quite willing to sell another item at 2nd best price. 2nd chance offers are great.
Because you can look at the user feedback and see if there is a lot of cross-feed-backing going on between the involved parties and also you can see if these are low-feedback users raising the bid.
This is absolutely not the way to judge who you're dealing with. It is the low-feedback "newbies" who exhibit the most erratic and illogical behavior (for not understanding how bids work, for not realizing that shipping can be high, etc.).
Also, since additional feedbacks from the same user don't raise your feedback rating, there is absolutely no reason to continue leaving cross-feedback after the 1st time. So I imagine that such people wouldn't do it.
I did not get my money back - although it was only $1, and it was still a reasonable deal on the item. And I wasn't willing to refuse to pay because I didn't want to screw up MY feedback, and I didn't have enough transactions to make it unimportant.
I haven't encountered this particular situation on ebay in person, but I was under the impression that if someone retracts a bid that went above yours, you are under no obligation to actually buy the item. I believe they can only send you a "second chance offer" which is optional. Happened to a friend of mine (getting outbid and receiving an optional 2nd chance offer which he took)
Makes shill bidding that much more dangerous - once you're outbid, your don't have to buy anything.
Who is opening and scanning the mail? Automated machines? How do I know they don't read my mail? How do we know that they don't lose any mail? Also wouldn't there be an additional delay before I get my mail (wait to be scanned and then wait to be delivered to you physically)?
Humans, I imagine. I think you are missing the point of this service -- it is not necessarily designed to make your mail more secure (although that depends on security of your home address - personally I'd rather take my chances with strangers I indirectly employ than with those who wonder through our house stairwell). Nor is this service designed to make your mail more fast. I think the service here is the portability and perhaps centralized electronic backup.
Sorta like a POBox which you can electronically and remotely access from anywhere.
T-mobile was offering one like #3 (only softer colored) when asked if they've got any free phones with their contracts. I laughed when offered this phone (4 months ago, mind you), and now I see they must have found some old forgotten stock...
A landlord cannot advertise that the apartment is near a church or synagogue because this implies an illegal preference based on religion.
False. A La...
I am sorry, I don't mean to troll or anything, but what do you base this "false" statement on? I agree that your claim is common sense, but the parent poster is an actual housing lawyer. I would imagine that in court, law will trump over common sense:(.
They call it a 'lottery' but it's really just a glorified numbers racket. That doesn't stop the states from operating them, now does it?
Oh, it's a lot more than that. Casino's shave 1-2% from what goes through their system (not sure exactly how much, but certainly relatively little). Lotteries take something closer 50% of the cash that goes through them and generally encourage the less wealthy to participate...
Oh, RTFA, damn it... I was surprised to see that their solution actually makes sense.
Under the order, VoIP carriers must provide a way for customers to update their location and callback numbers when they travel. Failure to update that information would cause an emergency operator to assume the call was coming from the last registered location.
The RIAA is pushing people around in lawsuits that would substantially hurt those individuals financially if they were to fight. None of those cases are going to court because it's cheaper to settle.
You're right of course. But the problem of the legal system is that an individual is unable to fight them in court. Especially as they often end up targetting college students (such as my current roommate who is being sued by MPAA). And the lawsuit is filed in Georgia which is where it should be fought.
Even if she were willing to sacrifice her money and future, it would simply not be enough to finish the fight.
I think civil disobedience implies openly breaking the law expecting to be arrested. If you quietly violate the law at home this really does not qualify.
Thanks for the idea about getting a rebate (although I still hate them) and then returning the product. That's a great plan. I'll be sure to try it out this weekend.
Sigh...I hope you're joking about this...
You're precisely the kind of customer they *should* wean out. This really feels like fraud (and probably is).
I hate them and no longer shop there, but defrauding them is not an answer.
Moreover -- 1) items are not returnable with UPC code cut out. 2) they have 15% restocking fee (one of the reasons I stopped shopping there).
Not to get into an argument, since I think metal gear solid is easily in the top 5 games that I have ever seen (storyline-wise, at least). But the best story ever would be "Planescape: Torment", without any doubt whatsoever. That is a single game that I know of that can rival a *good* book in its story.
As posted by someone before, there is no "maybe lower prices". The prices WILL NOT be lowered, no matter what. The best we can hope for is that more games would become profitable.
I agree with your sentiment,
but I think that anything that has "unconsentual sex" is rated NC-17 or Unrated already.
Murder, on the other hand, barely affects the rating. I am still mystified as to how Disney managed to get a G (a G!) rating on a cartoon that depicts a murder of a human being (Pocahontas).
No, no, the definition of irony is actually the fact that there *might* be some ethics complaints or even... criminal charges. Which I assume means no one will get seriously punished.
the scandal highlights GOP dirty tricks that could result in ethics complaints to the Senate and the Washington Bar -- or even criminal charges under computer intrusion laws.
Moreover, they talk about documents as disclosed inadvertently by negligent [Democratic] staff rather than acquired by shameless hacking.
Correct me if I am wrong, but even lesser transgressions (such as acquiring email database by hacking) are generally punished by fines and jail. And informing people of vulnerabilities in advance does nothing to protect you.
Canada is much bigger than the states, but with far less people. The cost of having towers running is a nobrainer.
That is a good point, but what does making a phone have to do with maintaing the service towers? Plus it is always wiser to increase the monthly cost, reducing the shock (maaan, if cell phones here were $500+, I would definately not have one!).
Maybe the cell phone purchase and plan purchase should be decoupled (as I believe it is in Europe) and then many customer problems would disappear.
I am not familiar with the way cell phones work in Canada, but I would guess your suggestion would not work. If I purchase a phone in US, I cannot transfer it to another US company because of the so called provider optimization (a.k.a. cell phone lockdown). I had two absolutely exactly same cell phones, one AT&T, another non-AT&T from a friend. Once my AT&T phone died, they would not switch my service to the other phone, claiming that it has been optimized for another provider. So I would not be surprised if cell phone companies found a way to block US-to-Canada phone transfer.
Consider this, if your number is on the DNC list, chances are you weren't likely to buy much from a telemarketer, anyways.
That is true in general, but has some exceptions. In particular, it seems that telemarketers are afraid to lose the customers who can be talked into buying anything and are too polite to firmly refuse talking to a telemarketer.
Slashdot Mirror
If the price is too low, it's called predatory pricing
It the price is just the same, it's called price fixing
How convenient a system where anyone doing business is guilty
Although I find your general argument curious and not without merit, explain to me how does your categorisation apply to:
If the price is a lie.
No one is arguing that 27.95 is too high or too low, but advertising 19.99 plan and charging 27.95 should be illegal.
Well, they missed the mark here, too. As pointed out by many others, the real precursor of the WarCraft genre is Dune II from Westwood Studios. Warcraft was somewhat better in terms of the interface and graphics, and changed the setting from Dune world to fantasy.
While this is technically true, it is also true to say that very few people either played or remember the prototypes of the modern real-time strategy genre during the 1980s. Indeed, even the first game which mostly resembled the genre in its modern form (i.e. using the mouse to move units, gathering resources, etc...), Dune II from Westwood Studios in 1992, was not widely played and would not be immediately recognized by the average gamer.
Uhm... Not only would DuneII be recognized by an average gamer, it should be recognized by any gamer that was old enough to be playing in the early 90s. That was the only game of such kind back then and so very fascinating. Well before WarCraft.
In my opinion WarCraft wasn't quiate as memorable if more technologically advanced. StarCraft was comparably memorable for having an actual story to go with real-time strategy game
2nd chance offer has valid uses, and most importantly -- they are optional. You don't want to pay your last highest bid - just walk away. I have sold non-unique items and when bidding war went high, I was quite happy to send a 2nd chance offering to sell a 2nd item at the runner-up price.
Plus in the situation you're describing you should probably snipe and surprise the cheating seller :)
How can you possibly abuse the 2nd chance offer?? It is entirely optional! So if they outbid you, they can only nicely ask -- are you still interested in paying your max bid for the item? Ridiculous overpricing happens when people get caught up in bidding war - not a problem with 2nd chance offers.
I have used 2nd chance offer when people have bid up higher than I expected on what I was selling and I was quite willing to sell another item at 2nd best price. 2nd chance offers are great.
This is absolutely not the way to judge who you're dealing with. It is the low-feedback "newbies" who exhibit the most erratic and illogical behavior (for not understanding how bids work, for not realizing that shipping can be high, etc.). Also, since additional feedbacks from the same user don't raise your feedback rating, there is absolutely no reason to continue leaving cross-feedback after the 1st time. So I imagine that such people wouldn't do it.
I haven't encountered this particular situation on ebay in person, but I was under the impression that if someone retracts a bid that went above yours, you are under no obligation to actually buy the item. I believe they can only send you a "second chance offer" which is optional. Happened to a friend of mine (getting outbid and receiving an optional 2nd chance offer which he took)
Makes shill bidding that much more dangerous - once you're outbid, your don't have to buy anything.
Humans, I imagine. I think you are missing the point of this service -- it is not necessarily designed to make your mail more secure (although that depends on security of your home address - personally I'd rather take my chances with strangers I indirectly employ than with those who wonder through our house stairwell). Nor is this service designed to make your mail more fast. I think the service here is the portability and perhaps centralized electronic backup.
Sorta like a POBox which you can electronically and remotely access from anywhere.
T-mobile was offering one like #3 (only softer colored) when asked if they've got any free phones with their contracts. I laughed when offered this phone (4 months ago, mind you), and now I see they must have found some old forgotten stock...
False. A La...
I am sorry, I don't mean to troll or anything, but what do you base this "false" statement on? I agree that your claim is common sense, but the parent poster is an actual housing lawyer. I would imagine that in court, law will trump over common sense :(.
They call it a 'lottery' but it's really just a glorified numbers racket. That doesn't stop the states from operating them, now does it?
Oh, it's a lot more than that. Casino's shave 1-2% from what goes through their system (not sure exactly how much, but certainly relatively little). Lotteries take something closer 50% of the cash that goes through them and generally encourage the less wealthy to participate...Under the order, VoIP carriers must provide a way for customers to update their location and callback numbers when they travel. Failure to update that information would cause an emergency operator to assume the call was coming from the last registered location.
You're right of course. But the problem of the legal system is that an individual is unable to fight them in court. Especially as they often end up targetting college students (such as my current roommate who is being sued by MPAA). And the lawsuit is filed in Georgia which is where it should be fought.
Even if she were willing to sacrifice her money and future, it would simply not be enough to finish the fight.
I think they're called metamoderations :)
I think civil disobedience implies openly breaking the law expecting to be arrested. If you quietly violate the law at home this really does not qualify.
Sigh...I hope you're joking about this...
You're precisely the kind of customer they *should* wean out. This really feels like fraud (and probably is).
I hate them and no longer shop there, but defrauding them is not an answer. Moreover -- 1) items are not returnable with UPC code cut out. 2) they have 15% restocking fee (one of the reasons I stopped shopping there).
Not to get into an argument, since I think metal gear solid is easily in the top 5 games that I have ever seen (storyline-wise, at least). But the best story ever would be "Planescape: Torment", without any doubt whatsoever. That is a single game that I know of that can rival a *good* book in its story.
As posted by someone before, there is no "maybe lower prices". The prices WILL NOT be lowered, no matter what. The best we can hope for is that more games would become profitable.
Murder, on the other hand, barely affects the rating. I am still mystified as to how Disney managed to get a G (a G!) rating on a cartoon that depicts a murder of a human being (Pocahontas).
Ex-con Home Security Guy: But surely you couldn't put a price on your family's lives.
Homer: I wouldn't have thought so either, but here we are.
Article:
The data also showed that 25 percent of consumers thought they already owned a high-definition television -- the true number is less than half that.
Slashdot summary:
Also cited, 25% of people think they own an HDTV, when the actual number is less than 10%.
No, no, the definition of irony is actually the fact that there *might* be some ethics complaints or even... criminal charges. Which I assume means no one will get seriously punished.
the scandal highlights GOP dirty tricks that could result in ethics complaints to the Senate and the Washington Bar -- or even criminal charges under computer intrusion laws.
Moreover, they talk about documents as disclosed inadvertently by negligent [Democratic] staff rather than acquired by shameless hacking.
Correct me if I am wrong, but even lesser transgressions (such as acquiring email database by hacking) are generally punished by fines and jail. And informing people of vulnerabilities in advance does nothing to protect you.
That is a good point, but what does making a phone have to do with maintaing the service towers? Plus it is always wiser to increase the monthly cost, reducing the shock (maaan, if cell phones here were $500+, I would definately not have one!).
Maybe the cell phone purchase and plan purchase should be decoupled (as I believe it is in Europe) and then many customer problems would disappear.
I am not familiar with the way cell phones work in Canada, but I would guess your suggestion would not work. If I purchase a phone in US, I cannot transfer it to another US company because of the so called provider optimization (a.k.a. cell phone lockdown). I had two absolutely exactly same cell phones, one AT&T, another non-AT&T from a friend. Once my AT&T phone died, they would not switch my service to the other phone, claiming that it has been optimized for another provider. So I would not be surprised if cell phone companies found a way to block US-to-Canada phone transfer.
That is true in general, but has some exceptions. In particular, it seems that telemarketers are afraid to lose the customers who can be talked into buying anything and are too polite to firmly refuse talking to a telemarketer.