Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

thehustle.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 471 posts

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#411

Post by komali2 »

briandear wrote: post #262
god_bless_texas wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mattress Mack?

OT but worth mentioning.. He is one of the finest human beings to ever come out of Houston. A class act. He flew a bunch of vets on a private jet to the World Series just because. He also does a massive amount of charity that doesn’t make the headlines. During Harvey, as you know, he opened his furniture store as a shelter. A real gem of a person. He is also in his store, open to close, every day. (“I-45 North betwee…

He did the "oil price above 75$ barrel by end of 2015 = all purchases for the year refunded" deal as well.

Which meant as an oil and gas recruiter, not only was I juggling a shitload of candidates whose rent payments depended on us finding them employment (which depended on prices getting above 75$), they also had huge credit card debts that they'd have to keep paying off of the price didn't go up.

Great fun.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#412

Post by listenallyall »

eric_h wrote: post #249
tikhonj wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sub-story about the Tesla is an example of one of the "other types of car giveaways" that is actually legitimate—not the telemarketing scam.

That sub story also takes place in a location where the local authorities are very active in finding and squashing scams (Vegas).

Sorry but seeing comments like this about topics I know about, make me question what other falsehoods and inaccuracies I am reading on HN.

The story about the Tesla took place at Four Winds Casino New Buffalo, which is in Michigan, not Las Vegas. Legally speaking, it is a sovereign nation so I would not put much trust in "local authorities" to protect consumers. Further, although Nevada does have a gaming commission, there are still plenty of "scams" and questionable promotional tactics used by companies both inside and outside of the casinos. Time-share sales, for example, are big business in Las Vegas.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#413

Post by kolpa »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #368
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.

Seems that it would violate the "no purchase necessary" rule most (all?) states require to avoid it being an illegal lottery.

It appears that since there are no "winners and losers" -- either everyone wins or every one loses an equivalent amount, these giveaways are not in scope for sweepstakes/contest laws.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#414

Post by komali2 »

logfromblammo wrote: post #337
im3w1l wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between a $200 mattress and the best in the world is way less than 1h per night.

Not to mention that I have taken some pretty rockin' naps in hammocks of various sizes, the cheapest of which was $4.99, and packed down into a twist of netting smaller than my fist. But to be fair, the two appropriately-spaced trees required for that one were not included. The mattress is by no means the only way to get a complete and restful night of sleep, and past a certain materials threshold, you can't get long…

I get a just fine sleep on the ground with nothing more than a 100$ air pad, and I've done better in the sand sometimes.

Not for everyone though, but I bet if I could get them sleeping similarly from a young age, it would be.

1.3billion Chinese sleep on essentially padded wood just fine, for example.

Sex is a big plus for a mattress, though. On a padded wood Chinese "bed" it's just fucking horrible for whoever's on top's knees/elbows/wrists/contact points.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#415

Post by komali2 »

Casseres wrote: post #389
Coincoin wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father used to tell me: "Don't skimp on your bed, your chair and your car tires."

I've heard it as basically: anything that seperates you from the ground.

That theory worked for me for everything

Motorcycle gear

Tires

Boots

Climbing gear

And then I got into hammocking, and nothing seems to beat my first, a Bear Butt I got for 50$. Seems the more expensive they get, they lose out on just being big nice expansive hammocks with silky smooth material. So not a hard rule I guess!

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#416

Post by listenallyall »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #305
logfromblammo wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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 )

I love my IKEA Hesstun. 2 separate sets of coils (I prefer springs to memory foam), a comparable design from the major brands was about twice the price. IKEA offers a transparent profile view (i.e. the inside of the mattress) for every mattress they sell, and you can lie on every one for hours without a single salesperson bothering you. 365-day exchange policy, longer than any of the stores I visited was offering (IKEA allows exchanges, but not refunds on mattresses). People knock IKEA but I do not believe my mattress is inferior in build quality to an assembly-line mattress from Sealy, Simmons, etc.

I know my mattress has low ratings online -- this is meaningless, all the review sites are just commissioned salespeople for the online brands (Casper, Purple, etc), so of course those sites discourage you from buying from IKEA.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#417

Post by sanderjd »

Bartweiss wrote: post #239
sanderjd wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem here is information asymmetry. The market for these time share schemes is very inefficient because the sales people have more information on both the value and cost than the customers. This is why people commenting here who have out of band information about this were unpersuaded despite finding the pitch emotionally compelling / exhausting. Regulations to require earlier and less subtle cost disc…

> The biggest problem here is information asymmetry. This gets to the heart of a question I've always had about unfettered markets, and never seen answered. It's widely acknowledged that markets don't just satisfy demand, they also transfer information. If you know something other people don't, you can make money, but in doing so you'll gradually disperse your unique knowledge until it's no longer valuable. (Either d…

Markets are just a tool. Entirely unregulated markets exhibit some undesirable properties. Society, through government, has every right to aim to diminish the ill effects of these undesired properties. But it also behooves society to be careful in how it regulates, in order to avoid diminishing the usefulness of this tool. It's a balance. This is not as sexy or simple in principle as either extreme, but it's the right answer.

This is one of those cases where regulation makes sense. I think regulations aimed at improving information symmetry are some of the best. They are fairly low impact; maybe they stomp on an arbitrage opportunity, but they don't limit the solution space nearly as much as regulations that simply proscribe what you can and can't do, for instance.

Basically: the "hard libertarians and anarcho-capitalists" are just wrong. But if they were to rebut with a take down of state controlled economies, I would definitely agree with them about that. The trick is to strike a good balance.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#418

Post by paulie_a »

dpiers wrote: post #250
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.

Terms like “Super Bowl” and “World Series” are trademarked, so advertisers use phrases like “the Big Game” or “baseball final championship series”, in this case, to avoid a lawsuit.

The Olympics are down right evil when it comes to selecting cities. They will require long standing businesses to change their names of it is related to certain terms.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#419

Post by mleonhard »

Is this article a very clever Facebook submarine marketing ad? It ends with a false statement about Facebook providing instructions to delete data. I live in USA and can't find any way to delete my browsing history that Facebook collected via the Like button.

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#420

Post by paulie_a »

namibj wrote: post #384
mrbill wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mattresses (Casper), office chairs (Steelcase LEAP), keyboards (something with Cherry MX Brown switches). I spend the majority of my life using these bits so I buy quality.

Do you have any arguments to convince an employer to buy Cherry MX Brown (style) keyboards, instead of <15$ flimsy, flat membrane ones?

Im worried about the health of the company if it can't afford a slightly more expensive keyboard that will last years and make me more productive.

If that is a big ticket item I would wonder if they are in serious trouble or it's just a shitty place to work for. A managers response to a request like that should be "here's the corporate card" or "submit the receipt for reimbursement"

Post reply on HN