Consumer Purchasing Issues

My DOA G5 iMac  — the one that KinkosFedEx wouldn’t issue a receipt for — was the start of an unlucky streak. On my holiday purchases:

1) Mrs. Big Picture’s iBook was fine; BUT:
2) wireless router was DOA due to a hardware problem;
3) 40G iPod was missing the ordered personal inscription;
4) Rebates on cell phones 8 months late;
5) Wireless Bluetooth keyboard couldn’t find the PC.

Thats 1 for 5 — a pretty lousy streak.

All this made me curious: Are these experiences atypical, or is something else happening here? So I have a favor to ask of BigPicture Readers:

Please tell me:  What sort of experiences have you had – both good and bad – with newly purchased goods or services? Not something you bought from Dell 2 years ago, but more recent (6 months or less). And I want to hear from you about all your consumer purchases — not exclusively Tech.

If you have a beef — or a particularly good experience — Send me an email with "Consumer Purchases" as the subject.

So far, I’ve gotten ~150 200 emails from RealMoney.com subscribers and readers of Prof Farber’s Interesting People, and its been eye-opening reading. I am construing some rather interesting patterns; My findings will be published on TheStreet.com hopefully  next week. I’ll make them available to participants.

I also plan on posting all of the complaints/compliments on line, sans addresses and identity (i.e. XYZ Co sux from Barry in NY). As always, email addresses are never harvested, and all names will remain confidential. (If you do not want your email posted, specify that).

So far, everything I’ve learned is quite fascinating, but I’d like a broader audience to draw from.

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  1. tygerll commented on Jan 12

    Yo! Dude, The heavens were against ya. Mercury went retrograde about 3 weeks before Christmas, just when most of us were getting revved to purchase and send stuff. So… everything will have to be RE-done. yeah! Life’s a beach, when the tide is out.

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