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#31
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Price Matching BS at BestBuy
On Fri, 12 Jan 2018 04:08:21 -0000 (UTC), Diesel
wrote in part: Until I make the decision to login with an account that knows alot about me of a personal nature, since I've used it to purchase items, whatever information they are getting on me is anonymous data that's not very consequential to me. Actually, the data is tied to you, so not anonymous. Basically all of the companies that say they only keep anonymous or unidentifiable data are lying. (And part of the business model of the companies that collect the data for the companies you do business with is that the information is identifiable.) |
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#32
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Price Matching BS at BestBuy
"Diesel" wrote
| 2) I see specs, image, etc fine at NewEgg pages. I | just don't see the price. So why do they need to use | script? That implies that they're setting different prices | for different visitors. I don't want to support that. | | Do you shop at lowes or home depot? If so, then you are supporting | that style of pricing. Contractors get a slightly lower rate on some | material and tools. I like to think of it as a customer loyalty | program of sorts. That's a good example of an interesting detail of human natu If 10 people have the option to look silly or be cheated, 9 will choose to be cheated. Your analogy doesn't work at all. Even if it did, that's no rationale for willingly being cheated and supporting such a system. You're defending a scam that you've been a victim of. And your analogy isn't even slightly applicable. For one thing, contractors are generally not retail customers. I don't get a discount at HD, but I do get contractor pricing at paint stores, lumber yards, etc. (And I pass that pricing on to my customers.) I also have accounts at contractor-only stores where the public can't shop at all. There are varying deals and varying levels of honesty/transparency with those setups. In general it's a kind of casual wholesale contract between two businesses. I'm buying from them as a business. ** What we're talking about with NewEgg is like if you went into Home Depot (or Microcenter, for that matter) and as you looked at items a tiny camera scanned your face, maybe scanned your phone, ID'd you, then displayed a price on a small LED price screen. Then as you walked on the price light would go out, in preparation for the next sucker. That's *exactly* what NewEgg is doing. They're guessing what you might be willing to pay. Not because you're a loyal customer. Just because they can. Where I live (MA, US) there's state law that all retail items must be tagged and unit pricing stickers must be on shelves where applicable. If the price rings up higher, in some cases they have to give me the item for free. NewEgg is similar. It's a retail store. If they had a local storefront they'd have to tag items and sell the same to everyone. They could have something like a Members Club or loyalty card for discounts, but they'd still have to list the price. The only difference here is that they're online and it's technically feasible to figure out who you are before they show you a price. And so far there are no laws to stop such scams. ** Auto parts are an example of especially sneaky and opaque pricing. Where I live it's standard for mechanics to jack up parts prices. If you're charged $200 labor and $200 parts for a muffler, that's really $120 parts and $280 labor. 40% of the parts cost is a scam. More recently, some parts stores are doing the same. Toyota was the first I noticed. They charge the same 2/3 markup for retail customers who are not mechanics. Then I caught AutoZone doing it. A muffler/tailpipe assembly was almost twice as much at AutoZone as it was at an independent parts store. In neither case did they know me. And the part was identical. Both were selling the same part number manufactured by the same company. |
#33
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Price Matching BS at BestBuy
"Gene Wirchenko" wrote
| I know that. Many security questions provided ask about a | favourite. Since that can easily change over time, they are bad | questions. I thought it made much more sense to ask you to provide both the question and the answer. It provides more flexibility, greater security, and more memorability. For some reason I don't see that anymore. Instead of answering your last address or 3rd grade teacher, you might think up something only you would know. Example: Your first time sailing was with Katy Smith, whom you called Kats, at Long Pond. You also had great sex that day. Question: Where did Kats sail? Answer: Long Pond You'll never forget the answer and it's nonsense to anyone else. I got stuck one day with my very elderly father. His question was "What's your favorite drink?" He was stumped. I pointed out that the only thing he drinks is milk. We tried milk. That turned out to be the right answer, but he had originally entered it all caps, so it took a long time to get past the challenge. |
#34
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Price Matching BS at BestBuy
On Fri, 12 Jan 2018 09:46:29 -0800, Gene Wirchenko
wrote: I know that. Many security questions provided ask about a favourite. Since that can easily change over time, they are bad questions. I would say "some" rather than "many. But almost every site gives you a choice of what security question to use, so it's easy to avoid those you think are bad. Choose questions like "what is your father's middle name?" "what is your spouse's mother's maiden name? "what was the name of your first pet?" and so on. They don't change over time. |
#35
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Price Matching BS at BestBuy
On Fri, 12 Jan 2018 13:27:05 -0500, "Mayayana"
wrote: "Gene Wirchenko" wrote | I know that. Many security questions provided ask about a | favourite. Since that can easily change over time, they are bad | questions. I thought it made much more sense to ask you to provide both the question and the answer. It provides more flexibility, greater security, and more memorability. For some reason I don't see that anymore. So did I. [snip] Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko |
#36
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Price Matching BS at BestBuy
On Fri, 12 Jan 2018 11:27:22 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote: On Fri, 12 Jan 2018 09:46:29 -0800, Gene Wirchenko wrote: I know that. Many security questions provided ask about a favourite. Since that can easily change over time, they are bad questions. I would say "some" rather than "many. But almost every site gives you a choice of what security question to use, so it's easy to avoid those you think are bad. Usually, most of them are bad, and the rest are not much better. Choose questions like "what is your father's middle name?" "what is your spouse's mother's maiden name? "what was the name of your first pet?" and so on. They don't change over time. Question 1: Not everyone has a middle name; I understand that Japanese do not. Question 2: If you divorce, the answer is now wrong. If you remarry, the answer is wrong. And what about polygynists? Some of these questions might seem OK, but they can have hidden traps. An example of this is "What is your favourite colour?" with the person answering "red" and being told that his answer must be at least four characters long. This can also apply to community names, and there are some single-character community names. I really like the system of letting you enter your own questions, but few Websites do this. Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko |
#37
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Price Matching BS at BestBuy
On Fri, 12 Jan 2018 11:56:58 -0800, Gene Wirchenko
wrote: On Fri, 12 Jan 2018 11:27:22 -0700, Ken Blake wrote: On Fri, 12 Jan 2018 09:46:29 -0800, Gene Wirchenko wrote: I know that. Many security questions provided ask about a favourite. Since that can easily change over time, they are bad questions. I would say "some" rather than "many. But almost every site gives you a choice of what security question to use, so it's easy to avoid those you think are bad. Usually, most of them are bad, and the rest are not much better. Not in my experience. Choose questions like "what is your father's middle name?" "what is your spouse's mother's maiden name? "what was the name of your first pet?" and so on. They don't change over time. Question 1: Not everyone has a middle name; I understand that Japanese do not. So, enter "none" as his middle name. Question 2: If you divorce, the answer is now wrong. If you remarry, the answer is wrong. And what about polygynists? Being wrong doesn't matter. What matters is that you remember what you entered. Just use your first wife's mother's middle name. Do you think it would be hard to remember that that's what you did? The point is that it isn't necessary to have a "correct" answer to any security question. What you need to provide as an answer is the answer you entered when you set up the account. You can use anything you want, as long as you are able to remember it. The only reason the choices are provided as questions is to make the answers easier for most people to remember. So, if you don't have a good answer to a question, make up an answer. If you provide "Superman" as your father's middle name, and "Lassie" as your first pet's name, that's fine if it works for you. Alternatively, you could even provide answers that have little of nothing to do with the question. So if your father doesn't have a middle name, but you know he likes gin and tonic, you can supply ginandtonic as his middle name. Or if suits you, supply ginandtonic even if he doesn't drink. Some of these questions might seem OK, but they can have hidden traps. An example of this is "What is your favourite colour?" with the person answering "red" and being told that his answer must be at least four characters long. This can also apply to community names, and there are some single-character community names. Then don't choose those questions. Or if red is your favorite color and the answer has to be at least four character long, answer something like "crimson." And by the way, if you use incorrect answers that you have trouble remembering, you can simply enter them into a program like KeePass. |
#38
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Price Matching BS at BestBuy
Mark F
Fri, 12 Jan 2018 18:01:28 GMT in alt.windows7.general, wrote: On Fri, 12 Jan 2018 04:08:21 -0000 (UTC), Diesel wrote in part: Until I make the decision to login with an account that knows alot about me of a personal nature, since I've used it to purchase items, whatever information they are getting on me is anonymous data that's not very consequential to me. Actually, the data is tied to you, so not anonymous. Basically all of the companies that say they only keep anonymous or unidentifiable data are lying. (And part of the business model of the companies that collect the data for the companies you do business with is that the information is identifiable.) I agree to a point as well as disagree. The site doesn't know if I'm using a vpn, a friends computer, a coffeeshop internet connection. I could be using a private vpn/proxy that isn't published on a list that tells the site I'm in vietnam, it has no way to confirm that without more information from me. The site is *trusting* that my browser is being truthful and reporting it's correct version as well as my OS, etc. It has no independent way to confirm any of that on it's own, without my logging into a real account available on the site in question. So, If I take a little prep time on my end and make a few changes to the information my browser sends back as well as alternate the IP address it sees, the information it thinks (as well as yourself) is tied to me is nothing of the sort. I could for all intents and purposes, clone some college kids internet 'credentials' and pretend to be them. The site itself has no way of knowing if I don't login to it. So as I wrote previously, Until I make the decision to login to the site, it has anonymous data on me which may not be of any use to it. The information it's collected might not even put me in the correct country. -- To prevent yourself from being a victim of cyber stalking, it's highly recommended you visit he https://tekrider.net/pages/david-brooks-stalker.php ================================================== = Is it ok to use my AM radio after NOON? |
#39
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Price Matching BS at BestBuy
"Mayayana" news
Fri, 12 Jan 2018 18:19:16 GMT in alt.windows7.general, wrote:
| Do you shop at lowes or home depot? If so, then you are supporting | that style of pricing. Contractors get a slightly lower rate on | some material and tools. I like to think of it as a customer | loyalty program of sorts. Is there a particular reason you like to quote in a non-standard way? Some clients evidently don't really mind and happily clean the resulting 'mess' up on their own. Mine doesn't. Forcing me to fix the unnecessary use of an additional character myself. The mess btw, is caused by my configuration to linewrap at 78 characters. *shrug* It's not a super big deal, but, it is slightly annoying and I'd like to know why you choose not to just use like most others? That's a good example of an interesting detail of human natu If 10 people have the option to look silly or be cheated, 9 will choose to be cheated. Your analogy doesn't work at all. Even if it did, that's no rationale for willingly being cheated and supporting such a system. You're defending a scam that you've been a victim of. I've noticed from reading other posts by you that you tend to call many things scams when they aren't. I'm not a victim of better than average joe pricing because I do enough business for them to reward me. I appreciate being able to save a little dough here and there. I put it towards other things. The analogy is a perfect fit, too. Some people refer to it as tiered pricing. I've heard it called something else, but, damned if I can remember the exact term right now. You for some reason? expect everyone is charged the same price for all things, but, that's generally not how it works. If you spend a good chunk of change on a monthly basis with a particular vendor, why shouldn't you reap a small reward for your loyalty? Via a discounted price at the register. I don't have to shop at those stores, I can beat their prices usually by going online and/or going to another store that's not affiliated with them. I choose to do business with them and as a result, based on the amount of money I bring them, I'm in a different pricing zone/tier/whatever than someone who rarely shops with them. And your analogy isn't even slightly applicable. For one thing, contractors are generally not retail customers. I don't get a discount at HD, but I do get contractor pricing at paint stores, lumber yards, etc. (And I pass that pricing on to my customers.) Hmm. How is what you're getting not a scam, but, what I'm getting when I do business with lowes, home depot, or various other parts supply places here a scam when I get a better price than someone who walked in off the street that does little business with them? The analogy holds just fine, thanks. For the simple reason, not everyone pays the sticker price; some of us pay less based on the amount of business/type of business we do with various companies. You claimed that newegg might be dishonest or otherwise shady for not showing you pricing without scripting, or having the potential to show you a different price than someone else. How is this any different than what I do with lowes/HD or what you do with a paint store? Do you really think a system builder should be paying full retail for components? I don't. The profit margin is slim as it is. If you do business with another component vendor known as techdata, you will be assigned a price tier; and you start at the bottom. The more business you do with them, the better the pricing becomes for you. I don't see that as a scam, rather, I see it as a sound business practice. As I wrote previously, atleast one repair shop I worked for had the same mindset and I didn't have a problem with it. Due to the fact the owner is a bit of a religious nut, churchs got decent discounts that a normal customer wouldn't ever get. As they were in a different pricing tier. They didn't have to pay full retail price on anything, and in some cases, they got certain items at our cost. I'm not a religious individual myself and don't price my work/parts just like he did, but I didn't have a problem with it either. I also have accounts at contractor-only stores where the public can't shop at all. There are varying deals and varying levels of honesty/transparency with those setups. In general it's a kind of casual wholesale contract between two businesses. I'm buying from them as a business. ** I have the same thing going here. And, again, I have no problem with the benefits I obtain that regular joe blow can't get. Regular joe blow isn't dealing with the headaches and stress of running a business, I am. You are. So.. it makes sense we should get a small reward for the additional effort we're putting in that they do not. By the same token though, if I wanted, I could sometimes beat the exceptional pricing they offer me; but I prefer to support local businesses whenever is realistically possible. And, I still like the idea of instant gratification; I'm walking out the door with what I wanted, instead of waiting on it, or having to drive an exceptionally long distance to special order it. What we're talking about with NewEgg is like if you went into Home Depot (or Microcenter, for that matter) and as you looked at items a tiny camera scanned your face, maybe scanned your phone, ID'd you, then displayed a price on a small LED price screen. Once you've logged in, if you're in a different pricing tier you'll be provided different pricing. Until you login though, you're shown the same price as everyone else who hasn't logged in, or doesn't qualify for the other pricing tiers. I see no dishonesty in what newegg is doing with this. The requirement to allow scripts to see the price is more likely geared towards competitors rather than an inconvenience towards you. Competition for the sale of electronics and repair fees is a stiff market these days and it's not getting better. You have tight margins to work with and there's no reason you need to give your competition your pricing so they can adjust theirs accordingly. Then as you walked on the price light would go out, in preparation for the next sucker. That's *exactly* what NewEgg is doing. They're guessing what you might be willing to pay. Not because you're a loyal customer. Just because they can. Unless you have some verified evidence to support such a conclusion, I'm just going to have to dismiss your claims. I've had a pleasant experience with Newegg every single time I've used them for quite a few years now. You recently learned they had an actual phone number. So... Where I live (MA, US) there's state law that all retail items must be tagged and unit pricing stickers must be on shelves where applicable. That's fine. Newegg isn't a brick and mortar store though and doesn't reside in your state. It would be difficult for your state to enforce it's rules in another state. The only difference here is that they're online and it's technically feasible to figure out who you are before they show you a price. And so far there are no laws to stop such scams. It's technically possible, to take an educated guess of who you are, but, until you sign in, no guarantee that the information is completely accurate. And that's not including various options available to myself, and, you, that forges/spoofs various information they'd be looking for to compare against known information on previous customers to correlate with. ** Auto parts are an example of especially sneaky and opaque pricing. Where I live it's standard for mechanics to jack up parts prices. If you're charged $200 labor and $200 parts for a muffler, that's really $120 parts and $280 labor. 40% of the parts cost is a scam. I'm sorry, but I consider that the cost of doing business. A mechanic shop is a sizable investment for the proper tools and support software/electronics required to work on modern cars these days. Some parts might cost you less than $20 dollars, but it could literally take hours to reach the bad component to replace it. Once you know for sure which component it is that's gone south. You should be billed for that. If you disagree with the labor rate, you're welcome to buy the component yourself, if you know for sure which one it is that's bad, and take your car someplace else, or do it yourself, if you have the necessary tools and other equipment to make the repair. I'm not sure what you mean by jack up parts prices either. Where I live, it's standard to charge atleast 20% or slightly more depending on the part greater than what the part cost you. Or, the customer can bring their own part in, and it can be changed out. Some shops will still do that, with the understanding that you did the diagonsis yourself and you think it's this part; so we'll install it. If you were wrong, you're still going to pay us the labor. And, it's actually going to cost you more if you want it done right, because they'll charge you for the proper troubleshooting time and the right part to replace the one that actually is bad. And additional labor to install it. That's the price you pay if you want to save some dough and pretend to be something you aren't, if you're diagnosis is wrong. Sadly, I see this quite a bit in electrical and tech work. The customer assumes they know what's broken so they go ahead and buy the part(s) they think need to be replaced. Then, when they discover they can't actually change the parts out themselves, they call someone like me. Most (but not all) of the time, the customer was way out in center field with their diagnosis and didn't buy anything useful to fix the issue. So they can deal with the return policy at the place they bought it, while I retrieve the proper components from the truck after doing a real diagnosis of the issue and charge them accordingly. In some cases, it's not even a bad part, but a ****ed up configuration file or something along those lines. If it takes me twenty minutes to properly diagnose it and fix it, great; but you're still going to pay me for the full hour. You aren't paying me for my time so much as you are the knowledge I have that's required to properly fix the issue. Granted, I've had a few customers stiff me when it comes time to pay the bill. I chalk that upto the cost of doing business too; acceptable risk, especially with a new client. That being said, the same individual usually calls me after a few days with another, unrelated issue and that's where they pay what I call the don't stiff me again fee, first and foremost before I do anything to fix the issue they contacted me about, and, it's intentionally, expensive. Excessively expensive, because, nobody likes to be ****ed over. And some people learn best when it hits their wallet. Infact, it's the best lesson for some people who will learn no other way. I'll give you a simple example. I drove an hour and a half to do an onsite call a few months back for an individual. It took me 40 minutes to diagnose and fix the problem. The customer decided he wasn't going to pay me for the full hour, since it didn't take me an hour. I'm not going to haggle over my pricing, I tell you up front what the cost is per hour and I provide a reasonable estimate based on the information you provide me concerning the problem. I don't have hidden fees, and I don't charge extra for the miles or distance. It's flatrate and the clock doesn't start until I'm in your driveway, so you aren't even paying for the hour and a half I took to get there. I consider this to be far more than fair. I wouldn't accept his counter offer after I'd already done the work. When I knew for sure I wouldn't be paid, I kept my mouth shut about some other issues that were not related to the reason he called me. Sure enough, about three days later, a machine I didn't work on, but knew had an issue became a big problem for him (He ran a small business on it) and it finally went down. Had I been paid, I would have spent the other twenty minutes taking a close look at that machine as well as fixing another issue that wasn't related, but he came at me with the wrong attitude and didn't pay me for the work we agreed on. When he called me three days later, I explained to him that I wasn't interested in doing any further work for him, unless he was willing to pay my don't stiff me again fee; which is $250 cash. No checks, no debit/credit cards, cash only. Plus my hourly rate. The $250 would be due upon my arrival, no options. He agreed, so I went. This time, his bill was $300 for something that took me twenty minutes to resolve. I could have done it over the phone, but, since he stiffed me the first time, there was no way in hell I was going to do that for him. Had he paid me my usual rate the first time, I would have helped him out for free over the phone, no charge. So he only cost himself a lot more money than he would have otherwise, had he not stiffed me the first time. Thankfully, I come highly recommended for the reputation I have as doing the work right the first time and not cutting corners. I'm well known in this area as a damn good technician and i'm proud of that. I think my rate is more than fair, too. In other words, due entirely to his refusal to pay me a fair rate for the work I did, he cost himself $300 dollars for a fifty dollar repair job. He learned his lesson. He's been a good customer since then and doesn't even try playing games with me. A competitor actually recommended me to him for the specific issue he was having, infact. It's one of my specialities. More recently, some parts stores are doing the same. Toyota was the first I noticed. They charge the same 2/3 markup for retail customers who are not mechanics. Then I caught AutoZone doing it. I get discounts with those guys local to me here, because I buy alot of parts for various vehicles I either work on myself or have a legit mechanic work on for me, at a reasonable rate. I provide tech support to keep his power/electronics/computers going, so he doesn't charge me his full rate when I need something done to a vehicle of mine. We have an understanding. We came to that understanding when I originally charged him my full rate for what took several hours to do for him. When he found out that my rate wasn't that far from his, he suggested we do a little 'trading' instead. It's been gravy since then. A couple of months ago, I ran him a new 240 volt line to feed a new welder he acquired and didn't charge him anywhere near what another electrician would have. He purchased the wire on my account at a local supply house, so he got a good deal there and I only charged him half my usual labor rate, so he did good there too. In exchange, he replaced a pain in the ass water pump on one of my trucks for only the cost of the pump. I just don't see things the same way concerning scams as you do. A scam to me is something else entirely, not a different pricing tier or bracket. A muffler/tailpipe assembly was almost twice as much at AutoZone as it was at an independent parts store. In neither case did they know me. And the part was identical. Both were selling the same part number manufactured by the same company. That happens anywhere you go, though. I had to purchase a new ignition module for one of my vans a few years ago. Advance auto wanted $140 for the unit, and Oreilly (sp?) had the same exact thing for $50. I haven't had an issue with it, despite it being ninety dollars cheaper. Nothing wrong with shopping around is the lesson to be learned there. -- To prevent yourself from being a victim of cyber stalking, it's highly recommended you visit he https://tekrider.net/pages/david-brooks-stalker.php ================================================== = Dogs come when they're called. Cats take a message and get back to you. |
#40
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Price Matching BS at BestBuy
"Mayayana" news
Fri, 12 Jan 2018 18:27:05 GMT in alt.windows7.general, wrote:
You'll never forget the answer and it's nonsense to anyone else. That usually works, unless you're close enough to another person that they'd also know this information and have nefarious intent towards you. I got stuck one day with my very elderly father. His question was "What's your favorite drink?" He was stumped. I pointed out that the only thing he drinks is milk. We tried milk. That turned out to be the right answer, but he had originally entered it all caps, so it took a long time to get past the challenge. Which isn't a bad thing. The security question was doing it's job in that event. You knew the answer, but, you didn't initially know how he entered it. -- To prevent yourself from being a victim of cyber stalking, it's highly recommended you visit he https://tekrider.net/pages/david-brooks-stalker.php ================================================== = Love's as good as soma! |
#41
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Price Matching BS at BestBuy
Ken Blake
Fri, 12 Jan 2018 20:25:15 GMT in alt.windows7.general, wrote: The point is that it isn't necessary to have a "correct" answer to any security question. What you need to provide as an answer is the answer you entered when you set up the account. You can use anything you want, as long as you are able to remember it. And preferably, an answer that nobody else is going to know. As that's the point of the security questions. To try and ensure you actually are you. And not someone else, who knows you well, that's pretending to be you. -- To prevent yourself from being a victim of cyber stalking, it's highly recommended you visit he https://tekrider.net/pages/david-brooks-stalker.php ================================================== = Freedom is just chaos with better lighting. |
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