From: M. Kokaly (ranger5_at_u.washington.edu)
Date: Mon Apr 26 1999 - 13:00:56 EDT
Good points Aaron. There is one question many people who were supporting
"just letting it go, they made a mistake" are forgetting to ask
themselves. I noticed they had an ETA of 4/22 for the Thinkpad. However,
there is now no mention of that particular notebook anywhere on their
website that I could find after the "error". So, what happened to those
notebooks that were supposed to arrive on 4/22? Could it be they never
existed? Doesn't sound like a "mistake" to me at all. I ordered one and
never got a notice from Access Micro. I did notice that in those posted,
there wasn't a line that said something like "There was a pricing error,
the correct price was $xxx. Please contact us if you want to order the
notebook at that price." How come there wasn't?
Matthew T Kokaly
On Mon, 26 Apr 1999, Aaron W. Brown wrote:
> I have a couple of thoughts on this issue which I don't think have been
> addressed yet.
>
> I too tried to order this Thinkpad. I don't have much sympathy for them
> and here's why:
>
> I called the 800 number to order. As soon as I said "I would like to order
> a Thinkpad", the person said "You mean that $300 one? That was a typo, we
> don't even have any in stock." (no bait and switch was attempted on their
> part)
> I called them on the phone rather than order online because there was no
> way I would give them my:
>
> A. credit card number
> B. email address
>
> I would suggest they collected quite a few of both over the 3 DAYS(!) that
> price was listed. Many folks set up new accounts and might return just
> because of that. How many people bookmarked this $313.95 site?
> Also: Now that they have your email address they might market to you
> (spam) in a future email.
>
> Another issue:
> Is this online dealer intentionally posting low prices to insure they come
> up as "the low price" in these popluar price tracker sites like
> pricescan.com? Low price, yes, but so low they don't need to honor it.
> This would have the effect of getting the online dealer noticed by potential
> buyers who were previously unaware of the site.
>
> Even if these are not the reasons for the $313.95 Thinkpad, remember this
> rule of advertising:
> I don't care what you say about me as long as you spell my name correctly.
> Similar to "Any PR is good PR".
>
> One more idea (the dealer is the victim): The dealer's site maintainer
> gets paid by the "hit".
>
> I would not discourage or judge anyone who wants to fight them to honor
> their price. The BBB should at least warn people of these practices.
>
> Aaron Brown
>
>
>
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