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Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

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Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#131

Post by lambertsimnel »

jerf wrote: post #16

I just straight-up ignore "sale" claims now, unless I have personal experience that says this really is a sale. This is mostly limited to groceries where I definitely know that the $4 bag of chips really is on sale at $1.50. Along with all the active deception, I also just count all the times I've gone price shopping for non-trivial things and the prices I see and how festooned with the word "sale" the page is is sim…

I once bought three different three-for-two offers in the UK, expecting to get the 3rd, 6th & 9th most expensive items free, but I was actually charged for all but the 7th-9th, which would have cost me a lot more

(I got the price I expected in the end, by making three separate purchases)

I also saw a competing chain labelling food nearing its use-by date with a higher price than otherwise identical items with longer to go, but presumably that was a genuine error

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#132

Post by Dylan16807 »

willcipriano wrote: post #122
lozenge wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, like how the US is so developed, you can get anything from a surgery to a cable plan at the advertised priced. Hang on, my hotel is calling me. Something about a resort fee...

First world problems Today I learned how to get left wing people to argue that regulation isn't necessary for a strong economy.

> First world problems

...yes? If you say something doesn't happen in the first world, then the only possible counterargument is someone citing a "first world problem". If "first world problems" aren't a valid example, then that would mean your claim is immune to evidence. Which would make it a useless claim.

> Today I learned how to get left wing people to argue that regulation isn't necessary for a strong economy.

Nobody said that.

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#133

Post by practice9 »

willcipriano wrote: post #49
imiric wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TIL Australia is a developing country. This xenophobic mindset is just not true. Similar and worse things happen in "developed" countries all the time as well, except at a different scale and potentially much worse consequences (e.g. 2008). The rule of law doesn't apply equally to everyone, and some people can skirt around it, or be above it.

Australia has fair dealing and rule of law. From a quick Google here is a list of some of the consumer protections afforded by their consumer protection organization: https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/buying-products-and-servic... Economies that lack those types of protections haven't developed as quickly or as to the same level of economies that have them. This is true globally and throughout history. What a first w…

> consumer protections afforded by their consumer protection organization

That is actually true of many so called "developing" countries too. The consumer protection organizations will accept your request and "investigate". The result of their investigation can amount to doing nothing (canned response) or recommending you go to court. You can win in the court, eventually. Spending time & money on what should be an automatic process.

> What the ACCC does > We educate businesses and consumers about their rights and obligations under the consumer guarantees. > If a business misleads consumers about their consumer guarantee rights, we can investigate. We may take some form of compliance or enforcement action.

> What the ACCC can't do > We don’t provide legal advice about what consumers are entitled to. > We don't provide legal advice on what businesses need to do in a particular situation. > We don’t resolve individual disputes about whether the consumer guarantees have been met or the remedy.

This is the beauty of bureaucracy in "developed" countries - they may or may not help you. And you will not know how effective they are until you actually need help. Kafkaesque rules and the multitude of agencies could be masking the potemkin village underneath.

I've heard some good things about the customer protection in the EU, but I don't think it's even generalizable over all of the EU member states.

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#134

Post by JohnFen »

dylan604 wrote: post #74

Isn't this standard operating procedure for anything retail? Why is Dell being singled out? Amazon is notorious about this. Look at the prices before one of their "events" on items, and then when the "event" starts you'll see that the price is the same only they list a higher price as the original and show the normal price as the sales price. So there's no difference in price before/after the event. Brick and mortar…

> Why is Dell being singled out?

Why not? Someone is going to be singled out. You can't really go after everyone simultaneously.

This reminds me of a story I heard of a guy who was speeding, but going the same speed as everyone else. He got stopped and as the cop was writing the ticket, he said "why are you singling me out, when everyone else was speeding too?"

The cop said "I can't stop everyone. You just drew the short straw this time."

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#135

Post by ketralnis »

dylan604 wrote: post #74

Isn't this standard operating procedure for anything retail? Why is Dell being singled out? Amazon is notorious about this. Look at the prices before one of their "events" on items, and then when the "event" starts you'll see that the price is the same only they list a higher price as the original and show the normal price as the sales price. So there's no difference in price before/after the event. Brick and mortar…

I'm always baffled by this argument. So because two people do a bad thing neither can be held accountable because each can just point at the other and dylan604 will say one is being singled out?

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#136

Post by whoopdedo »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #123

I think everyone in the USA knows that retailers will add stick a new label for $100 over the original $50 label, and then announce "50% off sale!" with impunity. I've literally peeled off the $100 sticker to find the $50 sticker underneath. In the UK and other places, this is illegal.

This is frequently a way to soften the impact of inflation. The trick I've been watching my grocery store use the last two years is a product will get a "clearance" tag on it with the price marked down 20 to 30 cents. They let the current stock sell out (or simply not restock the shelf) so it sits empty for a week. Then the same item reappears marked up 50 cents from the previous regular price. Occasionally there'll be different packaging so it appears more like a "new" product. But a few times I was able to compare the old with the new and it's always been the exact same thing.

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#137

Post by CapstanRoller »

Filligree wrote: post #22
willcipriano wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

As is the outrage and occasional lawsuits. The price of liberty is constant vigilance, but so is the price of a high-trust society. ...even though the whole point of one is that most people don't need it.

>The price of liberty is constant vigilance

Whose liberty, and for whom?

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#138

Post by DaveExeter »

bottom999mottob wrote: post #81
throwaway173738 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also just because something is in a larger size, it doesn’t always make the prices better. Once I was at Fred Meyer and the 1 pound bags of lentils were $1.50 but the two pound bags were $4.00. They were charging more for larger handling units.

Stores do this with shop towels too and it's aggravating. Why can't I buy bulk shop towels for less?!

Because they earn more money if they don't charge less! :-)

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#139

Post by rektide »

purplecats wrote: post #130
jerf wrote: post #16

I just straight-up ignore "sale" claims now, unless I have personal experience that says this really is a sale. This is mostly limited to groceries where I definitely know that the $4 bag of chips really is on sale at $1.50. Along with all the active deception, I also just count all the times I've gone price shopping for non-trivial things and the prices I see and how festooned with the word "sale" the page is is sim…

this is why crowdsourced (or otherwise) tools like https://keepa.com/ are great. because you can determine if something is a sale, not by the dark patterns utilized by your adversary, but by using historical data. we need a decentralized version such that amazon can't just do in and bribe/pay to remove their products from it though.

Yeah. I was going to point out https://camelcamelcamel.com which I've used religiously for years to gauge prices. Or https://isthereanydeal.com for video game prices (which thankfully don't spike that often but helps for assessing how deep a sale is).

Consumer empowerment is so wonderful. I was thinking yesterday about what a mystery it is that an auction site like ebay functions, that people would use it at all, without a tool to help them do silent auctioning/last minute bidding.

Would absolutely love for distributed layers to share & syndicate price and many other indicators to the world.

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#140

Post by willcipriano »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #132
willcipriano wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First world problems Today I learned how to get left wing people to argue that regulation isn't necessary for a strong economy.

> First world problems ...yes? If you say something doesn't happen in the first world, then the only possible counterargument is someone citing a "first world problem". If "first world problems" aren't a valid example, then that would mean your claim is immune to evidence. Which would make it a useless claim. > Today I learned how to get left wing people to argue that regulation isn't necessary for a strong economy.…

Here's what a third world problem looks like, you don't have power because someone cut down the power poles in your neighborhood to use as firewood, so you walk to the market to buy some cooking oil but the "vegetable oil" ends up making your kids sick because it isn't vegetable oil but instead oil from inside the transformer that used to be on those power poles. You complain but the mayor's brother owns the shop and threatens you, maybe he decides to bulldoze your house on a whim. You have no recourse for any of this.

While no where is perfect, that behavior is the exception instead of the rule in first world nations. As such consumers feel confident in spending money and that trust is seen in the economic results. People come from the world over to join these first world economies and invest in them, fleeing places without economic justice and rule of law.

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