Matthew emailed us with an interesting link to a Meritline offer that he says is making the rounds on deal sites. The Airlink digital-to-analog converter box is a fairly generic offer, but Meritline is offering a free HDMI cable with it. The only problem is, there’s no place on the box to use the cable. If you just see “free HDMI cable” and don’t read the specs closely, you’ll be in for a rotten surprise when the box arrives. But hey, free cable.

http://dealnews.com/Airlink101-Digital-to-Analog-Converter-Box-for-0-free-shipping/292372.html

I recently came across this ad for a digital converter box which uses language to suggest that it has HDMI capabilities. They suggest this by saying that they will ship a free hdmi cable with purchase of the unit.

What makes this a concern is that there are many people out there that are looking for digital converter boxes with more capabilities than RF out. There are many LCD televisions out there that do not have an ATSC tuner thus they would need another way to receive digital broadcasts via sources like DVI or component.

What Meritline is doing is cashing in on this unending quest by a small group of people by including the words HDMI with search terms for the converter box. Upon inspection of the box, it has no HDMI output capabilities.

The deal circuit has picked up the item and results are at the top of google searches.

We don’t know if Meritline is doing this intentionally or not, but be sure to read the specs of any converter box closely before buying one.

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