Stewart spent $105 on what he thought was a spindle of Memorex burnable DVDs. What he actually received was one burnable DVD sitting proudly atop a stack of CDs.
My friend Sam told me to send you my story about a recent spindle of Memorex DVD-R discs that I bought from Best Buy. It was an expensive spindle ($105) of dual-layer discs. When I got it home, I opened it up, and used the first disc. Then I tried to use the second disc, but it wouldn’t work. I struggled for about twenty minutes, trying to figure out why it wasn’t writing correctly. Finally I checked the physical disc, and realized that it wasn’t a DVD at all. Only the top disc was a DVD. The remaining 49 discs were run-of-the- mill blank CDs, which are worth about 1/8 the price I paid. At a cursory glance, though, they look exactly the same. It was just as if I had been given a roll of one-dollar bills, with a single twenty wrapped around the outside.
I don’t think this is Best Buy’s fault, since the discs were factory sealed. Presumably someone who works at Memorex thought this would be a good way to steal some expensive DVDs without anyone in the quality assurance team noticing. And I guess they were right!
Now I have to see if the folks at Best Buy will accept it as a return, or if they’ll assume that I’m the one scamming them.
See, just one DVD:
Surprisingly, Stewart tells us that Best Buy asked several “reasonably questions,” and then issued a refund. What a refreshing change of pace for Best Buy.
Arrrrrgh. Yo ho ho and a spindle o’ Dual Layers me hardy!
@bentcorner, and Coren: So that gives you an excuse to throw accusatory BS at everyone? SO WHAT if they’re not using them for Oracle? Do you go around accusing everyone who owns a car of using it to hurt people or commit other crimes?
Because owning something that can be used to do something illegal is evidence that they probably do use it for that purpose?
You two must work for the TSA. Because those people are the ones who go around spouting “well, it can be used for something bad, therefore you can’t have it” bullshit.
Anybody implying that people that buy lots o’ DL DVD-Rs for pure piracy is a fucking moron. (I’m talking to you bentcorner). Hard drive-based storage is much faster and cheaper.
@coren: Show proof, asshole.
@coren: The internet is an unregulated playground for sexual predators and their prey. Everyone who thinks there are legitimate uses for the internet, and that those outweigh the illegal ones are wrong. You are a big fat doucy (sic) child molester.
@bentcorner: This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over.
@coren: Some people are strangers to sarcasm, sadly
I’m glad they only asked reasonably questions.
@Walrii: They’re almost all black CD’s, and I think in all of the ones I ever burned, I only had one coaster.
@bentcorner: Anything that’s at least one meg bigger than a standard DVD
I dont know why people keep saying to use Ebay or newegg or other online retailers to save lots of money. Youre only saving lots of money if youre buying cheap assed generic discs that probably dont perform as well as a good name brand such as memorex, TDK, or Sony. They also recommend crappy websites like monoprice.com for cables and a such youre getting crappy low grade unshielded trash cables for like 2 bucks. You get what you pay for.
@TechnoDestructo: Winnar!
@Gorky: Monoprice is an excellent store and they stomp damn near everybody with quality cables and kick ass prices. Be that as it may, if you’re the type of guy that likes to make yourself feel better by overpaying for your “nitrogen gas-injected insulation” Monster HDMI cables at Best Buy at $100 a pop, knock yourself out, fella.
@Gorky: Um…for an HDMI cable..a digital signal is a digital signal. No amount of Monster-Shielding-Amazingness! is gonna change that. Since when are monoprice’s cables bad? Please, show me a case of that. (For reference, all my HDMI cables are monoprice.)
@glycolized: “Memorex is a major, reputable brand with a decades-long legacy of products, and they are being sold at one of the largest retailers in the world.”
I’m sorry, but every single memorex disc I’ve ever used became a coaster. I even bought a dl disc spindle from them and it still was ass, I think out of 20 I got 2 to acutally burn.
I’m sure some of their products are fine. But I’m never buying their discs again. I’ve encountered less problems from the el-cheapos then a “reputable brand.”
There is possibly a logical reason for the error somewhere in the assembly process. I couldn’t speak in regard to this intelligently as I have not seen the factory or the process, but I do think I am correct in theorizing that there are more causes for something like this than pure thievery.
I have personally found Best Buy to have wonderful customer service; an element which has continually brought me back to their stores.
I read everything and actually have something to contribute:
Memorex discs aren’t made by Memorex. What the company does is find a manufacturer to produce discs that they can put their name onto for the lowest price to them, then reselling and using the memorex brand name so people will buy them.
A lot of companies do this. Don’t think of it as necessarily a bad thing.
This might explain the switch-up in some way or another. But probably not.
Cinram is the big player in the north American manufacture of DVD discs and they have been haveing problems at their Huntsville,AL plant where the discs are packaged and shipped.
Department of Homeland Security is looking for more than 100 workers from Huntsville’s Cinram plant
[www.freerepublic.com]
Yesterday I bought a Wiimote/WiiPlay bundle to add to my ever growing collection of Wii flotsam. BB packages the Nintendo box in a plastic security box that has to be unlocked at checkout.
When I opened the Nintendo package at home, I discovered that it was the proverbial brick in a box: The game disc, the rubber grip and the wrist strap were all missing. The Wiimote itself looked like it was old, and there were a couple of dead Duracell batteries with it.
Closer inspection revealed that the bottom of the box appeared to have been tampered with, leaving the factory seal at the top of the box intact.
I turned around, went straight back to BB. I was hoping there wasn’t going to be an issue. The BB returns guy looked at me suspiciously, but he did an even exchange for me. I made him open the new box and verify that the contents of the new package were complete.
At one point, I asked “Isn’t the security box that you guys put these in supposed to prevent this type of thing from happening?” No reaction. It was as if I hadn’t spoken. I got what I needed, but I left wondering if I had dealt with a human or an android….
What about system backups? Those are a perfect example of a possible use of a DL disc. Hopefully BluRay will come down in cost enough to make that viable.
I guess this is a lesson, though, not to go with the cheap brands like Memorex. Buy better quality products like Verbatim, and I’d imagine you’re less likely to run into this situation.
Boy oh Boy! Consumerist is badly in need of a monitor to tone down some of the bad feelings going on here.
In the old days I dropped several Bulletin Boards and Newsgroups because I got tired of reading abusive and off topic messages.
I’m sorry, but every single memorex disc I’ve ever used became a coaster. I even bought a dl disc spindle from them and it still was ass, I think out of 20 I got 2 to acutally burn.
I am not judging any product as to whether it’s junk or not. It doesn’t matter here (I think I have had some bad Memorex discs in the past, actually). My point here is that Memorex is a real brand. These aren’t no-name discs from the guy at the computer show at the fairgrounds. That is what I meant by reputable.
There is a clearly printed label identifying the contents of the package, and the consumer should expect the label to be true. Until the sale of blank DVD media is deemed unlawful, derailing a thread to speculate what the media is to be used for is pointless.
That aside, it’s too bad that consumerist gets cluttered with so much ‘noise’, both in the posts and the derailed threads. This original story is barely worthy of it’s own post. Having a problem with a product or service, and immediately getting correction/satisfaction is not much for a story. That, in addition to open-registration, leads to posting, with fark-like abandon, any little thought that pops into someones head.
@XREDGAMBIT
I had the same problem… I just burned tons of coasters which was a big waste of time, luckily I tested the before archiving them for backup.
O_o he sure paid a lot for the spindle of disks!
Hm ohh dual layer, but still feels absurd to pay over $2/disk