Included or Not?
Sep 18th, 2010 by Zheng (Kathy) Li
This is what I hate the most when buying things: “Sold Separately”.
I went to Futureshop today to get a netbook. Yes, the original price was pretty nice, 1 penny less than $230, but guess what, it’s just a useless shell. So, after listening to what the salesperson had to say, I had to pay $99 for the system then $159 for Microsoft. So… $258 for the netbook to work. I’m paying more for the things not included than for the thing itself. That’s pretty sad.
I looked at printers too. What a delight to see printers under $80! But of course, toner was not included. It was estimated that the toner itself would be another $300 or so. What was I there to buy? A working printer. Not an empty box.
I guess it’s a good way to earn money; make the customer want the cheap item, then force them to buy the insanely expensive things not included but necessary for usage. Great strategy. Unethical in my eyes. The real price always ends up being over double what you expect. Go buy something, and prepare to be robbed.