Office Depot bait and switch

Office Depot advertises this week in their Sunday newspaper suppliment, on the
front page, a laptop for $279.99. Price good until 8/05/06.

This ad is deceptive in that there is a $70 hidden fee. It states in the
fineprint that shipping and handling are additional, but the amount is not
given. And that while the item must be ordered instore, it is available by
delivery only.

It mis-states that one can save $480 with the discounts offered. That is
plainly untrue; the savings cannot be more than $410.

The ad plainly states that the base configuration price is $279.99. The
local store manager explained that most of the $70 was for configuration,
which in fact is not even required.

This ad is designed to draw people to the local store, only at which time
they are told of the 25% add-on.

This is a level of deception I have not seen from Office Depot until recently.
I will no longer do business with them as they have wasted my time, gas and
patience.

Hal

Hal Greenlee wrote:
Office Depot advertises this week in their Sunday newspaper suppliment, on the
front page, a laptop for $279.99. Price good until 8/05/06.

This ad is deceptive in that there is a $70 hidden fee. It states in the
fineprint that shipping and handling are additional, but the amount is not
given. And that while the item must be ordered instore, it is available by
delivery only.

What does this have to do with Intel? And besides, $350 still sounds
pretty cheap to me. (Hell, if they get much cheaper, the OLPC project
is going to have a hard time justifying its existence...)

--
Mike Smith

Hal Greenlee wrote:
This is a level of deception I have not seen from Office Depot until recently.
I will no longer do business with them as they have wasted my time, gas and
patience.

What you don't consider those mail-in rebates to be deceptive too?
They've been around for years. With a mail-in rebate you get back money
on the original cost of the device, but you don't get back money on any
of the sales taxes that get added on to it. The sales taxes are always
calculated on the original cost of the device, not the reduced cost of
the device.

"Yousuf Khan" wrote in message
...
Hal Greenlee wrote:
This is a level of deception I have not seen from Office Depot until
recently.
I will no longer do business with them as they have wasted my time, gas
and
patience.

What you don't consider those mail-in rebates to be deceptive too?
They've been around for years. With a mail-in rebate you get back money
on the original cost of the device, but you don't get back money on any
of the sales taxes that get added on to it. The sales taxes are always
calculated on the original cost of the device, not the reduced cost of
the device.

Plus, it takes a certain level of harrassment and memory to get your money
back. I've always had to ask more than once to get my money back from those
"rebates" and while they say 6-10 weeks, it's usually more like 16-32 weeks.
I've had them spend 6 months trying to get me a $10 rebate. They hope
you'll either stop trying or forget about it. Don't forget to turn them in
right away too. They expire pretty quick so procrastination will cost you.
Office Depot's rewards card was another total ripoff. It took me a year to
get my $30 reward. They kept losing my numbers and my rewards points
somehow. I've long since given up on Office Depot. They are the worst
outfit out there.