PC Deals

So... have I told you about my crazy computer deal?

Office Max PC Deal

I saw this linked on Digg (a great 'cool links' site) and clicked it to see if it was too good to be true. It turned out to be for real, and in my local flyer, so I went to check it out.

Ends up, what the deal is, they don’t actually HAVE any PCs, they have a kiosk where you ORDER the PC. This was a baseline, bottom choice on everything PC. It rings up $599 on the kiosk, and they take $200 off at the register, and you get $50 mail in rebate on the PC, and $50 mail in on the monitor. It also gives you a free upgrade form a 17" CRT to a 15" LCD flat panel. So, I can't see ANY reason not to go with this deal. So I do.

Here are the stats:
HP Pavilion a1110y Desktop with Intel Pentium 4 516 (2.93GHz, 533MHz FSB)
256MB DDR2-400MHz SDRAM (1x256)
40GB 7200 rpm SATA Hard Drive
48x max. CD-ROM Drive
FREE Upgrade to 15" LCD Flat Panel from a 17" CRT, a $130 Value

OK, so it isn’t a screamer, and it doesn't have the greatest stuff inside, but it’s not bad at all for a second (well, 2nd ranked, its actually the household's 5th PC) computer to put in the kitchen to keep my wife and kids off the real machine upstairs.

When going through the process on the kiosk, the sales girl (who was very cool, and kind of half-cute) is asking about upgrades at every step of the way. I actually sucker into the RAM upgrade, because 256 just isn’t very much. (Though as a side note, my buddy David just bought a 512 sim of ram at best buy with an instant rebate for $49. I may need to go get a couple of those.) They pu tin one 512 rather than two 256s, so I got it, even though the price wasn't super awesome.

So, I've doubled the RAM, and the total price on the kiosk comes up $579. Odd, its $20 cheaper, rather than $60 more expensive. Oh well, no one else seems to care, so I don’t either. We get to the register; she takes off the $200.

Right about the time she's about to submit the sale, she’s telling me it will arrive at my house in about two weeks. I ask, "Hey, which monitor did I end up with? The 15 or the 17?"

She looks, and seems surprised she doesn’t see the monitor. She calls the manager and says, "Hey, Jim* (names changed to protect the fact I can't remember names) I entered the computer in on the kiosk, but I don’t see it here on the sheet.” She listens for a moment, then replies with, “Yeah, it had a free upgrade from a 15” LCD to a 17” LCD.

I heard the mistake, did you? It was supposed to be an upgrade from a 17” CRT to a 15” LCD. In other words, a standard, big/clunky as all hell monitor upgraded to a slightly smaller, but cooler super-flat panel screen. But she has her manager thinking they owe me a 17” LCD. I’m smart. I stayed quiet.

“OK, so should I just penny one out? …that’s alright? I just don’t want anyone yelling at me later about a $300 item going for a penny. …alright, will do.”

She says to me, off the phone now, “Don’t know why it didn’t show up, but we will get one on here, for .01”

“Alright, whatever you need to do,” I say out loud. “Yee-freakin-ha” I say to myself, “Free upgrade!”

All goes well, she finalizes the transaction, we pay, and leave.

Two days later my phone rings, “Mr. Francis? This is Jim at OfficeMax.” Oh crap, here it comes. “Corporate does random audits on tickets we complete…” Damn, I knew it. They found it. “This is about the monitor we sold you.” Double damn it. You know what, I’m not gonna go quietly, I didn’t do this on purpose. It was their fault. They should honor what they sold me, right? “See, the thing is… we sold you that monitor out of delivery, but they don’t have any to send, so I need you to come down, so I can refund it and resell it, so you can pick it up today.” Holy Crap! They aren’t taking it away; in fact, they are giving it to me sooner, rather than later! Cool.

I was on my way home, so I go home, and eat dinner, then head out to the store, pretty close to closing time. I walk in, find the manager, and he begins to tell me all about how the Compaq monitor that is part of that pack normally isn’t very good, and how much better View Sonic and Samsung are, and how much better off I will be. Then he asks for my receipt. “Uhm, I don’t have my receipt. You called me, so I figured that meant you had my info pulled up.” Well, he tells me I need my receipt to do the return. “OK, well, if I have to, I’ll come back tomorrow night after I get out of work.” He tells me that he’s off Wednesday, and I need to come back Thursday or Friday. “Alright, then. See you Thursday.”

Thursday comes, I search through my receipts, find a yellow sheet, with OfficeMax and computer stuff on it. I load up the boy and my mom into the car, and head down, about 20 minutes from the house. I get there, go in, and find the manager. I hand him the yellow receipt, and he asks, “Do you have the white one?” Huh? The white one? Was there a white one? What’s wrong with this one?” He starts to go on about some miniscule differences between the white and the yellow. I tune him out. “OK, I’ll go see if I have the white one in the car or something.” As it turns out, my mom had the white one. (She was gonna send off for the rebates for me. It’s nice to be treated like a 12 year old occasionally. OK, so I deserve it. Not the point.) So, I go back in, toss the white receipt on the counter, and they process the return. He then takes me over to the monitor display, and is telling me again how nice ViewSonic and Samsung monitors are. He points at a 17” ViewSonic for $329 and a 17” Samsung for $369. I let him go on a little bit, then ask him if my two extra visits are worth an upgrade, and point at the 19” ViewSonic. He hesitates only for a moment, and relents. He mentions that the monitor is actually $469 with a $100 mail in rebate, and I’d have to pay the 100 today, and get it back in rebate. “No problem.”

So, at the end of the day, I’m setting up a $469 19” ViewSonic LCD monitor, waiting on a Pentium 4, almost 3gig processor with 512k RAM to show up in a couple days. All for $279.

Not a bad day browsing dig, huh?

UPDATE: There is more!