Super hdd sale

[AREA 51]

200 Gb western HDD w/8Mb buffer for $23! Check http//:www.gotapex.com hurry!

[Dallas4u]

I look at GotApex and Techbargains everyday... and I HATE REBATES!

Nice drive, though... but as of 30 sec ago, Dell couldn't process even adding it to my cart.

[RalphDog]

I have to admit I hate rebates too, but this deal is too good to pass up. By the way, it worked about an hour ago.

I think I'm going to use it to upgrade my TIVO!!

Thanks for posting this Area 51!!

[AREA 51]

Dallas, keep trying. I just did and it put it in a cart for me.

[IsuZOOM]

It was a website mistake that won't be honored. They've already fixed the site.

[Bantan]

Plus the first rebate expires tomorrow. Go figure!
I knew it was too good to be true.

[AREA 51]

Where did you hear it was a mistake that won't be honored?

Plus , you just have to purchase it by tomorrow. Send in the rebates within 30 days.

The rebates are still there. Usually you must act quick to catch these when they occur, They usually do honor them.

[RalphDog]

FYI, they have to honor the rebates because people made purchases in reliance on Dell's advertising them. Finally, the 100k I spent on law school has paid off!! Website mistakes are not grounds to ripoff customers.

They have now pulled the page, but if you made the purchase and printed the rebates there is nothing they can do.

[johnnyapollo]

It's been my experience that they honor them as well. I'm putting mine in the Tivo!

-- John

[IsuZOOM]

Go sue them over a $100 rebate. Spend thousands in legal fees plus all of the time invovled. You think Dell doesn't have amazing lawyers? :)

[RalphDog]

I work at a law firm the legal fees shouldn't be a problem (almost, bar results come out in October!!!!)

It does not matter what kind of lawyers they have they cannot get around the law.

Companies always honor these mistakes! It's a cost of doing business.

[AREA 51]

O.K A question for the legal types . The rebate form says for the purchase of a retail boxed drive , then goes on to say it does not apply to a bare drive? What do they mean by a bare drive?

[RalphDog]

If you notice, they sell a retail version and an OEM version. Usually, the OEMs don't include instructions, fancy packaging, etc. (not really a legal issue more of a computer hardware/software issue). If you would have searched earlier, before they pulled the product, you would have seen that the OEM was available as well. It was about $50 cheaper, but no rebates were available.

By the way, I emailed Dell regarding the situation and will post their reply.

You can always return it if it doesn't work out, but the fine print on the rebate forms really doesn't leave Dell with any wiggle room.

[IsuZOOM]

I have to tell you, taking advantage of an accidental mistake and trying to essentially steal an extra $100 from Dell is immoral. Karma, people :)

[Dallas4u]

Originally posted by RalphDog
FYI, they have to honor the rebates because people made purchases in reliance on Dell's advertising them. Finally, the 100k I spent on law school has paid off!! Website mistakes are not grounds to ripoff customers.

They have now pulled the page, but if you made the purchase and printed the rebates there is nothing they can do.

Dell is known for canceling orders because of diminshed stock or incorrect advertising or prices. It has been talked about after it happened in many forums... and about 95% of the time no one can do anything about it... even when they try to. Dell usually sends out 5% - 10% off your next purchase, and that's that.

[johnnyapollo]

The rebates are actually from Western Digital and not Dell. It will remain to be seen what actually happens.

-- John

[RalphDog]

I have to agree with you Dallas about Dell not shpping. If Dell claims they are out of stock, there is nothing anyone can do. My point was that if they do ship, the rebates will be honored.

[Dallas4u]

If the rebate is through Dell, and they ship the product, then I would think you are right... the person offering the rebate would have to honor it to the person who purchased the product. Now, if the rebate is through Western Digital, and it is pusrchased through Dell... I'm not sure what would happen there.

[WyrreJ]

Originally posted by IsuZOOM
I have to tell you, taking advantage of an accidental mistake and trying to essentially steal an extra $100 from Dell is immoral. Karma, people :)

I fully disagree. This was posted recently in a "deals" forum for another taking-advantage-of-a-mistake deal and it pretty much sums up my opinion on the topic.

As long as the marketplace thinks caveat emptor is a valid way to do business there is absolutely nothing wrong with the reciprocal attitude of caveat vendor. In fact, any idealogy that does not acknowledge the inherent fairness of treating others as they treat you is unbalanced. That is not to say that an escalated response is fair play, only that of an equal one.

Now, if you want to change the status quo, then going all gandhi may be one way to do that (like, say in palestine, where people's lives are on the line) but personally I am just fine with the status quo of the marketplace. Vendors do their best (within the law) to extract money from me and I will do my best to extract value from them.

[paultvx]

Originally posted by IsuZOOM
I have to tell you, taking advantage of an accidental mistake and trying to essentially steal an extra $100 from Dell is immoral. Karma, people :)

Immoral? Oh please. What about the people who have no idea that it's a mistake and think it's actually the sale/liquidation price? Are they immoral too? Judge not lest ye be judged.

[Navigator]

... Most likely they will issue a full refund rather than ship the product at a loss after spotting the error.

I must admit, even though I just bought a new 80Gb HDD last week, I was tempted to jump in on that insane offer. I haven't seen deals like that since Priceline.com came to it's senses on airfares a few years back.

[Moncha]

I would have just loved to jump in on this kind of a deal.. I'm upgrading (Actually building 2 new new ones) my home computer with 4 250GB SATA and they aint cheap!

[IsuZOOM]

We're not talking about people who ordered not knowing it was a mistake. We're talking about people taking advantage of an error and then complaining when Dell realized the mistake. You think Dell should just lose $100 on every sale? What if they sold 100,000 of these drives? They should just shell out the $10 million, huh?

[WyrreJ]

You are changing your argument as you go. But nevertheless, I say yes. Dell should eat $10M if they had sold enough to make that number (note, that number is seriously unrealistic because the rebates are limited to one per household, even with the fatwallet type coverage it is unlikely that 100,000 rebateable orders were placed during that time period).

We are all too lenient on big companies doing poor implementations of website ordering systems. It is not that hard to put a sell rate threshold on their inventory such that if the system starts to see an item sell at, say, 300% of its normal sell rate that a human being be notified who immediately investigates the situation, applies some of those human thought processes that we can't seem to teach a machine yet, and decides to temporarily suspend future sales of the item in question until the error is corrected.

Instead most companies just let the error go on unchecked for days and then half the time choose an unprofessional method to handle the problem, like "disappearing" the order without any trace or explanation, or putting the order into a permanent state of "waiting to be shipped" or (as HP did recently) calling up people who received the orders and telling them that they could either return the product or pay an additional charge (which is completely illegal). Some companies are at least gracious enough to handle the order cancellation gracefully with an email acknowledging their error, apologizing and sometimes offering a discount of some sort on a future purchase (note that a meaningless discount is worse than no discount).

But, nevertheless, if they had designed their website software correctly in the first place only a couple of hundred orders would slip through, if not less, and with those kind of numbers they get the PR of actually honoring their mistakes without the negative of losing any "real" money. One result of such good PR is that it will encourage people (albiet bargain-hunter types, but even they will make impulse buys) to spend more time exploring the website looking for deals. The more people who browse, the more likely someone is going to make an impulse, or otherwise profitable for the seller, buy. Everybody wins.

[VXMAN]

Here's one for ya. Take a look at this url: http://www.performancebike.com/shop/Profile.cfm?SKU=15842
It's a bike trainer I ordered last week. I got an e-mail for this vendor, stating the heart rate monitor is not longer available, so my order was canceled! I replied, I still want the trainer, is that part still on order? I got a reply, nope, sorry, since the heart rate monitor is no longer available, my entire order was canceled and just to reorder the trainer. NOW, here's the kicker, on that link, click on the Combo Offer. BAM, still offering the trainer and Free heart rate monitor, plus a 10% discount. So guess what I did, YEP, reordered it again today. If I get another e-mail, telling me the heart rate monitor is not available and my order is canceled, you best your ***** I'm calling them up. Telling them, if the s***s not available, get it off their web site, and I will be demanding / expecting my trainer & heart rate monitor shipped, at the web site advertized price. Now, I'm wrong here?

Dave...

>>> Edited for obscenity...WSG

[Dallas4u]

By the way, as if like clockwork, Dell is canceling these orders left and right. If you are one of the lucky few that receives their order... congrats!!!

I still order dell for work... no complaints, as long as I can get it.

[Inaba]

I got this in my mail box this morning, sadly:


Valued Customer,

This note is in reference to your order for a 200 GB Western Digital hard
drive that you have placed. It has come to our attention that duplicate
$100 mail-in rebate coupons were posted online on the product page for this
drive, although there is only one rebate available on this drive. We do not
want any customers to have ordered this drive based on the mistaken
assumption that $200 of rebates applied, so we want to give you this
opportunity to cancel your order if there was any confusion resulting from
the duplicate rebate coupons.

If you wish to continue your order with $100 in applicable mail-in rebates
with a revised ship date, you may do so by contacting the
US_DELL_Notify@Dell.com mailbox. If we do not hear from you within 3
business days of this notice, we will conclude that you do not wish to
continue with your order, and we will cancel it.

Thank you,
Dell Notification Team

$122 still isn't a horrible deal... but certainly not the steal $22 is.

[Inaba]

And now I just received this:


Dear Valued Customer,

After further consideration, we have determined that the $200 in rebates
will be honored on eligible purchases of 200 GB Western Digital hard drives
ordered between September 25, 2003 and September 27, 2003. Please disregard
our prior communication on this issue. We value you as a customer and will
keep your order in process at the original online purchase price.

If you have cancelled your order due to the initial message posting and wish
to reinstate your order, please respond back to the US_DELL_NOTIFY@DELL.COM
<<mailto:US_DELL_NOTIFY@DELL.COM>> <<<mailto:US_DELL_NOTIFY@DELL.COM>>>
mailbox. Due to the overwhelming response to this promotion the Western
Digital hard drive will have twenty one days lead time before the item
ships. We will be posting revised instructions for submitting rebate
requests and will be extending the submission deadline.

If you would still like to cancel your order please contact us at the
US_DHS_NOTIFY@DELL.COM <<mailto:US_DHS_NOTIFY@DELL.COM>>
<<<mailto:US_DHS_NOTIFY@DELL.COM>>> mailbox. We apologize for any
inconvenience that this may have caused you and thank you for your patience
in this matter..


Dell Notification Team


My opinion of Dell has shot up a good number of notches... and I will certainly consider ordering from them in the future as a possiblity. I'll also consider reccomending them to people as well... both of these I would not have done in the past.

[SGT.BATGUANO]

Now where was that "immoral" post?;)

[dyanni]

We used Dell at work for as long as I can remember - Servers and Workstations. We recently went though a large contract bidding process where Dell, IBM, and HP all competed. I was really Hoping Dell would be the one, but side-by-side comparison of Proposals from all three companies demonstrated one poorly composed bid - and two great ones. Guess which proposal was poor. Dell really needs to spit and polish it's customer face. They resell other companies hardware - so good relations is all they really have to go on. ( and cool looking cases IHMO )

On the other hand. I know a mistake when I see it. I think Dell's first response was correct. May not be politically correct, but people these days have learned, if you squeak enough, you get the grease. If Dell had continued with their initial plan - no-one would have had a -real- loss ( because rather than being in the market for a drive, some of you only ordered the drive because of the mistake ). Some of you prefer to see Dell take a hit on this ( or any company ) that makes an honest mistake. If Dell had tried to lure you in with a low price - and then switch that price on you, you would have a claim. But this was pricing mistake by a guy running their website .... He is the one bearing the brunt of this mass greed.

Whenever confronted by the ultra-human urge to indulge in greed myself, I always remember something my grandmother told me, before she lost her mind ....

Life is short, and then you die. Live your life like someone you care about is watching. ... and wear clean underwear.

I worked with a lady once who believed that anyone else's mis-fortune was her gain. If someone dropped money, and no-one else could see it, she would say "thank you lord for my blessing" - they could drop their whole wallet - ID and all -, and her phrase would be the same.

Dell has really "blessed" some of you this-time. Maybe you are lucky ...

Normally I keep opinions like this to myself, because generally they are not popular with my friends. But I have been on the Atkins diet for a couple of weeks, and I am getting increasingly irritated at the smallest of things. My blood pressure is at 96/59 - and I smell like sugar-pop cereal. Is this normal ? :)

BTW: I will be in Seattle/Redmond area for two weeks in the middle of October sans VX. - And Dallas first week in November with VX - if any of yall want to meet up.

[Dallas4u]

Originally posted by dyanni
We used Dell at work for as long as I can remember - Servers and Workstations. We recently went though a large contract bidding process where Dell, IBM, and HP all competed.

I too went through a vendor eval for desktops and laptops. I headed the "project", and we sampled HP, IBM, Dell, Micron, and Gateway. We ended up going with Micron as we had used them before, their sales managers were great to work with, and their products for the price couldn't be beat (laptops had/have finger print recognition!). Dell came out somewhere in the middle.


Originally posted by dyanni ( and cool looking cases IHMO )

I agree... check out their gaming cases:

http://di.dell.com/images/us/segments/dhs/prodviews/dimen_XPS_front.jpg

[WyrreJ]

Fingerprint recognition is a joke. I worked on the AFIS part of the FBI's IAFIS system - that's the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System that is used for nationwide fingerprint IDs including the background checks for gun purchases. The actual finger-print IDs are done on a bunch (20 or so) mini-supercomputers loaded to the gills with DSP accelerators and running custom software, but we had a couple of PC-level commercial fingerprint ID systems and none of them were worth a hill of beans. Typically you could fool the PC-level systems 1 out of 20 times - as in just keep rescanning your finger and eventually it thinks you are the original finger-printee. They were even less discriminatory between biological family members, as in if you wanted to lock up your computer pr0n using the fingerprint system so as to keep the kids out, it would only take them about 5 rescans until the system was fooled.

[dyanni]

I work for a service of the Treasury, and they are pushing us into using their fingerprint/smart proxy card combo methodology. You need the right finger - and the right card to get in. Haven't seen it in action yet, but understand the hybrid is working out well for the big T.

In our evaluation, we had to eliminate all but Dell/HP/IBM from the bidding pool - because none of the other companies had the product maturity in the areas we wanted to expand. ie: Blades, SANS, storage virtualization. We are in the midst of a massive push to reduce the number of servers down from the current 4000 to around 750. We had to go with the heavy hitters - and HP just went all out in their presentations - showing their upcoming models - and pie-in-the-sky plans to my team. Although not my first choice - I do look forward to seeing if they can pull off what's on their drawing table. Dell was my fav going in - and it had nothing to do with the fact that I spotted a Proton VX sitting in their employee parking lot. :)

[johnnyapollo]

We did something similar and went with IBM blades in the production environment. Our office infrastructure is all Dell. You can't beat their service agreement.

-- John

[Moncha]

At our Sheriff's Office, they spen an un-godly amount of money on a hand recognition system.. It scans your right hand and checks it amongst a bunch of readings and allows you entry to the "Secure" areas.. I really pissed them and the installer off when I told them that the whole system was junk.. They said that it was top-o-the line stuff and it is infallible and told me to prove my claim. Well, they believed me when I scanned my LEFT hand UPSIDEDOWN and it allowed me entry!!
Almost lost my job over it ;Dy;

[SGT.BATGUANO]

Back on topic:

The whole industry has been overpriced for the last 10 years.

You buy a new top of the line system for $2-3K. In 6 months it's worth half and in another 6 months it's worth 1/4 of the original price. Thats not even mentioning the 30-50% markup on hardware. Just take a look at the videocard segment to get an idea of what I'm referring to. High end card starts at $350-500. In a year it'll be under $150. The sellers sure don't mind bending the customer over every chance they get.

[Triathlete]

At our Sheriff's Office, they spen an un-godly amount of money on a hand recognition system.. It scans your right hand and checks it amongst a bunch of readings and allows you entry to the "Secure" areas.. I really pissed them and the installer off when I told them that the whole system was junk.. They said that it was top-o-the line stuff and it is infallible and told me to prove my claim. Well, they believed me when I scanned my LEFT hand UPSIDEDOWN and it allowed me entry!!

Top of the line and it didn't use retina scan. That would be THE best for security purposes. Much more accurate than fingerprints if done properly. By the way, I have taken roughly 50,000+ set of fingerprints;Dy; using the Identix system (Moncha probably knows about this).

[kpaske]

Triathlete - What is the Identix system? At work I routinely have to do fingerprints using an inkpad and an SF-312 card, but would love to find a better solution. Do you know of a system that easily plugs into a standard PC and can print out an SF-312?