So, a while back, I wanted an 8-port gigabit switch, so I got a TrendNet which was $30 -- $59.99, with a $30 mail-in rebate.
Everyone already knows where this is going.
Sure enough, I got a letter, claiming "Submission did not include any original qualifying UPCs".
You'll note that, when they claim you didn't submit something, it's always the "original UPC". Why? Because it's the one part where, once you've sent it in, you don't have it anymore. Sure, I have a scan. It's not a great scan, but I have a scan of the UPC... But of course, not the original. (Unusually for me, I'm not sure I have the box the UPC was cut from -- I think a roomie may have waved it in front of me and said "we can throw this trash out, right?")
But that's okay. See, what I learned from my Soyo rebate quest is this:
1. You can sue in small claims.
2. They will default.
3. Once they default, you can file an identification of judgement debtor.
4. Once an unsatisfied judgement shows up on their credit, they will pay. After all, they pretty much have to; no one's about to go to court to dispute a $150 or so rebate, keeping it up in the air for months, spending thousands of dollars defending the case.
I'll call them, and I'll explain that since I scanned everything right before it went in the envelope, I am confident that they do, in fact, have the original, qualifying, UPC. I will offer to send them the scan of it, and all that.
If they don't agree to pay, then I sue.
BTW, lest you think this is somehow unusual:
http://www.complaints.com/directory/2004/january/5/20.htm
http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=515283
There's lots of other people having problems like this. Hey, guys! Calling the BBB does nothing. Suing in small claims gets you paid.
Some people say that, if instead of calling the rebate company at 800-679-9869, you call Trendnet directly at (310) 961-5500, you get better results.
I admit it: I've been a sucker for point-and-click adventure games for years. From Loom to Monkey Island, from Myst to the recent Sam & Max, I've played a huge number of these, and liked many of them. Some suck. Some are pretty good except for one bit or another -- which sucks.
Anyway, since about November 19th last year, I've been saying the world really, really, needs a point and click adventure for the Wii. It has one. Capcom is now shipping a game called "Zack & Wiki" which is a sterling example of the genre. Its design is built around set pieces -- each level is a shortish scene with a couple of interrelated puzzles. No more trying to sort through a thirty-item inventory, or walking across fifteen slow-loading scenes to pick up an object you should have picked up but didn't notice. It's all within visual range.
And, speaking of visuals, it's gorgeous. Utterly beautiful. Cel-shaded, but it puts games like Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker to shame. It looks like a well-animated cartoon, utterly smooth, beautiful to watch, with a slick combination of detailed textures and visual effects.
If you like point and click adventures, get it. Yes, it's worth getting a Wii for this game -- there's more where that came from. If you have found point and click adventures frustrating, at the very least give it a try; it seems to reduce the frustration factor noticably, without turning the game into a boring series of obvious "puzzles" that don't make you think at all. If you've never tried point and click adventures, find a friend with a Wii (or get one) and rent this or buy it, because there is no better introduction out there.
Between this and the new Phoenix Wright (the games that it is worth getting a DS to play), it's a great time to be a gamer. (This is not even including the astounding gameplay videos for Super Mario Galaxy.)
Hard drive capacities, as just about everyone knows, are given in base-10 gigabytes: 1,000,000,000 bytes. So, a 500GB drive is 500,000,000,000 bytes. Operating systems tend to use base-2 gigabytes, which are (1024*1024*1024) bytes -- about 7% larger.
A while back, someone actually sued Western Digital over this, as reported in PC Mechanic in June of 2006. I just got my class member notification for a similar suit against Seagate.
Should they change the labeling? Yes.
But no one's asked them to. Instead, they're being asked to put an explanation on the box that they're using the wrong units, which most vendors have had for years anyway. Also, you can get cash settlements of five percent of the purchase price of some drives (likely $100-200 base cost); the lawyers get just under two million dollars.
This is a stupid, stupid, suit, and a stupid, stupid, settlement.
Yes, it would be nice if all the vendors agreed to sell drives such that the "capacity" an operating system would see would be sorta close to the number on the box. I'm typing this on a machine with a "250GB" hard drive which actually has room for 232.57GB of files -- a mere 249.72 "gigabytes" in the hard drive industry. I suppose next we'll be seeing lawsuits against people who format disks.
Dumb, dumb, dumb. The disclosures were adequate to begin with, and strictly speaking, the drive vendors are right anyway; the IEC prefix for "binary gigabytes" is GiB.