Tag Archives: Internet

Buyer’s Fee

Posted by Piscis on

BuyersFee

 

I’m sure we’re all familiar with the sleazy but time-honored practice of shunting off portions of the cost of an item or service into a miscellany of arbitrary fees that are inseparable from the cost of trading in said item or service – and thus have no reason not to be factored into the sale price – in order to deceptively advertise a false, lower cost.

When the local K-Mart was closing down and selling off their fixtures, however, I saw what has to be the most blatant, lazy, and absurd example of this I could possibly imagine – a “buyer’s fee.”

Let me say that again – a “buyer’s fee.”

I mean, is there anything more inherent to the cost of buying an item than, you know, buying it?  It’s practically a parody of itself.

“See, this shelving unit costs $50, but the privilege of actually buying it will run you another $7.50.  You can avoid the buyer’s fee if you just want to pay the fifty bucks and let us keep the unit.”

Way to go, K-Mart.  You’ll be the envy of ISPs everywhere.  (>^-‘)>

 

Bene scribete.

Advertisement

What a Deal

Posted by Piscis on

WD Cloud Drive

 

Oh, hey, a networked hard drive you can set up to access from anywhere.  That could be handy. $100?  O.K., yeah, better than an ongoing subscription to a cloud service.  What’s the storage space on that thing?

 

That's a log of storage

 

Oh.  Well, um, hmm.

I guess that should be enough to store a list of things I could use it for.

 

Bene scribete.

The Internet is Interesting

Posted by Piscis on

I received this curious envelope in the mail the other day:

 

Cable Envelope

 

I wasn’t expecting a letter.  And who’s it from?  Hmm.  Let’s see what’s inside.

 

Cable Ad

 

O.K., a pretty standard ad flyer for cable Internet.  But why was it addressed by hand?  They send out thousands of these things.  And why in an unheaded envelope?

Oh, wait, what’s that written at the top?

 

Ad Message

We just added the Internet at our place.  We never knew the Internet could be so interesting – and so fast!  Thought you would be interested.

—M

 

Well, then.  Who, indeed, could have possibly known that the Internet was interesting?  Who would suspect that there would be anything of note within the largest collection of information and widest array of communication that has ever existed on this planet?  And it’s fast, you say?  Then I sure am glad you just now added it at your place, M, and that you realized that I would be interested that the Internet is interesting.

This is one of the more harebrained (not to mention a little creepy) marketing campaigns I’ve seen from a large corporation, lately.  Note how they think they’re being extra clever by omitting a return address and just using an initial (because it must certainly be from that person I know whose name starts with ‘M’) – real people always send things to their friends and family as close to anonymously as possible, right?

I think it’s the bizarre sloppiness that strikes me the most, though.  They go through the effort of hand-addressing these and passing them off as coming from an individual, but that’s the message they choose?  The Internet is interesting?  I mean, it would be no simple task to convincingly convey why clandestinely forwarding an ad flyer through the post would be anyone’s means of broaching the subject of Internet acquisition with a friend, but I would expect something a little more creative than this bland, generic nonsense – that’s what the rest of the page is for!

Also, I kind of don’t live in Illinois.

But, on the other hand, this amused me enough to share it, so I guess their advertising dollars aren’t completely going to waste.  (>^-‘)>

 

Bene scribete.