Logbook: Stores
Phone Fun MMXXIV – thank you sprint….(nexus S 4g)
After Much Dealings with replacing my phone more times than the amount of explosions in a Michael bay movie, Sprint has worked with me and I have gotten away from HTC..
After going back and forth with the executive customer care since my phones kept having issues. they offered to restart my contract and pick up a phone at new contract cost, which was alot better than returning phone after phone. I tried to get a brand new EVO in hope of getting a phone without issue.
It just seems sprints flagship phones from the refurbished end are TERRIBLE.
From the B spot to random reboots and bad sound…
I wondered if HTC’s release products are the same – there is no way quality control should of ever let these phones back on the market. A refurbished phone is like a repaired car, It should look and act like NEW..
Anyways I am fully done with HTC.. the only way I’d use one is if one was given to me…
well, This time i’ve gone with a Samsung… though, The second phone problem going back to Phone fun 3 was a samsung. This time I’ve gone with a Samsung Nexus s 4g
Now in previous post I’ve had my “Requirements for my phone”.
- to make calls –
- The Phone is configurable
- good battery life
- add/make ringtones
- Applications that don’t cost a years pay for a small 3rd world country
- Durable
Basically The nexus S is as follows.
- This phone makes calls and does it well with one small stipulation.. in some areas the antenna for the phone is lacking.
- Configuration on most android phones is your mileage may vary.. but this phone you can configure it pretty much ANY way you please… rooting is fairly simple. reflashing is simple.
- This point Really needs a to be explained, since any smart phone will not hold a candle to a “dumb” phone , On average a smart phone lasts about 1 day on a decent charge. The EVO on average would require charging after about 18hours. The nexus easily passes the 1 day marker and most days it gets close to 2 days before requiring to be charged.
- on android phones this is a dead simple process.
- Android Market has all kinds of applications- but, Its now not cost … but moreover privacy with apps now.
- While this phone feels very light its fairly durable. the EVO in comparison weighs alot more.
So far this phone has served me extremely well .. and hopefully (knock on wood a tree or something) I will not have any issues with this.
Im leaving this post fairly short.
Hopefully I will not have to go back to this post and make phonefun MMMXXXVI
Gamestop part XXXVI
Shortly after i had posted about gamestops website and use of the holy computer of knowledge of video game prices.
My biggest aggravation is searching something on gamestop and than going into the store to find different prices. If your shopping you’re not going to go to the product page to find out if the price is “Online Only Price; Not Valid in Stores.” r
Now when you search you get that. personally they should have both store and online prices to sort out confusion overprices. I don’t feel that you should have the same ethic of actually understanding the Dow Jones Industrials just to get a fucking game price.
Gamestop – the new Moviestop of deceptive advertising.
Gamestop is really pissing me off lately. It seems that gamestop is actually not run by humans. Seriously.
I went into gamestop about a week ago and I ended up getting aggravated to the point of asking if they have secret binary rituals to which this went right over the workers head.
on July 3rd I went into gamestop figuring I’d try out dragon age, the price was right. so I went down and and attempted to pick it up, boy did that turn out to be a lesson in how not to do customer service. Now if you do a quick scan of the price of Dragon age you will see that its 37.98 or so, When I went to game stop it was 39.99 or so i thought.
When I am on the gamestop site and I look for a game I’ve always used a simple method. Search it and find my system. So looking up Dragon age at first look you see.
You’d think “oh cool its $40 . Not so fast there.
I went down the gamestop picked the game up and brought it to the desk. Figuring I had the edge card it would run me about $36 Dollars or so . Again not so fast. the Borg at the register goes “41.23 “. Me not thinking started to hand my card over and it struck me . I Said 41.23? with the edge card that doesn’t sound right. Than it came.. Well what the computer says is what the price is we have no control over that and if you have found a price otherwise I can compare it. I open My phone and show him the listing for dragon age and apparently I must be tuned into the incorrect universe because the guy goes , well you see we don’t use the prices from the gamestop site, that’s a different company. At this point i Just wanted to get away from this great example of a Android, I ask him if that’s even legal at the point of that question he answers a condescending tone, I just work here I don’t set the prices the computer does. What the hell. is gamestop short for judgement day, every time you ask a question you are refered to the computer.
I pay the higher price for the purchase and my friend goes “hey lets stop across the street” . The Gamestop across the street tends to be more caring in its customers rather than treat them like biological anomalies that need digital input. I must of looked pissed because the person working asked if I needed help with something. I explained everything above and he took his time and gave me the price difference without speaking of the grand and mighty computer. So I went home and decided to see what was going on. I Searched the game and it was only when i clicked game to the second page of the game itself.
It floored me. the website was right in one respect but totally misleading in another. “online only” 2nd page in , How deceptive. This is reminding me of movie stop with there pricematching pre-orders , How ever the hell you do that. I am sure a lot of people may go to gamestop and go “oh ill buy it anyways.” but…… there’s an issue, That first page. Advertises the fact of “this used product is …” and not the First more important issue. “Online price only” In order to be non-deceptive . ONLINE ONLY should be followed though EACH and EVERY page. You can’t just put a price out and slap on the last page “Online only” .
Also is the fact of How can you have an “Online Only price” when the product has been not Available the whole time. On No place in the page does it list the “store price’ nor does it tell you the store price may cost more money, Even walmarts site tells you
Walmart StoresPick Up in Your Store
Prices in Store May Vary
Gamestop/Moviestop the Next Chapter.
Now, I’ve written about moviestop in the past and there parent company is Gamestop . Thinking I’d heard the last of advertising problems with them, I’ve not posted about them till my last few stops at Gamestop.
The Gamestops near me are bunched together , there’s 3 in less than a 1000feet of each other it makes you wonder at night if they play tag or something. The One I had been frequenting was the one Gamestop near the Moviestop I had a problem with. In this particular gamestop it has a pretty good selection, and the help is generally helpful until recently.
It seems that maybe these people were too helpful and were sent to india to be trained in how to be vaguely helpful without being helpful, I don’t know. I’ve traded in a few games lately and waited till gamestop has one of the deals of “TRADE YOUR SHIT IN WE NEED X GAME AND WE ARE GIVING MORE THAN A PITTANCE FOR IT”. Looking through my game collection I eye’d a few things and brought down 3 games. which using gamestops Trade in deal sheet plus Prices from CAG . Figuring i had 3 games and a rough price of $52 of trade-ins I figured i’d get Red Dead Redemption and have a little leftover. So I make my way down to the mall figuring I’d not have to put out cash and go to proceed with the trading process. Now If you’ve done this “trade” process its not really trading its more like pawning off your games for a lump of shit for your gold. Handing the guy the games He spits back “Ok, you have $23 in trades. What the fuck?
He goes yeah these 2 games are worth 10 each and that one is worth 3$. I look at the guy and say , You guys have a deal going on these 2 should be $25 EACH! This guy just looked at me like I just split a higgs boson particle in front of him and told him to explain it at gunpoint. There was an awkward silence followed by this gem of a comment “well If you have any proof of this You can show me , but our computers give us the prices and Whatever the computer says we Price at” At this point I’m getting livid, I open my phone up to the exact page on the gamestop site with the listings for “GAMES FOR $25”
At this point the worker looks at me and says , Oh well yeah that must be an Online Only thing. I look at the GS employee and say “REALLY?! Why the heck would gamestop do an online only, No one would trade stuff in” I Ask for my games back and walkout pissed.
I go across the street to the Gamestop there on the first floor of the mall and talk to the person who i’ve known for a couple years and explain everything that went down. He goes “Uhh wellllllll Was he new?”, now not being sure other than having the rage to kill at that point. I say I have no clue. Game stop employee puts my trades in the system and proceeds to tell me “You have $53 in credit, and I Have NO clue whats going on over at the other gamestop because I didn’t have to do anything to bring this up. ” The employee than told me he was sorry for the treatment over there and gave me a small discount.
but what the hell gamestop? I really don’t feel like playing deceptive advertisement again from your company .
Phone Fun IV: A New hope.
In our last episode of phone fun I had got an HTC TOUCH , Well…… That didn’t work out so well. Exactly 360 or so days the HTC touch Starting having issues with the screen and Calls. Now, from trials and tribulations with sprint I learned the last thing you want to do is call *2 on your phone. Doing that is like crank calling the deathstar while its in orbit around your planet. Sprint Over the phone support basically told me I had to buy a new phone. Which I don’t have money I can magically pull out of my ass. So I did the next best thing, I headed down to a sprint corporate store. Since I pay my phone bill locally by walking into these stores I figured I’d get a better idea of what to do. After a short talk they sent us down to Boxboro Massachusetts. They have a repair depot up that way, anyways after a 30minute drive and a 30 minute wait they told me the phone was shot(radio was damaged). After a short wait they sent me on the way with another HTC Touch(#2), After getting that home with-in a few hours the audio on that phone sounded like a cat barfing in your ear. Called *2 and sprint offered to send out yet another HTC touch(#3). They shipped it overnight which was very nice and it arrived on monday.
I had that phone no more than 48hours when the phone would just lock and gave a screen of death, Now I am fairly careful with phones and use screen protectors and such. After wasting 3 of them I was not exactly happy. That Phone went back to sprint. To make a long story short, I’ve gone through alot of HTC touches and as Far as my last post about this phone in 2008 . How does the phone rate up?
A bit of a learning curve which kind of surprized me but none the less I like it so far. As far as my requirements for a phone
Requirements for a Phone
- to make calls
- The Phone is configurable
- good battery life
- add/make ringtones
- Applications that don’t cost a years pay for a small 3rd world country
- Durable
Well… After a year with one phone and 1 to 2 months on 4 others.
1 The phone defiantly passes on. For a refurbished HTC-Touch that is debatable.
2. Again you can’t knock the touch on this, its extremely configurable once you figure out the interface.
3. battery life… That is actually pretty good. Although using the GPS Or other intensive options I would recommend a car-charger.
4. You can make ringtones till you puke with this thing rather than jumping through hoops trying to convert soundfiles into strange formats.
5. As Far as applications go, you can find most of the common apps you need on the phone although I’d recommend downloading Google maps. With enough looking you can find pretty much any app you want for the phone but, this is where i’d give the Iphone or palm pre a small advantage with an “app store” for centralized buying of applications although the Iphone is more like Locked into the app store which I believe you can not install any 3rd party apps w/o jailbreaking the phone.
6. Lastly durability I seriously question, as the phone did make it One year. as Far as the refurbished HTC-Touches.. Those sucked ass.. there’s not enough swears in the English language to say what shit the HTC Touch Refurbs are. I may of run into a bad line of them but that is hard to believe that i’d of gone through that many phones.
as far as my current phone, Sprint has offered me a HTC Diamond, Again i leave this post open till the next time I come back to phones.
As far as sprint is concerned – It seems they are OK as far as support as long as you get the right person.
Retail Zombies riiiiiiiiiise!
just when you thought circuit city was down and out there website is back up .
the only thing that’s weird is
Systemax Inc., a leading multi-channel retailer of computers, electronics, and industrial products, has purchased the Circuit City brand, trademark, website and other assets. The purchased assets include the customer records of the original Circuit City.
As part of our “Customer First” initiative, and respect for your privacy, you can opt-out of having your personally identifiable information transferred to the new Circuit City. Personally identifiable information may include name, address, email, phone, and purchase history. However, it DOES NOT include credit card data or other personal financial information; this information will not be transferred to us at all. If you opt-out prior to June 9th, your personal information will be purged and you will no longer receive email communications from Circuit City.
although they do include and opt-out form for the data retained by the new company. but if you opt out, they will expell your data from the site.
compusa was also bought by the same company. the funny thing i’ve notice is they have a twitter feed on the compusa page. I personally don’t like twitter due to its retard factor of dumbing things down to 140 letters. Media has attached themselves to twitter like its the best thing since sliced bread.
MovieStop gets stranger.. (possible employee reply)
While sitting here and realizing i’ve not updated in ages , I decided to check my comments sections, It was kind of funny . I noticed a Comment sitting in moderation for my moviestop post that I had posted over a year ago. I had an problem with MovieStop, and after a few emails the situation was corrected, I thought it was spam until I decided to read it.
Policy is, if you reserve a movie they match the lowest “ADVERTISED” price. This means there has to be an in store advertisement stating the lower price. They do not match every price because they sell used movies which are always lower than any other store’s new prices. Sounds to me like you are one of those customers that all retail employees hate to have to service. You think that you should get the best deal even though the policy is different than what you want. Maybe step down from your high horse and come join the rest of us on planet earth.
Maybe I’m on a High horse maybe I’m not, but this comment is basically an attack, let me break this one down.
- Policy is, if you reserve a movie they match the lowest “ADVERTISED” price.
From my previous post: Before Leaving the Moviestop lot I had checked the window to see that there was a Large sign in yellow with black large letters “GUARANTEED LOWEST ADVERTISED PRICES”. When i had asked regarding this sign in the front of the store windows the person claimed that there was an asterisk in the sign on the front of the store. Checking the sign again there was No asterisk no Limitation no claim to see in store for details Nothing noting of any policy of what this person had spoke of.This item was new, and the price I saw was ADVERTISED, It was in the best buy flier for the same week.
- This means there has to be an in store advertisement stating the lower price.
See above
- They do not match every price because they sell used movies which are always lower than any other store’s new prices.
That’s a given but, I purchased this product new. generally used products fall under different rules which are printed in stores (Or at least gamestops that I’ve been too).
- Sounds to me like you are one of those customers that all retail employees hate to have to service. You think that you should get the best deal even though the policy is different than what you want.
Now your getting a little snippy here, As far as being hated by retail employees, I don’t think so, Now i’ve been nice up to this point. I’m sure a lot of gamestop/moviestop employees are not like you, Hell I know my gamestop/moviestop managers and they know me but,you are a gamestop/moviestop employee In richmond, VA area, who has no clue what went on and are assuming the customer is always wrong, I never believe the customer is always “right” but, there is a happy medium. That right there is the first sign of bad customer service, Secondly I pointed out the sign issue, most states have laws saying they are bound by what the sign says unless its a grievously bad error, also by the federal trade commision .
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is the main federal agency that enforces advertising laws and regulations. Under the Federal Trade Commission Act:
- Advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive;
- Advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims; and
- Advertisements cannot be unfair.
But to get this kind of treatment almost a year later is kind of low, I’ve been mostly nice through this post but if MovieStop employees really think they are god to obviously which you think you are, you need to really sit down and think! How do i want my store to be and how can I keep people coming back to my store. Not find a post on the internet and bash the person because what you believe is right, quite simply you need to educate your customers and educate your self and CORRECT problems when you see them, If you store has a sign that says
“GUARANTEED LOWEST ADVERTISED PRICES”.
But, the sign only refers to preorders, The sign is incorrect! You need to correct the sign because the sign says quite different from the actual given “policy”. A better sign would be
“GUARANTEED LOWEST ADVERTISED PRICES ON PRE-ORDERS: See inside for details”.
After this I think moviestop is on the shitlist again.
Attack of the Christmas part II
Two days ago I posted about the Christmas Creep well, Today I went to mall to discover unfortunately how bad how the Christmas Creep was. It’s not a creep anymore. Its the christmas War on Holidays, the casualties so far .. Halloween, Thanksgiving and anything inbetween. From the front lines which I’ve personally witnessed and My friend david whom was overwelmed at the scene and cried on sight..
Corporations are destroying Christmas, People are already starting to be worn out of the meaningless push on wanting consumers to buy useless shit for christmas.
I dont mind so much about the week after thanksgiving for Christmas, but NOW? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO go away get out.. GTFO…
The Christmas Creep isnt the creep anymore its the Attack of the christmas.
I am starting to get annoyed with christmas already and thats a new record. retail stores have Had christmas shit out since september, and really I dont know what these stores are thinking because its blisteringly retarded. Since retailers have started so early its already having and effect on people , I’ve heard the ”
oh fuck Christmas is coming and i don’t have money for this”
A Wal-Mart Stores-sponsored survey this year found that three in 10 so-called Wal-Mart moms planned to start their Christmas shopping three months early.
Maybe because there christmas shit was up 5 months early? I noticed in late august the local wallyworld had christmas stuff out in the back corner of the store. retail stores have gone as far as to moving “black friday” to the day after halloween. Thats all we need parents with there kids cracked out on sugar in stores yay!
On cue, retailers — all bracing for what looks to be the worse holiday shopping season in two decades — are taking those statistics to heart, with Wal-Mart leading the pack. The world’s largest retailer was first out of the gate on Oct. 1 — yes Oct. 1 — to slash prices on select toys, beating its own record for an early start.
I know the econimy is bad but what the fuck? lets make it WORSE by blowing money we dont have on a Holiday 2 months away ? Sure that helps retailers but does not help out people scraping by on next to nothing. Stores are mutating halloween into something actaully scary Halloweemas .. as weird as that sounds you can find “halloween Trees”
This year with christmas is like watching dead flys fuck. I cant wiat for this season to be over with . Thankfully they have not started with the christmas music at stores , i think when they do i am going to just wear earplugs till january ..
Phone fun III: there is No spoon edition…
After all the fun with the two Samsung phones that had battery life shorter than a 1meter marathon and several billion calls to sprint, to which they were very helpful about my problems and have been overall very good to me. The problem I Have is due to where i bought the phone .. radio shack it makes dealing with sprint a little bit crazy, Since the phone was purchased at radioshack sprint doesnt deal with the phone till its 30 days old, and as far as choice of phones at radioshack your fairly limited to what you can pick unless you know what your doing. Also dealing with sprint because of having previously swapped my phone, which the last call to sprint helped me the greatest in not getting stuck with a phone that was like trying to power your house with a AA battery.
At Radioshack you will spend a little less to ALOT less on the phone, but as I said before its very slim pickings, they will generally have 5 or so phones to choose from in a store. After dealing with the 2 samsungs , I decided to take a more detailed online search for phones. Looking at the radioshack website shows alot more phones than are instore, but if you look carefully it doesn’t have the little warning of “you have to online only sucker.” 
But, I did notice something, Different radioshacks Stock different items. So i went around to a few different radioshacks, and the radioshack closest to me which is at a mall thats not a mall anymore, its what malls look like when they die, there was a phone that caught my interest. The HTC touch , compairing it feature-wise to the M520 they were very alike in features, the only thing missing was the GPS feature (so I thought). I had also looked at the samsung instinct, but the killing factor to that phone was the fact i’d have to change my plan massively in order to get it and paying 25$ more a month for the same features i get now doesnt really float my boat. I did not want a crackberry because the stupid services you have to get. For me to get an instinct I’d have to get an “everything” plan, which is already close to what i have now, I have data , text and unlimited data for 45$ a month. the cheapest “Everything plan sprint has is 69$ a month….. Do not want… Anyways.
I Wondered if this would be a nightmare returning the phone because I was told you are allowed only so many swaps, So I made sure and called up sprint customer service (*2 on sprint phones) and explained my plight, To which I got a very understanding person on the phone and they put me on hold a bit and than sent me to there hardware tech support, I explained my very issue with the phone and told them where i purchased the phone and they said that it was “ok to bring the phone back to the retail store and they would mark the information in the computer so i’d have no problems returning the phone”. I brought the phone to the first radioshack and explained what i was told and that i had seen a phone in a different radioshack that had my interest.
The HTC touch is an interesting phone,
A bit of a learning curve which kind of surprized me but none the less I like it so far. As far as my requirements for a phone
Requirements for a Phone
- to make calls
- The Phone is configurable
- good battery life
- add/make ringtones
- Applications that don’t cost a years pay for a small 3rd world country
- Durable
It Definanatly meets #1 , as far as numbers 2,4,5,6 it seems to exceed that greatly, Number 3 though will be the test, i’ve only owned the phone for 3 days. but, a sign of hope was when i got the phone i never charged the battery and it lasted 3 days. As far as the learning curve on the phone, which logic wise you’d think it would be just something you could just pick up the phone and use. with the HTC touch there are 2 buttons and an omnidirecitonal button, if you make a call you need to pay attention to the touch screen at first because if you just assume where buttons are you are going to end up making a mistake. About the GPS with the phone, the phone at it default settings from the store does not have a GPS, but if you update your phone with the most current ROM file from HTC You will have GPS enabled minding this is sprint only. software installation is fairly simple and does not take alot of time, phone updates are also fairly easy with one drawback, if you update and dont have anything to backup your phone numbers be prepaired to write down all the numbers on your phone or you will loose them. the touch interface is intuitive , but sometimes it gets in the way. as far as tweaking the phone there are many many things you can do to the phone due to the fact its windows mobile 6.1. I think another few weeks with this phone should tell the tale of this phone..