Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
Rather than pass your savings on to your customers, as you originally were doing, you got greedy and decided to milk the sudden traffic and cease your customer-first policy. As I've already pointed out this was a planned course of action precipitated by the public acknowledgement that nobody should expect a GS...that told me RIGHT away, coupled with the sudden appearance of the GS as a separate product, that you were gonna destroy everybody's expectations and, surprise, I was dead on.
There's nothing you can do at this point. You can't sell the GSs for $380 and try to salvage your reputation because you're only benefitting voracious skeptics like me who just want a guaranteed outstanding bargain and not those who had some faith in your company and who were already let down when their hopes were dashed and they got plain GTs. You can't let them return the GTs for GSs because you'll be losing money and $380 for a dual-DVI GT is not an unreasonable price in the first place. Taking a loss to help your rep would be a terrible move since a customer's feelings toward a company take the back seat to price and service. So the damage is done, bro...you're part of the mass of typical nickel-and-diming price-gouging stores and will only hurt yourselves if you veer from this path now. Get the most you can from the cards. Drop the price on each $5 a week until they start selling...get the maximum you can for them.
By the way, sending out GSs because they cost you no more was a straight up class move that I applaud you for. As I said, personal feelings are third to price and service for most people and you're still pretty good on those.
Interesting points - nice way of looking at it from their perspective. It seems a bit incongrous for the same company to make the initial classy move of free substitutions, but then lie about the numbers left in stock and our odds of getting one. If this was a cynical gimmick to inflate sales - and we don't know that yet - I can't believe they would think it was worth the trouble and besmerching of their name. Like Bruce Banner, they wouldn't like AT'ers when we're angry.
As with everyone else, I can take being unlucky - I won't take being duped. Rick told me on the phone, on 9/1 that the "vast majority" of their cards were GS's - as high as "95%" and that I had "very good odds" of getting one.
True that this won't be the end of the world for them - as long as they stay competitive on price and service people will still shop there. Still, many of us would be extremely disappointed if this turned out to be a trick and we would make our feelings known in RR and elsewhere. They would likely survive, but they would no doubt lose some sales over it.
I'm waiting to open it until I see how this all shakes out. True - not a bad price for a dual DVI 6800GT, but I probably would have kept my options open a bit longer if I knew I had only a minimal or no chance of a GS. It would be a very good move for them to offer returns or credit, however - at least if they want their name back.
One thing I noticed - the top panel of the box has a blurb about the Golden Sample. Could this possibly be an honest mistake and the warehouse packers thought they were shipping out GS's? Probably not, but still holding out hope that this was legit...