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The Scams They Run...Jan 14 '00 Write an essay on this topic.No one likes to be taken for a ride. It degrades our confidence in ourselves and our confidence in the industry. And we really hate it when people point out to us that we have been taken for a ride. This article will give you a few pointers and reveal a few common scams so that you will not be as likely to be taken for a ride. A few common scams: The most common scam right now is rebates. Sure a rebate is great a few of them have strings attached….Very expensive strings… The so called ‘internet rebate’ is not worth it (in my opinion). To get this rebate you must signup with MSN, Juno, or whoever for X many years and pay for the internet access (sometime you must pay for the service upfront). This means to get a $400 rebate you will be paying $718.20(for a 3 year contract at 19.95 a Month) or $538.20 (for a 3 year contract at 14.95 a month).If you cancel then you must pay back the rebate and then pay a $50 cancelation fee. This ‘rebate’ locks you into an internet access provider that probably won’t offer speeds of over 56kbs. This means that when cable modems come to your community that you won’t be able to take advantage of them without paying to break your contract. For some people this rebate might be worth it if they had that kind of cash to pay up front but most people don’t. Another thing that they are doing with rebates is quoting you the price of the computer after rebates. This misleads consumers in to thinking the price is lower than it really is. A really nasty practice on the internet is to over charge for shipping. I’ve seen several ads like this ‘$51 for 64mb PC100 SDRAM!’ and then I find out that it’s $51 plus $20 or more in shipping!!! This is a very common practice for companies who put their products in search engines. The reason for this is simple. It makes their price one of the first ones to show up. Unfortunately there is no other way to fine out if they are over charging except to call them and ask what the shipping would be. A few companies will actually tell you what the shipping rate is on the search engine, but this is rare. Most companies don’t post the shipping charges because it varies depending on where your shipping it to. A common industry practice is to use generic components in the low and mid end computers. Generic components are used to get their prices down so that you will look at them. Some generic products are okay (I‘ve used them myself in my own machine) but others are horrible. Most generic products work fine on low end machines because they won’t be pushed hard but their performance degrades rapidly when pushed. Several companies will charge you obscene amounts of money to customize your computer and then try to tell you that it is the ‘going or market rate’. I, myself, have seen prices for add-ons that are almost DOUBLE the retail price of the component!!! It is always a good idea to shop around and if your not sure your getting a good deal there are a few people you can contact to make sure you are. Their email is BNT@techie.com. They are in the business of computer sales. I personally know the owners. They are high school students who refused to work in all but one of the local computer stores because the stores were not treating their customers well at all. They are currently offering a free service for people to ask any computer related question be it about price, best product, tech support, etc. If you buy a computer from a retail store and not off the Internet then there are several things you should be on the lookout for. The most important thing is honest and good techs. I cannot stress this enough. If you are buying from a mom and pop store this is especially important. The good techs will try to build the computer around your needs instead to fit you to their best computer. If a salesperson asks you what you will be doing with your computer and then makes recommendations based off your responses your probably at a good store. Just make sure that their technical support is just as good . Good, knowledgeable people are very hard to fine at retail chain stores. The reason is simple, the stores can’t pay them enough to stay there. They are much better off to go to a mom and pop store or work as a technical support person in a company. Often times the customers in a retail chain store are more knowledgeable than the staff! What does this mean to you? Well for one I wouldn’t always trust the answers to your computer questions there especially if the answer is proceeded by the phrase ‘I think.’ You can always go chat to a couple people at your local mom and pop computer store to fine out what’s good and what’s not. Good things do not always come out of mom and pop stores. If the employees are not knowledgeable, or the store deals mainly with large business or government orders they will often not do a very good job servicing your needs. Quick Pointers: Make sure you have a Windows installation CD and a license if your computer has a Windows operating system on it. It is illegal for anyone to sell a computer with a copy of windows without the installation CD and a License. If you didn’t get a CD or a license then there are a few steps you can take to get one. First you should get in contact with the company that you bought your computer from and ask for a Windows Installation CD and License. If they do not give you one then tell them you will contact the BBB (Better Business Bureau) and/or Microsoft. Most of the time they will give you one. However, there are times when you cannot get in contact with the company you bought the computer from and this usually means the company pulled up shop and left. They might have just changed their phone numbers but sometimes they are a front for selling ‘carded goods’ which are goods that they purchased with other peoples credit cards and then sold to consumers for very little. (more on this later) Talk to the employees. Ask them a few questions to see if they are knowledgeable. A few good questions to ask are ‘What is the difference between Winmodems and non-Winmeodems?’, ‘Will a Winmodem work on my 486 100mhz?’, ‘What are the differences between a Voodoo3 and a TNT 2?’, or ‘What’s the difference between a Celeron and a PII?’ Answers: A winmodem uses the computer’s CPU to convert the incoming signal over the phone wires while a non-winmodem uses its own onboard processor. This frees up the processor on your compuer to do other things. No a winmodem will not. A winmodem requires more computing power. Winmodems usually require a pentium 133 or above. A Non-winmodem will work on a 486 though. The differences between most video cards in huge. Therefore, I won’t go through all of them here. A few of the major differences are the voodoo3 can only display up to 16bit color while the TNT 2 can go up to 32bit, the voodoo3 has better texture mapping and blends polygons into a smoother shape. The TNT 2 can put out more frames per second, though. For a more detailed explanation see my epinion entitled ‘What to look for in a video card.’ The main difference between these two processors is that the Celeron does not have as much onboard cache (sometime it doesn’t have any). The celeron processors have one half to one quarter as much cache as a PII. Cache is short term memory, a very fast ram chip, that is embedded on the processor. This cache speeds up the CPU by keeping needed information much closer to the processor and therefore it is quicker to access.  |
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