[DEAD]Western Digital Elements 2TB 3.5" External Hard Drive: $69.99 *Cyber Monday*

[Fenixgoon]

wait, so why are they calling it a cyber monday sale if it's already on sale?

too bad it's not B&M - there's a staples not too far from me

 

[Red Dawn]

Not that I know of right now. Target and Amazon had the $69.00 deal the last two days. What made the Staples deal so appealing was the $25 coupon that would bring this drive (+ filler) down to $50 + tax.

The Target drives ending in NETG (Malaysia) contained WD Black 2TB drives (but only with 1 year warranty instead of the normal 5). It's not known if the Target deal will extend to today or not (maybe a manager will still sell them at the $69.xx price).

There were already people trying to sell that WD Black 2T Drive they bought at Target over at the FS forum for $100
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2123230

 

[Freewolf]

2 of them went to me at 2:45 am this morning. Already received email with shipping info.

 

[Soundmanred]

Same here. Luckily kept checking and saw it come up early and bought a couple.
Says they should be here tuesday!

 

[Soccerman06]

Just a heads up for yall, my local staple is matching the online add pricing, so it doesn't hurt to call yours and see if they will.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Just a heads up for yall, my local staple is matching the online add pricing, so it doesn't hurt to call yours and see if they will.

Just tried calling my local store -- no luck. They said the prices were online only.

 

[Soccerman06]

Unfortunately they don't have any in stock for me

 

[BlueWeasel]

I started to order the WD 1.5TB Elements external drive last night for $55 AC. Wishing I had now.

 

[KPACOTKA]

I think if you wait couple months, every store will sell them for $70. Costco just sent coupon $40 off for a similar drive. Costco is most expensive store for electronics.

 

[BenJeremy]

Damn thing went live at 2:35 EST. I didn't get up until just after 4 am and they were sold out. There are lots of held up orders with "Researching" listed and 0 drives on the
Staples online order confirmation (from posts at SD) so it might have been for the better anyway.

At this point, it looks like only those who tried to tie in a $25 off $75 coupon into the deal are getting the 0.00 "Researching" thing...

I think people just tried to get too greedy on a good deal, and Staples put the hammer down.

The timing was all screwed up though - the deal didn't go live @ 12:01 EST, but at the oddball hour you mentioned. A lot of people saw it wasn't up at midnight, and went to sleep, setting alarm clocks for 5:55AM... only to find them all sold out, I'm just glad I stayed up a bit and also didn't try and use a purchased coupon with the deal. Still sweating it out until I get tracking numbers, though.

 

[Soundmanred]

At this point, it looks like only those who tried to tie in a $25 off $75 coupon into the deal are getting the 0.00 "Researching" thing...

I think people just tried to get too greedy on a good deal, and Staples put the hammer down.

The timing was all screwed up though - the deal didn't go live @ 12:01 EST, but at the oddball hour you mentioned. A lot of people saw it wasn't up at midnight, and went to sleep, setting alarm clocks for 5:55AM... only to find them all sold out, I'm just glad I stayed up a bit and also didn't try and use a purchased coupon with the deal. Still sweating it out until I get tracking numbers, though.

Tracking numbers are delayed due to it being Sunday, most likely.
It's probably true about the added coupon since the deal already used an internal coupon code to get the price to $69.
$69 each is already a good enough deal for the drives, I didn't want to risk it by trying to add another coupon on top of the deal.

May not be valid in combination with other offers. Offer subject to change. No cash/credit back
Offer Code: 68819 will be automatically added to your cart and applied to your subtotal at checkout

 

[Red Dawn]

I think if you wait couple months, every store will sell them for $70. Costco just sent coupon $40 off for a similar drive. Costco is most expensive store for electronics.

More expensive than Best Buy with their $25 SATA Cables?

 

[n0tdan]

Lame... I ordered at 1am PST

"Thank you for shopping at Staples!

Unfortunately, while processing your recent Staples.com order (Staples order number listed above), we realized the 2 TB Western Digital hard drive you were trying to order is out of stock. Your order for this item has been canceled.

Due to the inconvenience, within the next few weeks we will send you a courtesy coupon for $30 off a future Staples order. We hope you will continue to look to Staples with confidence and satisfaction for all of your office supply needs.

If you have any questions regarding your order, please contact us at support@orders.staples.com or 800-333-3330
Please reference your order # and we will be happy to assist you.

Sincerely,
Staples Customer Service

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is an automated message - please do not reply or forward. "

 

[bradley]

I set my alarm for 5:30AM EST, but ended up waking up at 4AM EST. I immediately placed my Staples order for the 2TB HD and the free AR Kaspersky Internet Security 2011. I was going to get the free batteries, but couldn't find my Staples Reward card. I didn't use any coupon. My order is now showing just the free AR software as "researching" and a total of $0.00.

Staples truly needs new IT guys to get them into the 21st Century. I feel like it's still 1998 every time I order. I'll be curious to see how this is handled during the work week starting tomorrow.

 

[BenJeremy]

Those courtesy coupons are probably a better deal in the long run, for people that ordered a bunch and got canceled, since it's basically $30 free cash to use at Staples.

My two orders are traveling through UPS.

On a side note, another purchase I made last week from OfficeMax was partially shipped - they sent an employee from their warehouse 60 miles away to deliver a big box mostly stuffed with airpockets - and one 100-stack of $12.99 Magavox DVD-Rs.

Can't beat my buddy, who had a single sharpie (also delivered in a large box) hand delivered by a guy who drove 300 miles from another state. It was the only package he had to deliver.

 

[Soundmanred]

Got my 2 drives today, so I'm happy!

 

[Lipservice]

Got mine today but it is the Green Drive Wanted the Black one.

 

[BlueWeasel]

can't beat my buddy, who had a single sharpie (also delivered in a large box) hand delivered by a guy who drove 300 miles from another state. It was the only package he had to deliver.

lol! :d

 

[Freewolf]

Got my two in as well. Don't know which drives are in them and don't really care since I'm not taking them out of their cases.

 

[joeyjoey]

I received the exact same message as below, and I did not combine with any other coupons or anything, was just going to pay $70 for the drive (now listed at $159.99). The first CSR tried to tell me that I never completed my order, which really made a lot of sense considering I had been notified that it was canceled.

CBS5 in San Francisco just covered a story about black friday retailers not honoring online orders, and a US attorney stated that they are obligated to fulfill those orders or make consumers whole, due to their lost opportunity,
and it does not matter if there were inventory or technical issues.

Lame... I ordered at 1am PST

"Thank you for shopping at Staples!

Unfortunately, while processing your recent Staples.com order (Staples order number listed above), we realized the 2 TB Western Digital hard drive you were trying to order is out of stock. Your order for this item has been canceled.

Due to the inconvenience, within the next few weeks we will send you a courtesy coupon for $30 off a future Staples order. We hope you will continue to look to Staples with confidence and satisfaction for all of your office supply needs.

If you have any questions regarding your order, please contact us at support@orders.staples.com or 800-333-3330
Please reference your order # and we will be happy to assist you.

Sincerely,
Staples Customer Service

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is an automated message - please do not reply or forward. "

 

[joeyjoey]

I wanted to also include the first response I received from Staples. This is the one where the CSR attempts to tell me that I never completed checkout, which I consider nothing but an attempt to see if I could be confused, because I clearly completed the checkout process, which they clearly acknowleged when they canceled my order.

The bold formatting is my own. I wanted to highlight where the rep lies, or at least attempts to twist with craftful words that I might doubt were her own, the details about me not completing the order process.


"Hi ****, thank you for contacting Staples Delivery Services about our Cyber Sunday & Monday event.

I apologize for any inconvenience that you may have experienced while attempting to purchase items that were part of the Cyber Sunday & Monday event.

Unfortunately, due to an overwhelming response from all our customers across the United States items were going out of stock as fast as customers located them online. Please note it was never our intention to cause you, or any customer, any concerns. Please note that adding any item to your online cart, regardless of a major sales event or not, does not pull the item from our inventory.

The system is designed to check the actual inventory available in your local warehouse only once you have successfully proceeded through the secure checkout process. I am very sorry that the following item was actually out of stock before you completed your order and was dropped from your order details: 884865 Western Digital Elements 2TB External Hard Drive

This was a "while supplies last" offer, and we are unable to offer any rain checks, substitutes, or backorders. This item is still out of stock, and it is not likely that Staples will be replenishing this item.

Again, I do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Thank you for this opportunity to respond to your inquiry. I hope you will continue to look to Staples with confidence and satisfaction for all of your office supply needs.

If you would like to contact one of our representatives, please reply to this email or call us at
800-333-3330
Renee,
Customer Service Representative

e-mail: support@orders.staples.com
phone : 1-800-333-3330
fax : 1-800-333-3199
online: http://www.staples.com/sbd/content/help/contact/index.html

 

[KPACOTKA]

A similar thing happened with me when I ordered nook from BB in store pickup, I got akcnowledge page, however my order wasn't fulfilled. BB didn't send me excuse letter through. Most of these deals just a way to push a customer to B&M or online store and do some purchase.

 

[Soundmanred]

I got one from Target and two from Staples, all Green drives. It makes no difference to me due to what I'm using them for, and the price was right.

 

[hoy128]

Weak.....I got mine in the mail today. They shipped me a 1.5TB (WDBAAU0015HBK-NESN) instead of the 2.0TB. I called customer service and they said the one I ordered was no longer available and discontinued. They wouldn't apply the cyber Monday savings to any other drive. So my dilemma is if I should keep this 1.5TB for the $69.99+tax I paid or should I return it and shop around for another HDD? I didn't really care for the case, I was going to rip the HDD out and use it as an internal anyways.