We’ve got the CompUSA internal discount list for their going out of business liquidation sale. The discounts are mainly 10% and 20%, with some 5% and 30% in there. Audio hardware, mounting brackets and the like, is 30% off. Just because they’re imploding doesn’t mean they don’t have some pride, as least for now. They’re entitled “opening discounts,” so perhaps will keep dropping week by week until all the stock is gone. Looks like for now they’re using the same close-out strategy as when they closed down most of their stores before: offer crappy deals and advertise the heck out of it.
exclusives
Exclusive: CompUSA's Tentative Liquidation Schedule
By 12.10.07
A CompUSA repair tech has leaked to The Consumerist what he says is their schedule for the liquidations happening now until they close everything down after the holiday season. This is in no way set in stone, he says, but it looks like this is how it’s going to go down starting this week. (He would also like everyone to know that no one his place steals porn from customers).
Best Buy Porn Thief Inquisitions Revealed
By 12.3.07
After reading “How Geek Squad Investigated Its Own Porn Thieves,” another fired Geek Squad tech has chimed in to tell us how the internal witch hunt for porn thieves proceeded.
I had worked for Geek Squad for over a year, and Best Buy a year and a half before that and was recently let go. Back when they started scanning computers, they said they found downloaded music and movies on our machine and we were to send them the hard drives. So we boxed them up and sent them out.
Leaks: How Geek Squad Investigated Its Own Porn Thieves
By 11.30.07
Best Buy launched a nation-wide internal investigation after we published a video sting op capturing one of their techs stealing porn from our computer. A fired Geek Squad supervisor tells how it all went down…Innocents fired… Liars kept jobs… Store hard drives seized… Pants shat…
The start of the internal Geek Squad investigation began this summer as all of the locations throughout the country were entered through remote connection and scanned for violations. The Geek Squad “precincts” that had bench machines containing serious violations had their hard drives removed and shipped to the corporate office. All of this was done rapidly and under the watchful eye of salary managers who had their jobs threatened if this was not executed properly. My store was lucky enough to have scored well enough on the remote scans to keep our hard drives. I knew at this point that there was serious cause for concern if Best Buy was willing to spend the kind of cash necessary to execute remote scans throughout ALL of its stores in one day.
Tmobile Introduces $18 Phone Upgrade Fee
By 11.12.07
Starting today, Tmobile will charge existing customers $18 when they buy a new phone. In an email shared with The Consumerist by an inside source, Tmobile told dealers that the new fee will help underwrite the cost of selling subsidized phones to new customers. Tmobile told dealers that acting positive when mentioning the fee would help to discourage customers from raising objections. Oddly enough, if an existing customer upgrades their phone without extending their contract, the fee will not be assessed.
Comcast Mole Starts Blog
By 11.7.07
The Comcast insider who leaked the BitTorrent memo promises to tell all of Comcast’s dark secrets at Shortnamenowitsgettinglong.com.
Comcast's Download Cap Is 200 GB, But Only In Areas With Subpar Networks
By 9.19.07
Comcast’s download limit is 200 gigabytes, but the limit isn’t everywhere, a former Comcast employee told The Consumerist. Places where the network isn’t optimal, due to old hardware or too much traffic, like the Bay Area, will run into the limit. Places like Philadelphia will never run into the problem.
Mother Lode Of Comcast Escalation Phone Numbers For Every Region
By 8.28.07
Looks like we got our hands on a big ol’ list of Comcast contacts for every single regional division. Names and numbers listed under “Sched Install,” “Complete Install,” “Reschedule Install,” “Billing Adjustments,” “Escalation Contact,” and “Retention “save” disco’s” would seem to be of particular interest to consumers trying to escalate issues through the notoriously unresponsive and uncaring cable company.
Comcast's Official Water Jug Changing Policy
By 8.17.07
In today’s go-go economy, savvy companies know it’s important to draft official policies for a variety of circumstances and surprises that can crop up in the middle of a busy workday, clearly communicated and readily available.
Video Of Ted Stevens Wanting To Switch Between Phones "As I Ride My Motorcycle"
By 7.17.07
In it, he says, “Is it coming? Why shouldn’t I be able to say, just by a little switch on my phone at home that’s wired, I’m going off on the wireless now, I want to use this as I ride my motorcycle…I’m bad. Pardon me.”
How Geek Squad Steals Your Porn
By 7.16.07
According to an insider, these are the tools, programs, and procedures one Geek Squad precinct exploits to snarf up your porn:
DC Madam's Favorite Hotels
By 7.16.07
Inside, an interactive Googlemaps Mashup showing the most popular hotels from the DC Madam’s phone records.
Top 10 Most "Ho-Friendly" DC Hotels, Based On The DC Madam's Phone Records
By 7.13.07
If you want to have sex with a prostitute in Washington D.C., try the Marriott.
Sprint Customers Terminated For Complaining Too Much Were Scamming Sprint For Free Service
By 7.11.07
Sprint announced Monday it was canceling the accounts of around 1,000 people who called customer service too much. At first blush, it might sound like a pretty jerk thing to do, have bad service and then punish people who complain, but we spoke with one of our most reliable Sprint insiders, who had a different side to the story: the terminated customers were scamming Sprint, calling in again and again, just to get free service credits.
Why We're Not Telling Geek Squad CEO Which Agent Stole The Porn
By 7.5.07
subject looking for comment re: VIDEO: Consumerist Catches Geek Squad Stealing Porn From Customer’s Computer
How To Make Your Computer Catch People Stealing Your Porn
By 7.5.07
Here’s how we rigged our computer to make a video of itself and caught the Geek Squad stealing porn from it.
Strange Dell Fashion Show Announces New Line Of Pretty Colored Laptops
By 6.26.07
Unable to resist, we sent Gawker video wunderkid Alex Goldberg to tape the affair awesomeness. We hypothesize the fete was conceptually tied to Dell’s new line of Insprions which come in different colors, meaning that Dell has finally caught up to Apple, circa 1998.
