Nielsen’s Nook

In trying to make light of just realizing that CompUSA (aka CompUseless) has effectively stolen $350 from me, let me share with you out of my deontological burden how not to get suckered yourself. My wife teaches Philosophy at a local community college where she often gets a rise out of students when she tries to illustrate the Logical Positivists disposition towards religious moral imperatives. My usually soft spoken wife, with over dramatized urgency exclaims, “Stealing!! Don’t do it.” With respect to CompUSA, it might be contextualized to sound something like, “CompUSA!!! Don’t shop there!!!”

In light of my experience with CompUSA today, I have existential evidence that the Logical Positivists’ disposition towards morality is as impractical as the so-called “Laptop Replacement Policy” a slick salesman sold me last September. I asked the fellow as I always do when they push the fear button to get you to buy their policy, “Are you telling me that the laptops you sell here are that poorly made?” He replied, “No, no! You said this was a business laptop and I know that you do not have a lot of time to wait on Toshiba to fix it if something goes wrong. What this policy does for you is if the machine breaks you bring it in and if we cannot fix it on the spot we’ll replace it so that you won’t have to lose any more time.”

Normally, I don’t purchase these things because the manufacturer’s warranty is usually more than enough. Given the pace of my web development and graphic design business, I thought the $350 to bail me out of a temporal bind when the computer failed would be worth it. So it fails this morning. I have a major deadline on July 6. I was expecting to work all day (yes I know it’s a holiday, but salaried aristocrats, not business owners make holidays).

After trying to revive my computer all morning (many of you call me when your computers act up), I decided perhaps I should go ahead and use this “Replacement Plan”. When I get there I get a flat denial of any notion of replacement plan. They don’t have parts in so it should be back to me in a little over a week. #*&@#! I’m dead. I explained to the manager what I was told. He referred me to the documentation. I reminded him that the documentation is all sealed up in a package that I cannot open until I purchase it and that if I had known I was just paying them to broker my own warranty work, I would never have purchased the product (exceedingly over priced at this point). Further, when I purchased one of these replacement plans from Fry’s Electronics for my HP iPaq, I had the unit replaced in 30 minutes no questions asked. That’s is what was promised to me when I purchased this “replacement policy” from CompUSA.

So if you are wise, you won’t shop at CompUSA. I recommend Best Buy or Fry’s. They have always stood behind the many products I have bought from them for business or pleasure. If your still wiser, you won’t purchase these so called warranties or replacement plans. The manufacturer will stand behind their products if they are reputable.

Well there. My first blog rant ever. I feel much better now. Thanks.

I thought I would let those of you who read and post on this blog or others in Google’s blogsphere that Google has a nice new toolbar for Microsoft Word for Windows (2000 or later). You can compose in Word and publish from Word without even opening your browser. Imagine all the publishing benefits you get that way (e.g., auto-spell-check, macros)! Anyway you can download it for yourself.