OFF TOPIC

When contracting a job of a home improvement nature (or any other nature for that matter) make sure you are dealing with the actual company that is to do the job. Preferably with the actual person who will have primary responsibility for the job.

The best way to screw up a project is to get involved with person or persons who sub-contract. Persons like most home improvement centers.

Home improvement centers should be the absolute last resort or not even considered at all. You will end up with phoney quotes as they try to second guess what the real jobber will charge. You might get inferior work. Contestable responsibility. Even be faced with having to have the job done over by qualified professionals. Even with all those risks, you may still not get the best price.

One such vendor advertises whole house carpet installation for $100 regardless of square footage. Does that seem too good to be true? It seems that way to me. Carpet installation for most customers requires the removal of the old carpet, removal of the old pad, replacement of the tack strips. All this before any new carpet is cut. Figuring an average house of appoximately 2000 square feet and about 80 precent of that carpeted this is a two day job for two installers unless they work a 12 hour day. That means these installers would have to work for less than minimum wage.

How much skill can you buy for minimum wage? That $100 non conditional installation plan is a disaster looking for a place to happen.

Now ask yourself, how many other good deals seeking disaster status do these fools have?

Do you really want to find out?

I don’t.

You are not always better off going the more professional route but in most cases that is the way to go. Don’t get sucked in by teaser rates.

A very good example is the purchase of a new washing machine two years ago. The first attempt was though a home improvement center appliance department. It was a new Maytag. The delivery was on time and prompt after the purchase and the price was reasonable (around $300). There was no installation. They just delivered it to the laundry room and were going to leave. I insisted it be hooked up if even temporarily so that I could see it run. Once it was full of water and working it began to rock and roll and move across the floor. I had them take it back. They promised to return the next day with a machine that worked properly.

The next day the rock and roll incident was repeated. In fact, I was not sure the it was not the exact same machine. Not interested in becoming a washing machine test center, I sent it back and got a refund. I am still not sure if it was a vendor problem or a Maytag problem. The only thing I was SURE of was that it was not going to become MY problem.

I took the refund to a local appliance store. This was a dedicated appliance store. Appliances were not a sideline with them. Appliances were their only business. This time we bought a Whirlpool for $360 including tax, delivery, and installation.

The man who came to install the new Whirlpool was super efficient, knew exactly what he was doing, and gave us some tips as to use. Nothing at all like the two delivery men from the home improvement center. More importantly, the new washer did not rock and roll and is still going strong.

You pays your money and takes your chances. That is how most people operate. You should try to take no chances and only pay after the job has been completed successfully.

On my last trip to handy homers yesterday I was amazed at all the friendly people offering help. Aint it wonderful?

Not really. A lady approached me offering to help with my tile selection claiming that she was a tile ‘expert’. I told her if she really wanted to help, learn how to run a cash register so I don’t have to do the checkout myself.

I may have offended her as she walked off muttering about her ‘expert’ status. Expert? I don’t expect to find too many experts working for minimum wage at Home Depot! Heck, some of them don’t even speak good english.

When I go to a ’serve yourself’ home improvement center I go with the goal of serving myself. I want to buy my ’stuff’ with a minimum investment in time and money. If I need help finding something, I will ask.

In fact, that did happen. I was looking for a sink spray attachment. I asked an employee in the plumbing department where I could find such. He furlled his brow and said, ‘Let me think’. It was pretty obvious he was not big on thinking so I told him, ‘Never mind, don’t hurt yourslef, I will find it myself’.

I take offense at being greeted at the door by people waving flyers trying to propagandise me. I did not come to read flyers. I usually throw them away when they mail them to me. Why would they think I would take time to read them on site?

I also take offense at being offered help unless I ask for it. Then, when I do ask for it, I am offended by blank stares as some moron tries to remember what his job is.

I guess I am just easily offended.

Just one more offence. I do not like the self checkout. I do not work at Home Depot and I do not want to be treated as though I do.

I know, I know, they claim they do that to cut costs. The only thing I care about is what it costs me and I don’t see the prices going down. The only thing self checkout does is increase the time I have to spend in the store.

So, to all you Home Depot workers, quit trying to be something you are not. Go back to doing the things you were doing several years ago. Your customers will be happier and you will have less reason to be offended or offensive.

I recently ordered a Brother MFC 8120 laser printer from the Geeks. This printer is refurbished. I guess that means it stopped working under warranty the first time it was sold. The price was right, only $55. It costs me that much for a new 52 ink cartridge for the inkjet!

Of course I also had to pay $35 to get it delivered. I also found a couple of cheap flash lights an a 1gig memory stick for one of my older computers. The final order came to $102.

The brother printer also works as a copier, scanner, and fax. The starter toner cartridge gets 4,000 pages, its drum has a 20,000 page life. New high capacity toner cartridges are priced at around $40 and get 6,500 pages.

Unfortunately, one of the few reviews gives this printer an 8 month life. That review did not say how many pages the printer had printed but seemed to imply that they had gone through several toner cartridges.

The way I see this is that the brother printer is going to save me more than $500 in ink jet ink for an investment of around $100.

At a price of $54 for the printer it would almost be worth buying a new one when the toner runs out. The only thing preventing me doing that is the $35 shipping charge. That is pretty close to the price of a toner cartridge.

I think the Geeks are basically good but you would never guess that from some of the scams their third party buddies pull.

After the order was entered I was informed it qualified for free shipping. I checked with all the common carriers some time ago and they assured me they did not work for free. Turns out you can get free shipping if you sign up for some useless service that tries to rob you.

I also got a spam e-mail from some moron wanting me to send them $10 for a service warranty on the refurbished printer.

The Geeks would do well to distance themselves from these scammers. It makes them look bad.

We found some interesting jewelry on the J.C. Penny website and decided to investigate. There was no way we were going to do an on-line purchase after being cheated on Amazon, so we called Pennys customer service.

No answer. Guess maybe they were still at the Christmas party. It might do well to note that advertising a customer service feature that is unresponsive is a sure way to loose customers.

We submitted an email inquiry instead. Two days later we get an email telling us the item is not available in stores. This after we informed these morons that we do not purchase jewelry on-line due to the fraud potential. Oh well. It appears that J.C. Penny is still as ambivelent to prospecitve customers as it was several years ago when we were in the market for a new TV set.

They had a TV set, reasonably priced and with freatures we wanted. Unfortunately none were in stock. They offered to sell us the demo unit at regular price. I was not interested in buying a used TV at new TV prices.

We finally found a decent TV at Wards.

Might wonder why we did not go to Best Buy or any other major electronics store, their prices were higher than we wanted to pay.

Buying things a Best Buy is not always ‘best’ from the customers perspective. I remember purchasing a hoover upright from Best Buy many years ago. It was a cheap vacuum priced under $100. The sales lady wanted to know if we would be interested in purchasing an annual maintenance warrenty for $50.

We have been avoiding Best Buy ever since.

We also have not been back to Wards and will certainly avoid Pennys and Amazon as well.

A good place to buy electronics is at Sams or Wall-Mart. Department store just are not competative any more. They never have been competative but during an economic downturn they are positively rediculous.

Recently we found some interesting jewelry on Amazon. The item we bought was offered by one of many third party vendors doing business through Amazon.

This item was a amethest pendant reasonably priced under $100. When it arrived it turned out to be a $15 piece of kids trinket.

Only a fool would buy jewelry on-line from an enlarged picture.

Evidently the vendor suspected we might be less than happy with the purchase because included in the package was an applicaton for refund. Refund minus shipping and handling. Guess that free shipping is a one way deal and good only if you let yourself get robbed.

Buyer beware and beware especially of jewelry crooks scamming folks on Amazon.com.

You would think that the folk at Amazon would have higher ideals. After all, crap like this reflects on them as much as on the vendor perpetrating the fraud.

We are conflicted about applying for a refund because we do not need store credit to a crooked organization.

We may just take the hit. Write this thing off as a loss and warn our friends not to buy jewelry on-line from Amazon or any other on-line vendor. The temptation to defraud is just too great in an on-line transaction.