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Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

thehustle.co

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Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#301

Post by s73v3r_ »

Bartweiss wrote: post #233
pwg wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is quite possible. I presumed the 'open plan sales room' was exactly to play on 'follow the herd' mentality. These guys were slick enough that they very well may have filled half or more of the room with plants to further fuel 'herd' mentality.

Interesting - the presentation I saw was careful to pitch each family separately and not even walk them past one another. I assume it was partly for the feeling of exclusivity, and partly to avoid letting any awkward questions like "don't those fees turn this into a total ripoff?" pollute multiple buyers. I wonder which approach works best? (Though I guess if there are enough plants, you could get both effects going…

Perhaps they were A/B testing the approaches?

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#302

Post by 2bitencryption »

sudouser wrote: post #277
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to remember there was a similar case prosecuted at some point where the advertiser claimed that the car was only for illustrative purposes and even drew an analogy with having a model display some goods, saying you wouldn't expect to be buying the model along with the goods. I might have just dreamt all that up though because I can't find anything online.

there was a case of a hooters employee, she expected to win a toyota but manager supposedly said “toy yoda”

My memory is 50/50 on whether this is from real life or The Office.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#303

Post by schoen »

sudouser wrote: post #277
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to remember there was a similar case prosecuted at some point where the advertiser claimed that the car was only for illustrative purposes and even drew an analogy with having a model display some goods, saying you wouldn't expect to be buying the model along with the goods. I might have just dreamt all that up though because I can't find anything online.

there was a case of a hooters employee, she expected to win a toyota but manager supposedly said “toy yoda”

Apparently true: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hummer-bummer/

Interestingly, the family that started Toyota is named "Toyoda" (with a d, or rather a だ).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakichi_Toyoda

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#304

Post by s73v3r_ »

pknopf wrote: post #163
pwg wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roping the unsuspecting into an incredibly expensive time-share using hard-sell boiler-room tactics without ever being up-front about the true costs. I sat through one of these once, curious about how it was going to go, and with the intent going in of not ever buying anything anyway. They present the timeshare as if it costs only pennies a day, and never admit to the true cost unless pressed very hard (and even then…

I'm all for capitalism, but I feel like this should be illegal. Yes, I know, "the consumers shouldn't be so dumb". But there is always the group of a society that will bite. The seller may make a good buck, but these tactics have many downstream effects that just get compounded for the people buying this garbage. There should be some kind of protection for the consumers in this case. I know it would be hard to define…

One of the main reasons I can't buy the "The consumers shouldn't be so dumb" argument is that there's usually a concentrated push back every time the idea of teaching basic financial literacy in high school comes up. I could understand it if people were taught basic personal finance, but most people are not taught these things.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#305

Post by seanp2k2 »

logfromblammo wrote: post #278
technofiend wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a furniture salesman here in Houston who makes heavy use of that sort of promotion. His latest if you spend $3,000 on a mattress and the Astros win the "2018 baseball final championship series" you'll be refunded the purchase price. Not sure why it's worded so formally; must be a legal thing.

$3000 on a mattress? WTF? How is that even possible for such a highly commoditized good?

You can get IKEA mattresses for a couple hundred bucks and they’re OK, but having upgraded to a really nice cal king latex foam mattress a few years ago, it’s now hard to sleep anywhere else ( https://www.flobeds.com for those curious — arrived at this after tons of research, easy to move since it comes apart into pieces that fit into contractor trash bags and ships in vacuum sealed bags — no box spring either )

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#306

Post by Rjevski »

pwg wrote: post #283
Rjevski wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This used to be true but I really doubt it’s the case anymore. Most of the “PSTN” nowadays has a bunch of SIP or other digital stuff in the middle, so this breaks down. Not to mention, this was never possible for mobiles to begin with.

It is how the old copper PSTN network worked, and if you are lucky enough to still have an actual copper PSTN phone line it is still true.

My argument was that even if you did have an “actual” copper line it would eventually be terminated at a device that speaks analog phone line on one end and spits out SIP on the other end.

This specific hanging-up behaviour was an artifact of older analog switches and I didn’t think they would emulate it in the software-based SIP switches but according to the comment above it’s still the case.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#307

Post by btilly »

Zetaphor wrote: post #256
braythwayt wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way back in the day, I had a reinsurance company as a client. For those unfamiliar, reinsurance companies insure insurance companies. For example, they might insure a standard insurance company for automobile accidents, with a $1,000,000 deductible. So the retail insurance company handles payouts up to a million dollars, but when there's a really wild claim, the reinsurance company pays the insurance company for anyt…

Who insures the reinsurance company?

Berkshire Hathaway.

Per https://www.reuters.com/article/us-berkshire-buffett-insuran..., they are planning for handling a potential $400 billion catastrophe.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#308

Post by Rjevski »

NLips wrote: post #269
Rjevski wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This used to be true but I really doubt it’s the case anymore. Most of the “PSTN” nowadays has a bunch of SIP or other digital stuff in the middle, so this breaks down. Not to mention, this was never possible for mobiles to begin with.

It really is the case. VOIP in the middle isn't a problem. MGCs can translate between the callee's phone being on-hook to a SIP re-INVITE with inactive media. In fact, I've worked on projects in the last few years to do just this. Telcos move slowly. You're right about mobile networks though - that's a different kettle of fish.

Just wondering, why is that? It seems like a lot of effort instead of just sending a BYE when the phone is hanged up. I don’t see any legitimate reason for this “feature” to exist - if anything it makes scams & eavesdropping by a malicious remote caller easier.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#309

Post by s73v3r_ »

nickik wrote: post #212
pknopf wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for capitalism, but I feel like this should be illegal. Yes, I know, "the consumers shouldn't be so dumb". But there is always the group of a society that will bite. The seller may make a good buck, but these tactics have many downstream effects that just get compounded for the people buying this garbage. There should be some kind of protection for the consumers in this case. I know it would be hard to define…

How would you even regulated that? This is the sort of detailed complex gray-zone law that is hard to define and harder to enforce. A more general increase in the power of contract and what the need to include to make them valid.

Force them to, up front, present a very clear, very basic, and in very legible print the exact terms, and exactly how much this will cost per month, per year, and how much interest will have been paid over that time. Including the addition of all fees.

Something similar to the nutrition label.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#310

Post by wrich5011 »

MatthewWilkes wrote: post #15

Amusingly, the website this article is hosted in pops up a modal asking you to sign up to a mailing list with a low contrast dismiss button and saying "you can always unsubscribe". People in glass houses.

Also there’s about 17 typos and grammar issues in this tiny article making me question if the “investigative journalism” portion of this article is just made up.

Seems suspicious that they are willing to spend days chasing down a story but not 5 minutes proofreading...

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