Circuit City Trying To Screw Customers One Last Time

With Circuit City making its slow walk towards the big retailer in the sky; it seems that they’ve chosen to screw their customers on the way out the door. With the announcement that Circuit City will be closing 155 stores, the retailer has moved to liquidate all inventories within the outlets that are going bye bye. The only problem is the scam that Circuit City is trying to get over on the consumer. Reports have come in stating that they are marking merchandise up, only to receive 10% discount on said item. This is what they are calling an in-store liquidation “sale”, even though prices on the same item from their website are lower. This goes against their “One Price Guarantee” claim that they’re been throwing around.

So why would you shop Circuit City when their “liquidation sale” isn’t really a sale after all? This kind of decision making is the reason that they’re going the way of the do-do bird.

[Crunchgear]

Scams You Should Know About

This subject has been a hot button with me for quite awhile, mainly because the victims seem to always be family or friends. People who go and buy a nice HDTV from the Best Buys and Circuit City's of the world get taken by the "expensive cables are better" scam. And to this day, I do not believe that the $100 HDMI Monster cable is any better than the $6 HDMI cable that you can find on-line.

But what Gizmo Republic uncovered at a big box store is just all out wrong!!!

This demo for Monster cable shows the "Monster difference" between their cables and a inferior competitors. So why was the competitors image inferior to Monsters image? Because Monster is using an HDMI cable on the left, compared to the composite cables on the right. What blows my mind is how they're getting away with this. Check the quote:

"Monster brand has been running this scam for years. The big box retailers have found outrageously priced accessories to be a good way to recoup profits from the pencil thin profit margins on big ticket consumer electronics like HDTVs."

Please people, don't get sucked into this Monster scam that's been going on for an awful long time.

Monster HDMI Cable Scam [GizmoRepublic via Crunchgear]

Hey, Where's My 'True Broadband'? The Truth About Fiber optics

I've debated about the subject of fiber optics with friend and fellow poster Matt about if it's truly the future of broadband. Matt feels that wireless will lead the way, as cities prepare to offer that service to many communities. But for me, it still doesn't answer the question about why this nation is ranked 16th in 'true broadband' service. The FCC defines anything above 200 Kbps in one direction as broadband (1000 Kbps = 1 Mbps), which is a joke. The most common top speed use of broadband in the U.S. is 768 Kbps, which is hundreds of times slower than 100 Mbps, bi-directional service that is offered in other countries at the same price of about $40 a month.

So why do we pay the same amount but get service that is a hundred times inferior? This country was on track to get fiber optics, with many of the countries phone companies on board to build the infrastructure to make it happen. They lobbied state governments for financial incentives to 'up grade' their fiber optic plants, to the tune of $200 billion. So what happened to the networks? A bait and switch of sorts with DSL, which was considered inferior back in 1992 because it worked over copper wires. So customers paid $200 billion for a service they never received. So there are still no 45 mbps, bi-directional 500 channel services as outlined in the FCC filings. And the only 30 mbps offered from Verizon at a cost of $179.95 a month.

So not only would fiber optics have the ability to bring 'true broadband' to the U.S., but it would offer more bandwidth for HD channels than standard cable copper wire and dish services.

If you really want to find out what is going on with fiber optics in this country, and the big lie being told to us; check the article after the leap. [niemanwatchdog.org]