Surprisingly Frys and Microcenter here aren't too bad. eh. Best Buy blows though. I've had some hilarious chats with the tech guys at Frys though, they do know their stuff pretty well.
I couldn't disagree more. The whole caveat emptor attitude is the reason these fcukers get away with lying to customers. PC World market themselves as the place to go for advice. Talking up a completely over the top, and expensive, system to someone who comes to you for help is unethical at best. These shops deserve all the sh!t they get. Stop being w@nkers, and we'll stop embarrassing your staff.
they are not for-sale models, they are display models that gets wiped every day. it doesn't matter. i was just trying to raise awareness on jailbreaking for the general public who are wondering pass. they actually blocked jailbreakme.com to re-direct to apple homepage. had to tether my iphone to do it! it's not childish, it's doing same everyone else here are doing: prevent customers getting ripped off by showing them the truth.
I was helping my friend decide on a set of speakers for his ipod and we were testing them, he was using my ipod to listen to the quality since he didn't have his with him and he was turning the volume on all of them up pretty loud (i also seem to remember this song coming on, which isn't what most people want to be hearing when shopping for their next over priced PC). We "tested" most of the speakers in the shop before anyone said anything. At first we got the good old "can i help you" question from someone, which i always translate to "are you planning on buying anything or am i wasting my time?", then, but moments later a different guy came along and asked us to step out of the shop.
Hah, some people do shop there you know! Some! It should have been on the box anyway, WarrenJ. What card was it?
I bought a bundle from Maplin once because it was a Sunday and I needed something cheap and quick. Probably paid £30/40 more than I would have at Scan but that's the deal. I have no problem with PC World selling their stuff more expensively. The have a lot of retail space and a lot of staff to pay for but as with others, the horrific over selling is what gets me!
A bit off topic but a bit related. Role reversal. I'm one of the sales people in the shop where I work (want to be in the workshop but that's by the by). We always get people sticking their noses in. And they invariably know naff all. I was explaining to a gentleman differences between anti virus and internet security, which ones we had and which I'd get out of the lot. Some smart arse comes in, served by my colleague. Overhears me talking and decides to interject with "Oh I work for the Ministry of Defense. We all use Avira, it's free and never fails." Luckily I'd got enough info into the customer that he just smiled and shook his head as the other guy left.
Ok, bought gfx card from PC World as it was an emergency, and a Sunday. So no local shops were open at the time :0( £19.99 i paid. had to go in a BTX Dell
Got kicked out of everywhere repeatedly in.... I don't know... must have been about 1986. All for playing games on the store computers. Spectrums, C64s etc. They really didn't like it. Mainly because we came in with our own cassette decks, tapes and joysticks and took over their entire display stands Frickin' hell I feel old at times.
Got kicked out of currys, there was a woman in front of me in the qeue with a laptop she'd bought only the day before and it wasn't working, when she asked to get it fixed the response from the woman that worked the pc department was: 'oh wow, it seems Dell's don't like you, you shouldnt get a dell next time they really don't like you, I don't think this type of damage is covered by our warranty either, shame really, next time just dont get a dell, they're not for you.' I stepped forward and simply said 'your problem is that the BIOS is trying to boot up from the cd which isnt inserted instead of the hard drive' fixed the settings booted it up and it was working perfectly, the woman then tried to give me a tenner which i declined, and then i was asked to leave, after standing in a qeue for 15 mins. If i ever get the chance, I'll kill them all.
But it is childish. Maybe you don't see it as childish but that doesn't mean you're right. Jailbreaking a display model iPhone is not preventing customers from getting ripped off, it's just you flexing your l33t hacker muscles and saying 'look what I can do - ha ha'. No real harm in that, yes you might get kicked out, you might even be prosecuted but I doubt they'd go that far. The only thing is does is show the guys in the apple store what a tw*t you are. It's like turning all the volumes up on the TVs or switching off things at the wall. A childish annoyance at best. Full disclaimer: In my youth I performed all sorts of stunts in shops and academic institutions, but back then I was a prime grade childish tw*t. I'm better now.
full blown rant at a t*at sales man when i asked for the contrast and brightness specification on a TV and got the answer, 'sir these TV's don't have that as standard' It was a face and palm and rage in one instance, sales selling TV's without basic understanding. Either that or i go PC World Trolling, act unknowing and accept there gospel then slap them with a blind side question you know full well they would fail at.
I always get approached by customers in these places, I’m ginger, wear glasses and unless it’s the weekend I’ll always be adorned in a shirt and smart trousers and shoes, and most likely have my staff lanyard from work on. I almost perfectly fit the nerd look.. Almost everyone is really grateful for my honesty, and even heed my advice when I tell them I don’t work there. I have been asked to leave PC world on 2 occasions both of which I have been advising a friend or family member on a purchase and we have been pestered by sales staff and management. It’s usually at the stage where they are trying to sell Tech Guy support or insurance or software bundles. They end up getting upset that they make no commission on the sale and ask me to leave while they complete the transaction with my friend or family (obviously so they can try and screw them into some kind of deal while I’m not about to watch their backs) I think the only thing i have ever bought from PC World is a printer for my mum...
I'm giving you rep for two reasons, primarily for quoting a very relevant passage of scripture, and also for quoting a line from one of my favourite films of all time. I think you know which one I'm talking about. It's topic related
i never said i was in the right. there are no skills involved in jailbreakme.com, and there are no gain on my part what so ever. cydia is a legitimate alternative to appstore. it get auto-restored overnight to display-model condition anyway. there are no annoyance, there are no damage and there are no interference with sales. sales person don't have to do a thing (unlike change volume/turn off power). it's in no way childish, it's only adding a legitimate alternative to a flawed product, hopefully raising awareness of it. going into stores to play games on machines that you have zero intention of buying, that is childish. being a smartass making honest sales people look bad (like in noizdaemon666's case) that is even more childish. edit: don't want to destroy a great thread, so won't be replying to childish arguments.
I've never been kicked out of PC World before, one time i went in and they'd re-organised the store layout, i couldn't seem to find the IDE Ribbon cables, so i grabbed one of the assistants and asked him where they displayed their ide ribbon cables, he looked at me blankly then asked me what a ide ribbon cable was. I wasn't sure whether i wanted to facepalm and cry or laugh so hard i might pass out. Although seeing all the hilarious situations in this thread, i'm tempted to go in there and browse and if i see someone being railroaded by sales i might pipe up.
