Ok, what have you heard computer salesman saying before...

[Jeff7]

I don't think I'm fit for being in the sales industry. I guess I'm too cheap and technically apt to become a sales drone. But I hope others will understand what retail sales people have to go through.

I get like that - I can't just repeat everything the company says about their product. I mean, PC-Chips probably talked up their motherboards throughout the years.
If I don't know anything about something, I'll say so. Otherwise, if I have used something, and it's lousy, I'll tell the person, and recommend something else, even if we don't carry it (Walmart), and then suggest where to find it. I tend to give a review, not a recommendation.

At current exchange rates, thats $46/hr. I suggest you do the same, once you've built yourself a reputation for fixing any PC that's next to a power outlet. Why work for $9/hr when the jackass store owner is going to make $50/hr ?

$46 an hour? Wow. I'm eventually hoping to do PC repair; $50/hr though? Niiiice.

 

[nick1985]

more more more! :beer:

 

[So]

Originally posted by: nick1985
more more more! :beer:

Agreed. Keep em' coming.

 

[Dismal]

haha great thread.

here's my contribution.

I was helping my friend pick out some hardware for a wireless network. We were at bestbuy or compusa (can't remember) and they didn't have enough 802.11b stuff on the shelves. My friend asks if the A and G stuff is compatible with each other and the salesmen says "If it's in the same alphabet it is." I didn't think too much of it because he wasn't really trying to push anything on us and sounded like he was just trying to make a joke anyway.

The real good one came last christmas, when I was helping my mother buy a digital camera at Best Buy for my brother. The salesmen was giving his pitch to me, my mother, and a few other people. They were having a sale there on the camera my father had already done some research on, so it was definite that we were going to buy that model. The funny stuff came when the salesguy tried selling us $100 worth of accessories (camera bag, rechargeable batteries, extra memory card, and a separate card reader). I can't believe the ridiculous stuff he was rattling on about. He justified us spending $50 on a camera bag and batteries saying that we'd spend that much money on rechargeable batteries anyway, at least this way we'll get the bag too. Right. Then he tried to sell us another memory stick after saying that the 128MB stick that came with the camera would only hold about 8 pictures. THEN, he tried to sell us the external card reader. Now, I don't know if my friend's version was just faulty or what, but he had the exact same model card reader and it would do nothing but corrupt entire sticks worth of pictures (beats me). It seemed like an unnecessary thing to have anyway, so I advise my mother not buy one. The salesguy overhears this and says that you need it in order to get the pictures off the memory sticks. I then ask, "can't you just hook the camera up to the computer directly via USB?" Since I thought I read that earlier on the box. And he says no it uses firewire. I look at the box again and see that it says USB so I try to tell him but he insists that it's firewire. Finally another saleguy comes up overhearing and says "No, it's USB". The salesguy apologizes to us but then says that we'll want the card reader anyway because when you hook the camera directly up to your computer without the external card reader you'll put a lot of unnecessary strain on the processor and wear the CPU out real fast. haha

 

[Mik3y]

a yr or 2 back, i was with my friend at best buy to buy a wireless router and pci card for his comp so he can play games without having to stretch a wire across his house. after picking up the products, i asked the guy how much it would cost to set up a router and a comp. he said it costs $200 for that and an addition $150 for setting up the wireless on additional comps. then i asked him if setting up the wireless on my friend's comp was hard. he said its far more difficult to set up the wireless on additional comps then it was to set up the router and told me i'd need a professional like himself to get it working. well, as we got home, it took 20 min to setup the router, and 10 min to install and get the wireless working!

 

[kyparrish]

these are great...
Not trying to hijack your thread Nick, but I think that the lies they feed you in the home theatre department are just as bad.

"If you don't buy 14gauge Monster Wire, your $49.99/pair KLH speakers are going to sound like crap."

"This Sony Progressive Scan DVD player has a better chip that makes it look good on normal TV's."

"This Monster fiber optic audio cable will sound better than the cheaper one." <--- This is my favorite! I'm like, "it's digital beyotch!!!! it's digital 1's and 0's, what is the light stronger in the Monster brand cable?"

 

[kyparrish]

this cracks me up....

A buddy was telling me one time that when he was in BB, he overheard a salesman telling this lady that she needed to buy a better computer (instead of an entry level emachine or whatever) because when Internet 2 "came out," she wouldn't have to upgrade her "cpu" - (salesman speak for tower) - to run it.

 

[DJFuji]

i haaaaaate when people call the tower the "CPU". It annoys me to no end.

The other day i was at CC picking up the AIW9600Pro and i asked a salesguy what the real world performance difference would be like between a 9700 and a 9600. He gave me a blank stare but at least he was honest. He said "well i have no idea, but there's a computer here with internet access if you want to look it up..."

His buddy, on the other hand, was telling some lady that the AMD chips are slower because they're not clocked as high.

 

[Cogman]

I got a sad story, The father of one of my friends asked me for Computer advice, I HAD to have a laptop with 512mb of ram, dvd player, And Wireless conectivity, all for under 1000, Well Surpisingly I found him a Centrino 1.5GHZ Laptop with an ATI 9600 For that price, I was pretty proud of myself for accomplishing the task, Anyways, Instead of listening to me, He goes out and pays, like 1,200 for A Celeron 2.8 ghz (I think, might have been a 2.4) laptop with like Intel integrated graphics, I was about to cry, The laptop I found him would have kick the crap out of his, and it would do it for several hours longer, But instead he decided I was a dumb punk and that ghz was all that mattered.

Needless to say, Not only was I giving free advice, but I was being totally ignored when asked for my advice, The brand he got was not even reputable, its like NorthGate (maybe some of you have heard of it) But I know that a Dell Gateway, or Powernotebooks laptop would have served him so much better... GAHH, It just drives my crazy that He did not by the other laptop because "Well this one has a 2.4GHZ processor, therefore it must be faster then that 1.5"

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: DJFuji
i haaaaaate when people call the tower the "CPU". It annoys me to no end.

The other day i was at CC picking up the AIW9600Pro and i asked a salesguy what the real world performance difference would be like between a 9700 and a 9600. He gave me a blank stare but at least he was honest. He said "well i have no idea, but there's a computer here with internet access if you want to look it up..."

His buddy, on the other hand, was telling some lady that the AMD chips are slower because they're not clocked as high.

that last part is sad

 

[earthling30]

Originally posted by: Blastman
I like the tech support story I heard a while ago.

Some lady phones up tech/sup and is wondering where one puts CD?s into a computer. Tech/sup replies that you push that little button on the front of your computer near where it says CD, and a little tray will ? ?pop? ? out and your CD?s go there.

Reply by lady ? ?well if I put CD?s on that tray, where am I going to put my coffee mug??

ROTFL ?.. hmmmmmmmmmmm ?..CD ? could stand for Coffee Deck!

LMAO

 

[otispunkmeyer]

well we get our fair share of steaming BS in the uk too......i live in middlesbrough and while we dont have any best buys or frys we have

curry's, pcworld, dixons......these guys are all owned by the same company

a shop called game which deals with console and pc games but they do like to sell FX cards too

and my favourite computer world which is the convergence of TINY and Time computers which both being crap on their own have combined to make a shop where BS flows like a river

TINY And Time makes the cheapest half a$$ed computers u will ever see.

1Gb of high performance micron memory.......a gig of PC2700 cl2.5 in a Athlon 64 rig?
256mb Nvidia GF fx 5200 to play all the latest games at blazing speed

hel they even had a new prescott celeron rig......upgrade to a 5200 128mb for 50 pounds and have pc ready to take on any game.....:s

 

[EstoyLoco]

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
Once heard a customer tell a salesperson he wanted a printer for transparancies and couldn't decide on laser (back when lasers were very expensive) or inkjet. Salesman told him laser would be better because inkjet would only "paint" on the media and it might fall off. A laser would actually "burn" it into the media. I stepped in and told the guy that that was BS as the laser never touched the media, only a drum. The salesman countered that he was right because the media came out of the printer warm, proving that the laser had "burned" the image into it.

I dont see anything wrong with this statement the salesman made.
In fact for certain media, specially like transpariences, vallum I prefer a laser printer over ink jet anyday.
He is correct in that ink jet only paints on the media (well spray would be more appropriate). And yes, I often mind output that runs on certain media on inkjets.
And a laser does "burn" into the media (or more like bake), as once the toner is set on the paper, it runs through the fuser, which consists of a pair of heated rollers. As the paper passes thru though, it melts the toner on the media, fusing it to the media.

 

[Thegonagle]

Best Buy sales droid: "This computer has AGP, which stands for advanced graphics processor."

 

[HombrePequeno]

What I hate the most at BestBuy are the idiot customers that assume I'm a salesperson. I don't mind people assuming I'm a salesperson most of the time but when I'm handtrucking out two 36" TVs it's not the best time to ask me where to find Land Before Time XII is or if a certain DVD player is progressive scan or not. How many salespeople do you see hauling out TVs? Absolutely none.

That said, I do actually have a story about shopping at BestBuy. It was about two weeks ago. I went in there to get a camera, battery, and service plan for my parents. I asked the sales guy to get a camera out for me and he did. Then he tells me I'm going to need a camera bag. I tell him I don't want one and he spends the next few minutes trying to convince me I do. He finally gives up and then brings up the service plan and I say yeah I want that. Then he explains why the service plan is good. He tells me how if say the battery completely dies on me, I'm going to want to bring it in to get it serviced. I then showed him I already had an extra battery and he was like, "Yeah, that's nice if you're travelling and your other battery dies." Which is a valid point but don't try to sell the service plan by telling me that it's good to have incase the battery completely dies when I already have a replacement. So anyway I told him to ring me up and I got my nice discount on everything.

 

[Vee]

Originally posted by: Cogman
I found him a Centrino 1.5GHZ Laptop with an ATI 9600 For that price, I was pretty proud of myself for accomplishing the task, Anyways, Instead of listening to me, He goes out and pays, like 1,200 for A Celeron 2.8 ghz (I think, might have been a 2.4) laptop with like Intel integrated graphics, I was about to cry, The laptop I found him would have kick the crap out of his, and it would do it for several hours longer, But instead he decided I was a dumb punk and that ghz was all that mattered.

Needless to say, Not only was I giving free advice, but I was being totally ignored

Has happened to me a lot during almost 25 years, even though I think people actually should realize that I know something. Remarkable how much more people trust sales people!
Don't get me wrong now, but it's kinda heartening to see that guys are afflicted too. Age, eh? Well, probably works against me too, these days.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Cogman
I got a sad story, The father of one of my friends asked me for Computer advice, I HAD to have a laptop with 512mb of ram, dvd player, And Wireless conectivity, all for under 1000, Well Surpisingly I found him a Centrino 1.5GHZ Laptop with an ATI 9600 For that price, I was pretty proud of myself for accomplishing the task, Anyways, Instead of listening to me, He goes out and pays, like 1,200 for A Celeron 2.8 ghz (I think, might have been a 2.4) laptop with like Intel integrated graphics, I was about to cry, The laptop I found him would have kick the crap out of his, and it would do it for several hours longer, But instead he decided I was a dumb punk and that ghz was all that mattered.

Ah, the wonders of marketing, marketecture, and dancing men in clean suits.

Needless to say, Not only was I giving free advice, but I was being totally ignored when asked for my advice, The brand he got was not even reputable, its like NorthGate (maybe some of you have heard of it) But I know that a Dell Gateway, or Powernotebooks laptop would have served him so much better... GAHH, It just drives my crazy that He did not by the other laptop because "Well this one has a 2.4GHZ processor, therefore it must be faster then that 1.5"

Depending on how hot it runs, it may not even run at full-speed, or it may become unstable after a period of heavy gaming. A friend of mine bought a (then, top-of-the-line, or close to it) 2.4Ghz socket478-based laptop (Sager OEM), with I think, a Radeon Mobility something-or-other graphics chipset, maybe a 7500 or something. I'm not really sure. It can play most games pretty decently, but after an hour, it overheats and starts crashing. (Not even thermal throttling, wth?)

I concur with your original recommendation, your Pentium-M 1.5Ghz + 9600 graphics would have been an excellent choice, for someone in the market for an Intel-based laptop.

 

[imported_Nacelle]

I was building a computer for my neighbor. I printed out a list of parts from newegg so she had an idea what she was going to be spending. I didn't include a hard drive on the list because BB had a nice rebate on one. So, I told her what to get and sent her on her way. She took her list along with her and showed it to the salesperson. She came back empty handed because he told her that this ide100 drive wouldn't work with the MB on the list. I think it was a nforce2 with ide133. Not a big deal if you live near the place. But, we live in the stix. BB is a 30min drive. What a retard.

 

[bayanke]

A couple of friends and myself do computer repairs and system building for our small fair city to earn a little extra. I mean i get 6.25 an hour at the local radio station, i need a little more. The local places are just crap. They sell geforce 2 cards as if they were the latest and greatest technology and people buyem also, 200+ to boot.
Anywho, I was talking to a family who were having some problems and they said "oh well we got it from "xxxxxx" (the local store)," and i kinda cringed because I'm sure they got ripped off. So they gave me their box and as im taking it apart i see something very peculiar. Sure enough this "store" SUPER GLUED the IDE cables to the motherboard. I laughed and then cried, and then laughed some more

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: bayanke
A couple of friends and myself do computer repairs and system building for our small fair city to earn a little extra. I mean i get 6.25 an hour at the local radio station, i need a little more. The local places are just crap. They sell geforce 2 cards as if they were the latest and greatest technology and people buyem also, 200+ to boot.
Anywho, I was talking to a family who were having some problems and they said "oh well we got it from "xxxxxx" (the local store)," and i kinda cringed because I'm sure they got ripped off. So they gave me their box and as im taking it apart i see something very peculiar. Sure enough this "store" SUPER GLUED the IDE cables to the motherboard. I laughed and then cried, and then laughed some more

Was it actually, in fact "super glue", or more likely, hot-melt glue from a glue gun? I've seen that before, from several white-box builders. It can be really annoying to remove, but in a way, it does make some sense. It keeps the cables from coming loose, which I've actually seen happen on a number of occasions with older systems.

If it actually was a cyanoacrylate adhesive-based product, then I don't know what to say. That generally dissolves plastic products that it is exposed to slightly, and would make replacing a failed/damaged IDE cable literally impossible. (Forced motherboard upgrade at that point? Maybe they consider it a form of job security.)

 

[leigh6]

great thread.

 

[Mik3y]

Originally posted by: leigh6
great thread.

 

[stonecold3169]

I work at an officemax store, I'm all over the place, currently working midnights, but typically working technology or the copy center. I'm in my 4th year of my undergrad of CS at a major university, and 3/4 of my free time is spent tinkering with hardware... in general, I have a firm grasp on the hardware and software market.

The most annoying thing ever is when a customer butts in on something, calls you a liar, making your customer you are working with leave, and having him act like a prick when he was actually wrong.

Example? I was selling an internal cd burner to a customer to a guy one day, who had told me he had changed his memory and similar things before, and wanted to know how rough a job putting in a cd burner was. Well, I asked him what version of windows he had (it was winXP), and I told him that it was as easy as pulling out his old cd-rom drive, and connecting 2 cables to the back, and screwing it in place (the ide and power cables, with winXP no reason for the audio cable). Another customer butts in, saying "hey bud, nice try, but there are THREE cables you need to plug in... I wouldn't expect a punk kid like you to understand that though. Officemax is notorious for hiring numbskulls for employees, you're better off going over to walmart and getting what you need from someone who has a clue". I was floored, that jackass lspouted incorrect info and made me look like a jackass when I didn't do anythign wrong.

 

[dudeman007]

Originally posted by: stonecold3169
I work at an officemax store, I'm all over the place, currently working midnights, but typically working technology or the copy center. I'm in my 4th year of my undergrad of CS at a major university, and 3/4 of my free time is spent tinkering with hardware... in general, I have a firm grasp on the hardware and software market.

The most annoying thing ever is when a customer butts in on something, calls you a liar, making your customer you are working with leave, and having him act like a prick when he was actually wrong.

Example? I was selling an internal cd burner to a customer to a guy one day, who had told me he had changed his memory and similar things before, and wanted to know how rough a job putting in a cd burner was. Well, I asked him what version of windows he had (it was winXP), and I told him that it was as easy as pulling out his old cd-rom drive, and connecting 2 cables to the back, and screwing it in place (the ide and power cables, with winXP no reason for the audio cable). Another customer butts in, saying "hey bud, nice try, but there are THREE cables you need to plug in... I wouldn't expect a punk kid like you to understand that though. Officemax is notorious for hiring numbskulls for employees, you're better off going over to walmart and getting what you need from someone who has a clue". I was floored, that jackass lspouted incorrect info and made me look like a jackass when I didn't do anythign wrong.

Sorry to hear about that. Hey how old are you anyways. I'm gonna be getting a job sometime soon but I don't know where to go. Somewhere techy. I would REALLY like to work at Frys, but its sorta far away. I dunno, I don't think BB lets 16 year olds work there, but I think Compusa does. I'll straighten em up.

 

[DJFuji]

dudeman, if you know your stuff well, go work for a small mom and pop shop or for an independent technician. You can make decent money and you don't have to deal with fry's and your typical BS stuff at retail stores. Trust me, you do NOT want to work for Fry's. Unless you don't have a conscious, that is. Fry's is all about screwing over the customer to make a buck. They all work on commission and essentially charge customers an arm and a leg for stuff they don't need.

"Oh you're buying a new printer? Let us install it for 69.95. Plus a 39.95 usb cable, of course. But trust us, it will save you HOURS of time trying to fumble around with it yourself."