How does the average person readily know these things?
Opt for the prominent "sale" drive w/rebate, not the hidden $15 cheaper drive which took a search to find and didn't offer a rebate. When in doubt use the posted links, follow the leader and peer review. We all like to "get over", but the unlabeled "bare/OEM" was not the drive mentioned. The search would have found both drives, with and without a rebate and then play "what's wrong with this picture".
Opt for the prominent "sale" drive w/rebate, not the hidden $15 cheaper drive which took a search to find and didn't offer a rebate. When in doubt use the posted links, follow the leader and peer review. We all like to "get over", but the unlabeled "bare/OEM" was not the drive mentioned. The search would have found both drives, with and without a rebate and then play "what's wrong with this picture".
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Lifer
- Apr 14, 2001
- 13,625
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Just a note if you ever dispute a charge on your credit card with outpost they will blacklist you and refuse to sell you anything, AND treat you like a criminal on the phone.
<< Just a note if you ever dispute a charge on your credit card with outpost they will blacklist you and refuse to sell you anything, AND treat you like a criminal on the phone.[/q
Funny you say that. After both my friend and I attempted to speak rationally and logically with the customer support we realized there was only futility. Perhaps it is not the service agents fault as I suspect management plays a large role in programming their responses.
On the phone today outpost last word to me was they couldn't deal with me anymore because I was not the purchaser. That I guess is understandable but if it were set in stone you would expect them to only deal with the purchaser from the start.
Anyway speaking with my friend that purchased the drive as a favor for me may not have gone as well as the outpost agent would have hoped for as my multilingual friend has many years experience as a computer hardware purchasing agent and understands "rebates" all too well.
Placing future orders from outpost is not high on my list, so being blacklisted is not a concern. I do sympathize with those who have been/remain blacklisted though.
man i bought my hd on 4/4 and the drive arrived (retail) on 4/9...thanks goodness for 2 day delivery....some times its worth it to go for that extra 2 dollars for shipping
Wow man, you should just return the drive and forget about it. Why get an 80 gigger now anyways, when you'll be able to get a 400 gigger in a little over a year for approximately the same price?
<< Wow! SMF's got 22 posts now....all in this topic! After two days of hassle, I would have returned the drive and went on with my life.
Final realization is that Outpost is not a place to do business with and yes the drive is going back. BTW; our time and hassle is worth something also not to mention PRINCIPLE.
<< How does the average person readily know these things?
Opt for the prominent "sale" drive w/rebate, not the hidden $15 cheaper drive which took a search to find and didn't offer a rebate. When in doubt use the posted links, follow the leader and peer review. We all like to "get over", but the unlabeled "bare/OEM" was not the drive mentioned. The search would have found both drives, with and without a rebate and then play "what's wrong with this picture". >>
Not trying to beat a dead horse, but let me respond to your point;
The "other" drive you refer to which may or may not be a retail box as it was not disclosed either goes for 179.00, actually cheaper than what you call the "hidden" drive.
Assuming this is correct, upon receiving the first drive, outpost was immediately called and I stated to their agent Steve that we believed we would get a retail boxed drive. Steve was very courteous and said he knew there had been a problem and said outpost would ship the "retail box drive" and even was nice enough to e mail me the applicable rebate, albeit 55 dollars. OK, drive #2 arrived and it ANOTHER OEM. Another call to outpost and now they refused to send a retail box drive.
Why should they if they can charge 184 bucks for an OEM that is not specifically marketed as such.. Makes perfect sense from a greed point of view.
«Not trying to beat a dead horse, but let me respond to your point;»
[*]The original announcement for this deal included a working link to the actual Outpost item description with a price of $199.95 (the rebate coupon itself was edited later). No one else in that long discussion implied that the rebate would be valid with any other Outpost item number.
[*] At no time did the item description for the $184 drive include a rebate link so there was never the slightest implication that the item you ordered would be eligible for the rebate. That had nothing to do with the OEM or Retail classification, the item itself was never listed with a rebate and everyone here knows how important it is to verify rebate qualifications before making a purchase based on a rebate.
[*]Pricing of merchandise depends on the purchasing agreement for a specific model number -- it is entirely possible to get a short-term discount from a manufacturer that will result in temporarily lower price for an item that would normally cost more than another in the same line.
«Steve was very courteous and said he knew there had been a problem and said outpost would ship the "retail box drive"»
I would guess that you called at about the time Outpost was overwhelmed with calls about the refurbished vs. new retail problem and that Steve didn't notice that your order was actually for a completely different drive. It may have been an oversight (you'd probably use a stronger word like negligent) error but again, it was not fraud.
«Another call to outpost and now they refused to send a retail box drive.»
Because you never ordered a retail drive. You thought you had outsmarted everyone else here and could get another $15 off. Your lack of success in doing that does not constitute grounds for claiming fraud.
[*]The original announcement for this deal included a working link to the actual Outpost item description with a price of $199.95 (the rebate coupon itself was edited later). No one else in that long discussion implied that the rebate would be valid with any other Outpost item number.
[*] At no time did the item description for the $184 drive include a rebate link so there was never the slightest implication that the item you ordered would be eligible for the rebate. That had nothing to do with the OEM or Retail classification, the item itself was never listed with a rebate and everyone here knows how important it is to verify rebate qualifications before making a purchase based on a rebate.
[*]Pricing of merchandise depends on the purchasing agreement for a specific model number -- it is entirely possible to get a short-term discount from a manufacturer that will result in temporarily lower price for an item that would normally cost more than another in the same line.
«Steve was very courteous and said he knew there had been a problem and said outpost would ship the "retail box drive"»
I would guess that you called at about the time Outpost was overwhelmed with calls about the refurbished vs. new retail problem and that Steve didn't notice that your order was actually for a completely different drive. It may have been an oversight (you'd probably use a stronger word like negligent) error but again, it was not fraud.
«Another call to outpost and now they refused to send a retail box drive.»
Because you never ordered a retail drive. You thought you had outsmarted everyone else here and could get another $15 off. Your lack of success in doing that does not constitute grounds for claiming fraud.
<< «Not trying to beat a dead horse, but let me respond to your point;»
[*]The original announcement for this deal included a working link to the actual Outpost item description with a price of $199.95 (the rebate coupon itself was edited later). No one else in that long discussion implied that the rebate would be valid with any other Outpost item number.
[*] At no time did the item description for the $184 drive include a rebate link so there was never the slightest implication that the item you ordered would be eligible for the rebate. That had nothing to do with the OEM or Retail classification, the item itself was never listed with a rebate and everyone here knows how important it is to verify rebate qualifications before making a purchase based on a rebate.
[*]Pricing of merchandise depends on the purchasing agreement for a specific model number -- it is entirely possible to get a short-term discount from a manufacturer that will result in temporarily lower price for an item that would normally cost more than another in the same line.
«Steve was very courteous and said he knew there had been a problem and said outpost would ship the "retail box drive"»
I would guess that you called at about the time Outpost was overwhelmed with calls about the refurbished vs. new retail problem and that Steve didn't notice that your order was actually for a completely different drive. It may have been an oversight (you'd probably use a stronger word like negligent) error but again, it was not fraud.
«Another call to outpost and now they refused to send a retail box drive.»
Because you never ordered a retail drive. You thought you had outsmarted everyone else here and could get another $15 off. Your lack of success in doing that does not constitute grounds for claiming fraud. >>
Actually we wholeheartedly believed that the drive on the link was retail. In retrospect it may appear in one interpretation as we were trying to outsmart others on this but actually we believed that the drive ordered was retail because
# does not say OEM
# 184 dollars is way above the price for which an OEM can be had( see pricewatch.com)
# makes sense at 184.00 only if there is a rebate
Again, the person that ordered it has many years working as a computer hardware PURCHASING AGENT. She too believed it is a retail product
# if there were any doubts in our minds we sure would not have wanted to not go through this mess.
My thread about this only began after outpost failed to send the retail drive as was CLEARLY STATED in our conversation upon receipt of the first drive AND changed their posture saying they will not send the retail box as promised per post receipt of first drive conversation with Steve (their agent)
Their management (I assume) finally sent me an e-mail which FAILED to address a single issue contained in my very specific e-mail to them.
It was a "thank you, please feel free to contact us in the future" letter. Gee whiz, would they respond to the Federal Trade Commission or State Attorney General with such a succinct letter.Whatever outpost stance is in this matter they should have the decency and backbone to state it in their e mail instead of a letter whose contents may be extrapolated as emanating from a guy without a measurable testosterone level.
If they are confident in their stance then just address my points in their response. Does outpost think we are idiots?
It seems to me participants on this forum are intelligent educated people.
Let this thread die please.
Not trying to beat a dead horse, but let me respond to your point;
The "other" drive you refer to which may or may not be a retail box as it was not disclosed
either goes for 179.00, actually cheaper than what you call the "hidden" drive.
So you paid $184 out of charity?
We all know they dropped the $199 retail price to $179 and reduced the rebate amount.
Again, the person that ordered it has many years working as a computer hardware
PURCHASING AGENT. She too believed it is a retail product
# if there were any doubts in our minds we sure would not have wanted to not go through this
mess.
She's a fraud and very green with computer products! She'd have seen both ads, one with a rebate and retail box and one without. She'd also know the BBRTL is retail and BB is OEM. Opting for the more expnsive OEM is comedy, but we all know the retail price dropped. Even though it didn't say OEM, it didn't say rebate either.
The "other" drive you refer to which may or may not be a retail box as it was not disclosed
either goes for 179.00, actually cheaper than what you call the "hidden" drive.
So you paid $184 out of charity?
We all know they dropped the $199 retail price to $179 and reduced the rebate amount.
Again, the person that ordered it has many years working as a computer hardware
PURCHASING AGENT. She too believed it is a retail product
# if there were any doubts in our minds we sure would not have wanted to not go through this
mess.
She's a fraud and very green with computer products! She'd have seen both ads, one with a rebate and retail box and one without. She'd also know the BBRTL is retail and BB is OEM. Opting for the more expnsive OEM is comedy, but we all know the retail price dropped. Even though it didn't say OEM, it didn't say rebate either.
«Does outpost think we are idiots? »
Is that a rhetorical question or do you really expect someone here to answer you?
For some reason, you don't seem to be able to accept the fundamental truth here: you messed up. Hundreds of other customers here, at FW, and elsewhere on the Internet managed to order the correct product without difficulty or handholding. Some of the early customers got caught in an error of Western Digital's making and Outpost has taken steps to rectify those orders.
In your case though, you missed out on a very good deal because neither you nor your hot-shot purchasing agent friend followed the first rule of rebating -- to verify that the manufacturer's model number for the item you were ordering was the one cited on the rebate form. Your repeated complaints about having received an OEM disk rather than the retail model ignore the fact that you received exactly what you ordered -- which was not the item with the rebate link and whose item description shows a different Western Digital model number. The issue here is not OEM vs Retail; it's that you didn't order the qualifying product. You are now whining (or more accurately, slandering the vendor) because Outpost won't correct your mistake retroactively.
You have no grounds at all to complain to any consumer protection agency. The only one you should be complaining to is your non-rebate-savvy purchasing friend. If you think the disk you got is too expensive, return it and consider it a lesson learned.
NOTE: Please do not quote the entire previous message in your reply; we can all read up a few posts. This thread is about 3X as long as it should be because you insist upon re-copying everything.
Is that a rhetorical question or do you really expect someone here to answer you?
For some reason, you don't seem to be able to accept the fundamental truth here: you messed up. Hundreds of other customers here, at FW, and elsewhere on the Internet managed to order the correct product without difficulty or handholding. Some of the early customers got caught in an error of Western Digital's making and Outpost has taken steps to rectify those orders.
In your case though, you missed out on a very good deal because neither you nor your hot-shot purchasing agent friend followed the first rule of rebating -- to verify that the manufacturer's model number for the item you were ordering was the one cited on the rebate form. Your repeated complaints about having received an OEM disk rather than the retail model ignore the fact that you received exactly what you ordered -- which was not the item with the rebate link and whose item description shows a different Western Digital model number. The issue here is not OEM vs Retail; it's that you didn't order the qualifying product. You are now whining (or more accurately, slandering the vendor) because Outpost won't correct your mistake retroactively.
You have no grounds at all to complain to any consumer protection agency. The only one you should be complaining to is your non-rebate-savvy purchasing friend. If you think the disk you got is too expensive, return it and consider it a lesson learned.
NOTE: Please do not quote the entire previous message in your reply; we can all read up a few posts. This thread is about 3X as long as it should be because you insist upon re-copying everything.
ScrapSilicon
Lifer
- Apr 14, 2001
- 13,625
- 0
- 0
..now where is that padlock? << «Does outpost think we are idiots? »
Is that a rhetorical question or do you really expect someone here to answer you?
Interestingly enough you responded.
We are all entitled to our opinions.
Thank you.
For some reason, you don't seem to be able to accept the fundamental truth here: you messed up. Hundreds of other customers here, at FW, and elsewhere on the Internet managed to order the correct product without difficulty or handholding. Some of the early customers got caught in an error of Western Digital's making and Outpost has taken steps to rectify those orders.
In your case though, you missed out on a very good deal because neither you nor your hot-shot purchasing agent friend followed the first rule of rebating -- to verify that the manufacturer's model number for the item you were ordering was the one cited on the rebate form. Your repeated complaints about having received an OEM disk rather than the retail model ignore the fact that you received exactly what you ordered -- which was not the item with the rebate link and whose item description shows a different Western Digital model number. The issue here is not OEM vs Retail; it's that you didn't order the qualifying product. You are now whining (or more accurately, slandering the vendor) because Outpost won't correct your mistake retroactively.
You have no grounds at all to complain to any consumer protection agency. The only one you should be complaining to is your non-rebate-savvy purchasing friend. If you think the disk you got is too expensive, return it and consider it a lesson learned.
NOTE: Please do not quote the entire previous message in your reply; we can all read up a few posts. This thread is about 3X as long as it should be because you insist upon re-copying everything. >>
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