Google has prohibited those teeth-whitening and weight-loss ads.
Previously, they would ban individual ads, but now they are eliminating the source of the ads altogether.
By only banning individual ads, advertisers were able to come up with new ways to try and bypass Google’s terms of use after one of their ads was banned. Now, when an advertiser tries to feed you the latest weight-loss scam, Google will ban the advertiser.
They were not forced to do this by the government or because they were bleeding money. They did it because it’s the right thing to do.
If only other companies were as pro-customer as Google. Electronics goods stores in particular seem to have a natural affinity toward ripping you off.
Geek Squad is really one big scam. If you can read an instruction manual (a lot of them have pictures nowadays), you can work at the Geek Squad.
On their Web site, they offer a CD ripping service. Meaning they will take music from your CDs at $1 per CD and “transfer your music to a purchased device free of charge.”
I’m not sure what “purchased device free of charge” is, but getting paid to do something that iTunes prompts you to do when you pop in a CD is ludicrous.
But that was not nearly as ludicrous as their PS3 installation scam, where they offered to set up a PS3 — a process that can be done by anyone with motor skills and basic literacy — for $129.99.
There have been reports of other Best Buy transgressions, like refusing to take back cameras their employees took pictures of themselves with and then sold as new.
Even other stores like Fry’s Electronics would be infinitely better without their customer service representatives.
I asked, flat out, if Monster Cables were a scam, not even asking to buy one. The employee lied to me and said no. He even gave me a few reasons they weren’t: They are better quality and Monster will replace the cables as technology improves, e.g. HDMI 1.3 improves to HDMI 1.4.
First of all, no, they’re not better. Those luxurious, broad Monster Cables are no better than an $8 counterpart online.
And secondly, I could buy four 6-foot cables on Newegg.com before I reached the near $40 price tag for a 2-meter Monster Cable on Amazon.com. Why buy for a future upgrade when getting an additional non-Monster Cable is still cheaper?
I didn’t buy a Monster Cable, but imagine that I had. What if I were fooled by their Monster comparison scam, in which a Monster HDMI Cable was compared with a normal RGA cable that they pretended was an off-brand HDMI cable?
I would have been ripped off — no different than a Nigerian royalty e-mail scam or a thief stealing my wallet.
All of those shady business practices could have been eliminated if they had just followed Google’s informal motto: “Don’t be evil.” All they had to do was not do something evil.
Not doing something is the easiest task you could ask of anybody. Start doing pushups. Now stop. See how easy that was?
Chris is a Best Buy employee in need of $200 to release pension; will give $1,000 in return. Help him at cogino@asu.edu.*
*Satire
