Dodgy tech products
July 17th, 2008
The other day there was a story on A Current Affair or Today Tonight (Australian tabloid news show for those who don’t live here) about a twelve year old who got a mobile phone and on the memory chip there was hard core pornography.
The thing is the kid thought he was buying brand new merchandise and certainly wasn’t expecting to find a used memory card in his ‘brand new’ phone.
Now I’ve worked in that industry and I know for a fact that they bundle returned items back up and resell them, often at full price, in fact they used to sell old mobile phones that people had traded in to people (who knew they were buying second hand phones) but they still had old numbers and contacts in them. I remember a customer ringing up and complaining about some guy who rang him and asked if he still had the manual for the phone that he had just bought and found his number.
I once bought an answering machine from a large department store, I had no idea it was returned material until I discovered messages on the tape.
It is not good enough, as technology consumer products grow in sheer volume retailers are going to have to realise that it is not right to resell returned merchandise without advising the customer and providing a discount.
Of course I’m a realist so all I do is keep an eye out for the signs (for that matter I won’t buy display stock either).
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Categories: Stuff | Tags: retail, technology
To be honest, I’ve never given this much thought. If I want a gadget, I hunt around a bit for a good price and I buy it. I’ve never come across evidence that I’ve bought a returned product, but I’ve never had a real hard look for it.
I will now though.
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I just don’t agree with selling second hand stuff as brand new. It’s not cool especially when it’s to do with stuff like memory cards and tapes.
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you should buy a display mobile phone with cam..it’s just fun to check the pics on those. There’s this big media store here and people take lots of strange and funny pics with the display phones.
Arjans last blog post..Mixed feelings
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