Adrianna TanDynamic pricing is such a scam. I was at Best Buy looking at something and in 10 min it jumped $200. lol
At the shop they haven’t gone fully dynamic price tags so there was still the physical price tag to refer to. Online, the price had changed and you wouldn’t know it. Anyway, I am sitting here waiting for a manager to decide if he will honor a physical price tag.
I hope everyone who works on data analysis for dynamic pricing for anything gets bed bugs.
I mean I don’t really necessarily want or need this thing but
Now I’m invested
I want to see what happens if a customer insists on the physical sticker price.
lol they tried to tell me that I had to wait an hour for a GM to come back and honor the printed price
I was like yeah I can wait I have lots of time
I sat down and just stared at them
10 min later they said fine you can have the printed price
Best Buy is a scam
They also try to sell you a Best Buy credit card for a $20 discount. Retail is so fucked in this country
Anyway, this is how I ended up with an open box ROG Ally X
Now I can play Cyberpunk on the train (I’m going on several long train rides) to bemoan this dystopia
They were trying to get me to ‘upgrade’ to the full price box ‘coz you never know what’s wrong with open box’ but their own open box sticker said ‘excellent condition’
I think sometimes men in consumer electronics think they can scam me on anything to do with computers and devices? It’s very confusing for everyone. Yes I know what RAM and SSD is!
I’ve never bought a car. But I imagine it’s a similar experience
Hey people from countries with consumer protection laws.
We also have them! They are being ignored!
Thommy@skinnylatte Worst Buy sucks so bad and it's like the only option close to me for electronics. I hate all the bullshit these businesses get away with. Thinking that customers are gullible and that we'll buy all those bullshit add-ons.
Carsten@skinnylatte not actually sure if dynamic pricing is illegal here, but if I ever encounter it I'd be so offended that I'd never shop there again...
Actually, I see it with plane tickets, which is annoying AF.
LAURENNo no no, car buying is the worst experience bar none for a woman. It's so gross. Took me weeks to recover after doing battle. Like you, I prepared and stuck to my guns. The next time I just bought the car through my credit union. That's the way to do it.
Quixoticgeek@noondlyt @skinnylatte works with bikes too. I once went into a bike shop with a male friend. Everytime I asked a question, the guy in the bike shop gave the answer to my male friend. Every. Single. Question. Even after my friend said "don't tell me, I don't ride bikes".
Reminds me of this tweet from years ago.
@noondlyt @skinnylatte in one bike shop I had gone in there largely to shelter from the rain while I waited for a tram. I was looking at the GPS units. Shop person walks over and asks if he can help. To make small talk and kill time. I asked what the battery life was like. "6-8 hours, plenty for any ride you'll do"
"I did a 17 hour 300km ride on Saturday"
The look on his face was absolutely priceless.
Katrina Katrinka 
@noondlyt @skinnylatte
My past two cars have been bought with solid drive off the lot with all taxes included prices included before I drove to the lot.
Even then, I had to wait for them to remove the GPS tracker extra 'cause they added it without my request. No, I don't want Sirius radio. No, I won't be downloading a phone app to use with the car. Cars these days are way too computerized.
Joe@skinnylatte It is worse with cars because there are so many extra ways to scam you.
Glowing Cat of the Nuclear Wastelands@skinnylatte I've avoided BestBuy for at least two decades. When I was a kid, my dad loved to shop there and one Christmas I'd asked for an SD card for the mp3 I'd bought myself. He made the mistake of buying it from them, and it was an utter nightmare because first it was back ordered, then it was the wrong thing, and finally they pushed us into taking two cards that were each half the size of the one bigger one my dad had intended to get me. Thankfully the player I was using it with made it easy to swap, and I had a case to keep the extras in so I could make "mix tapes" out of the multiple cards, but we wasted so much time dealing with them just to get a thing that would work with the device we needed it for.
Thad@skinnylatte And they're the ones who fuzzed up the definition of "open box" in the first damn place!
"You never know what condition an open box product is in" Yeah, Best Buy, and WHOSE FAULT IS THAT?
Sindarina, Edge Case Detective@skinnylatte I sometimes wonder how many folks went to their local tech store to get an iPhone but walked out with a Samsung Android phone instead due to how much Samsung spent on incentives, especially in the early years.
It's such a dirty, dirty game.
Enterprise sales is much the same, too.
Rich Stein (he/him)@skinnylatte
The great thing at present about car shopping/buying is doing so online. It avoids the haggling, bait-and-switch, etc. Also opens up a larger market to select from. And they haven't imposed dynamic pricing — yet.
The great thing at present about car shopping/buying is doing so online. It avoids the haggling, bait-and-switch, etc. Also opens up a larger market to select from. And they haven't imposed dynamic pricing — yet.
Caden@skinnylatte I remember several years ago someone in my physics class was talking to the professor before class about how she couldn't make it to an exam because she had to get her car fixed (there were only 6 of us in the class and we all got along so she didn't seem to care who overheard). They got to talking about how she had been to several other mechanics who all tried to swindle her so badly that the prof offered to call the mechanic on her behalf because he knew they would only take someone with a man's voice seriously
Kay Ohtie 🔜 FWA@skinnylatte That's so fucking bizarre. Usually Best Buys are more than happy to let go of Open Box stock because it's just taking up space for them and they lose money if they have to send it back to the DC for inventory changes.
Got my TV for turbo-discount from one about 2 years ago marked as basically "nothing but the TV in the box", lowest pricing. It was in perfect condition with all accessories; learned they do that to move inventory faster sometimes with the lower price.
Fucked up they aren't doing that now.
@KayOhtie their whole corporate mission in the last two years is ‘just sell predatory credit cards’. I truly think that’s all there is to it. They’re not interested in moving products anymore
@skinnylatte ah so we're back to "Best Buy in the late 90's to early 00's" I see
Dave@KayOhtie @skinnylatte Ah yes, the "extended warranty" era. That's when I stopped going there. Went shopping for a printer. I went in there expecting a hard time, but the guy who helped me was pretty chill and generally seemed like a nice guy. I went to grab the printer off of the shelf and this other dude aggressively comes up to me and starts giving me the hard sell on the extended warranty, telling me things like I don't know what could go wrong, etc. I said something to the effect that "wow, I didn't know you sold such shitty products that will break when I get home" and I walked out never to return.
I felt somewhat satisfied with myself that they lost my sale, but then I later heard that they made more money on the extended warranties than they did on the products, so not selling me the item worked better in their favor. Then I was really determined to give them the finger at every opportunity since. It seems they've moved from that shitty practice to the 'Geek Squad' racket, and now this.
kauer@zornslemmon @KayOhtie @skinnylatte Best thing that ever happened for consumers in Australia was the revamped Consumer Protection Act. Everything has a deemed lifetime; if it fails in less than that time, it is as if your warranty was at least that long. A refrigerator, for example, really should last at least ten years. The only way to sell an extended warranty to an Australian consumer is if it extends the consumer law warranty, or offers protections over and above those provided by consumer law. There are some exceptions for things considered consumables, or where a consumer could damage the product in invisible ways - so laptop batteries, car tyres, that sort of thing.
It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. One missing element is who pays freight; if an item needs repair or replacement, IMHO the vendor should be paying for both the return and the new delivery.
Jason Bowen 🇺🇦@kauer @zornslemmon @KayOhtie @skinnylatte Zero chance of that happening in the US for the foreseeable future. We're charging face first into Snow Crash crossed with Handmaid's Tale, but with a shit "metaverse" run by a robot lizard.
tentative existence@skinnylatte I have an answer for those pitches that I'm suddenly extra grateful for. "There was a data breach at a company that handles data for my health insurance provider, and I had to set up a fraud alert with the credit reporting agencies. To get a credit card, I have to temporarily remove the alert, which requires answering questions about where family members have lived, and I'm estranged from my family. But thanks anyway."
Morgan ⚧️@skinnylatte I've never bought a car myself but I went with my mom once, and yeah I think it was pretty similar. Of course, once my cis brother in law went with her, the assumption became that they probably couldn't be scammed 🙄
Cassandrich@skinnylatte I've never bought a car from a dealer and never will. Once got my time wasted by a "for sale by owner" listing on Craigslist that turned out to actually be a dealer and told him to fuck off once it turned out he didn't actually have a title in his name. I do not need that energy in my life.
PSoul•US 🏳️🌈@skinnylatte wait so they don’t even know the state or the quality of the products they are selling??? And they dare to mansplain / put the “man” back in manipulate to scam you?
Best Buy? Pest, Bye!
ClickyMcTicker@skinnylatte We included our tire warranty subscription because you’ll need it. I got three nails in my tires on my way to work just this week! We also went ahead and included the windshield warranty subscription. This one is really important to have because there are rocks on the road and they can chip your windshield. It costs money to get that fixed. We also included our extended drivetrain warranty. If there’s an issue with the drivetrain that isn’t covered under the manufacturer warranty, it’s going to be really expensive to fix and you won’t have a car till then. That’s why we included the loaner plan.
Your dealer addons will come out to the same monthly price as the entire car if you don’t put your foot down. You’ll also be spending several hours just waiting and/or skimming through a binder of paperwork. It’s far worse than buying electronics IMO, even for men who don’t have to endure the mansplaining you would.
epilonious@ClickyMcTicker @skinnylatte I bought a car through Carvana in February and then got rid of the broke down busted car through Peddle.
Did I maybe pay more money than if I went to haggle at a dealer and get less money than if I tried to trade in? Probably. Did I not have to interact with a human beyond the Kind Lady who was dropping my car off and the Kind Man who was picking up my other car, both of whom were just concerned that the paperwork was in order and matched what I had uploaded? Yep.
TheNovemberFella ✊🏳️🌈 🇺🇦☸️🛰️🚀
WinterKnight @skinnylatte it’s the same essential problems but so, so much worse.
My name is Gordo@skinnylatte Cars are an even bigger can of worms because they combine the psychological/identity marketing we've all grown to adore, the perverse incentives of sales commission, and the bundling cable companies use to force you to buy 5 or 10 channels when you really only want one (except in this case, you have to buy a bunch of stupid plastic trim bits to get access to a specific kind of paint, and it costs $9000 instead of $10/mo.). And of course stir it in with the same can of worms you get with consumer electronics because now your car is decked out with microphones and an eSIM, so they are most definitely listening to everything you say, and selling your data, with the added bonus of data about your droving behaviour so insurance companies can buy that data second hand, and either increase your premiums in the future, or just choose to not insure you at all (though by the time you get to that point, one could argue that—ignoring the dystopian overtones—they might just be providing a public service lol).