Super hdd sale

[johnnyapollo]

The rebates are actually from Western Digital and not Dell. It will remain to be seen what actually happens.

-- John

[RalphDog]

I have to agree with you Dallas about Dell not shpping. If Dell claims they are out of stock, there is nothing anyone can do. My point was that if they do ship, the rebates will be honored.

[Dallas4u]

If the rebate is through Dell, and they ship the product, then I would think you are right... the person offering the rebate would have to honor it to the person who purchased the product. Now, if the rebate is through Western Digital, and it is pusrchased through Dell... I'm not sure what would happen there.

[WyrreJ]

Originally posted by IsuZOOM
I have to tell you, taking advantage of an accidental mistake and trying to essentially steal an extra $100 from Dell is immoral. Karma, people

I fully disagree. This was posted recently in a "deals" forum for another taking-advantage-of-a-mistake deal and it pretty much sums up my opinion on the topic.

As long as the marketplace thinks caveat emptor is a valid way to do business there is absolutely nothing wrong with the reciprocal attitude of caveat vendor. In fact, any idealogy that does not acknowledge the inherent fairness of treating others as they treat you is unbalanced. That is not to say that an escalated response is fair play, only that of an equal one.

Now, if you want to change the status quo, then going all gandhi may be one way to do that (like, say in palestine, where people's lives are on the line) but personally I am just fine with the status quo of the marketplace. Vendors do their best (within the law) to extract money from me and I will do my best to extract value from them.

[paultvx]

Originally posted by IsuZOOM
I have to tell you, taking advantage of an accidental mistake and trying to essentially steal an extra $100 from Dell is immoral. Karma, people

Immoral? Oh please. What about the people who have no idea that it's a mistake and think it's actually the sale/liquidation price? Are they immoral too? Judge not lest ye be judged.

[Navigator]

... Most likely they will issue a full refund rather than ship the product at a loss after spotting the error.

I must admit, even though I just bought a new 80Gb HDD last week, I was tempted to jump in on that insane offer. I haven't seen deals like that since Priceline.com came to it's senses on airfares a few years back.

[Moncha]

I would have just loved to jump in on this kind of a deal.. I'm upgrading (Actually building 2 new new ones) my home computer with 4 250GB SATA and they aint cheap!

[IsuZOOM]

We're not talking about people who ordered not knowing it was a mistake. We're talking about people taking advantage of an error and then complaining when Dell realized the mistake. You think Dell should just lose $100 on every sale? What if they sold 100,000 of these drives? They should just shell out the $10 million, huh?

[WyrreJ]

You are changing your argument as you go. But nevertheless, I say yes. Dell should eat $10M if they had sold enough to make that number (note, that number is seriously unrealistic because the rebates are limited to one per household, even with the fatwallet type coverage it is unlikely that 100,000 rebateable orders were placed during that time period).

We are all too lenient on big companies doing poor implementations of website ordering systems. It is not that hard to put a sell rate threshold on their inventory such that if the system starts to see an item sell at, say, 300% of its normal sell rate that a human being be notified who immediately investigates the situation, applies some of those human thought processes that we can't seem to teach a machine yet, and decides to temporarily suspend future sales of the item in question until the error is corrected.

Instead most companies just let the error go on unchecked for days and then half the time choose an unprofessional method to handle the problem, like "disappearing" the order without any trace or explanation, or putting the order into a permanent state of "waiting to be shipped" or (as HP did recently) calling up people who received the orders and telling them that they could either return the product or pay an additional charge (which is completely illegal). Some companies are at least gracious enough to handle the order cancellation gracefully with an email acknowledging their error, apologizing and sometimes offering a discount of some sort on a future purchase (note that a meaningless discount is worse than no discount).

But, nevertheless, if they had designed their website software correctly in the first place only a couple of hundred orders would slip through, if not less, and with those kind of numbers they get the PR of actually honoring their mistakes without the negative of losing any "real" money. One result of such good PR is that it will encourage people (albiet bargain-hunter types, but even they will make impulse buys) to spend more time exploring the website looking for deals. The more people who browse, the more likely someone is going to make an impulse, or otherwise profitable for the seller, buy. Everybody wins.

[VXMAN]

Here's one for ya. Take a look at this url: http://www.performancebike.com/shop/....cfm?SKU=15842
It's a bike trainer I ordered last week. I got an e-mail for this vendor, stating the heart rate monitor is not longer available, so my order was canceled! I replied, I still want the trainer, is that part still on order? I got a reply, nope, sorry, since the heart rate monitor is no longer available, my entire order was canceled and just to reorder the trainer. NOW, here's the kicker, on that link, click on the Combo Offer. BAM, still offering the trainer and Free heart rate monitor, plus a 10% discount. So guess what I did, YEP, reordered it again today. If I get another e-mail, telling me the heart rate monitor is not available and my order is canceled, you best your ***** I'm calling them up. Telling them, if the s***s not available, get it off their web site, and I will be demanding / expecting my trainer & heart rate monitor shipped, at the web site advertized price. Now, I'm wrong here?

Dave...

>>> Edited for obscenity...WSG

[Dallas4u]

By the way, as if like clockwork, Dell is canceling these orders left and right. If you are one of the lucky few that receives their order... congrats!!!

I still order dell for work... no complaints, as long as I can get it.

[Inaba]

I got this in my mail box this morning, sadly:

Valued Customer,

This note is in reference to your order for a 200 GB Western Digital hard
drive that you have placed. It has come to our attention that duplicate
$100 mail-in rebate coupons were posted online on the product page for this
drive, although there is only one rebate available on this drive. We do not
want any customers to have ordered this drive based on the mistaken
assumption that $200 of rebates applied, so we want to give you this
opportunity to cancel your order if there was any confusion resulting from
the duplicate rebate coupons.

If you wish to continue your order with $100 in applicable mail-in rebates
with a revised ship date, you may do so by contacting the
US_DELL_Notify@Dell.com mailbox. If we do not hear from you within 3
business days of this notice, we will conclude that you do not wish to
continue with your order, and we will cancel it.

Thank you,
Dell Notification Team

$122 still isn't a horrible deal... but certainly not the steal $22 is.

[Inaba]

And now I just received this:

Dear Valued Customer,

After further consideration, we have determined that the $200 in rebates
will be honored on eligible purchases of 200 GB Western Digital hard drives
ordered between September 25, 2003 and September 27, 2003. Please disregard
our prior communication on this issue. We value you as a customer and will
keep your order in process at the original online purchase price.

If you have cancelled your order due to the initial message posting and wish
to reinstate your order, please respond back to the US_DELL_NOTIFY@DELL.COM
<<mailto:US_DELL_NOTIFY@DELL.COM>> <<<mailto:US_DELL_NOTIFY@DELL.COM>>>
mailbox. Due to the overwhelming response to this promotion the Western
Digital hard drive will have twenty one days lead time before the item
ships. We will be posting revised instructions for submitting rebate
requests and will be extending the submission deadline.

If you would still like to cancel your order please contact us at the
US_DHS_NOTIFY@DELL.COM <<mailto:US_DHS_NOTIFY@DELL.COM>>
<<<mailto:US_DHS_NOTIFY@DELL.COM>>> mailbox. We apologize for any
inconvenience that this may have caused you and thank you for your patience
in this matter..


Dell Notification Team

My opinion of Dell has shot up a good number of notches... and I will certainly consider ordering from them in the future as a possiblity. I'll also consider reccomending them to people as well... both of these I would not have done in the past.

[SGT.BATGUANO]

Now where was that "immoral" post?

[dyanni]

We used Dell at work for as long as I can remember - Servers and Workstations. We recently went though a large contract bidding process where Dell, IBM, and HP all competed. I was really Hoping Dell would be the one, but side-by-side comparison of Proposals from all three companies demonstrated one poorly composed bid - and two great ones. Guess which proposal was poor. Dell really needs to spit and polish it's customer face. They resell other companies hardware - so good relations is all they really have to go on. ( and cool looking cases IHMO )

On the other hand. I know a mistake when I see it. I think Dell's first response was correct. May not be politically correct, but people these days have learned, if you squeak enough, you get the grease. If Dell had continued with their initial plan - no-one would have had a -real- loss ( because rather than being in the market for a drive, some of you only ordered the drive because of the mistake ). Some of you prefer to see Dell take a hit on this ( or any company ) that makes an honest mistake. If Dell had tried to lure you in with a low price - and then switch that price on you, you would have a claim. But this was pricing mistake by a guy running their website .... He is the one bearing the brunt of this mass greed.

Whenever confronted by the ultra-human urge to indulge in greed myself, I always remember something my grandmother told me, before she lost her mind ....

Life is short, and then you die. Live your life like someone you care about is watching. ... and wear clean underwear.

I worked with a lady once who believed that anyone else's mis-fortune was her gain. If someone dropped money, and no-one else could see it, she would say "thank you lord for my blessing" - they could drop their whole wallet - ID and all -, and her phrase would be the same.

Dell has really "blessed" some of you this-time. Maybe you are lucky ...

Normally I keep opinions like this to myself, because generally they are not popular with my friends. But I have been on the Atkins diet for a couple of weeks, and I am getting increasingly irritated at the smallest of things. My blood pressure is at 96/59 - and I smell like sugar-pop cereal. Is this normal ?

BTW: I will be in Seattle/Redmond area for two weeks in the middle of October sans VX. - And Dallas first week in November with VX - if any of yall want to meet up.