The WSJ’s HOLIDAY SALES BLOG is keeping track of many of the big discounts and special deals being offered.
Its good place to start filling out your holiday shopping list.
In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone. —John Kenneth Galbraith
Asian currencies continue to sell off vs the $ on the heels of the news yesterday that South Korea said they will look into hot money inflows stemming from the $ carry trade and the Bank of Indonesia said they are looking into the foreign buying of bills. This follows the news a few weeks ago that Taiwan was limiting foreign deposit holdings and Brazil was taxing foreign inflow transactions. As I mentioned yesterday, we may have reached a short term pain threshold in terms of $ weakness and foreign countries are fighting back as they certainly won't wait for...
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December 13th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Desperate for End-of-Year Revenue & Lousy Customer Service – at Barron’s
The week before last, I received an automated phone call asking for the current expiration of my credit card on file with Barron’s.
It is not my intent to renew when my subscription expires in April 2009, and I have not previously been able to find a location on the Barron’s website to turn off auto-renewal, so I did not answer. I instead called customer service, to inform it that I would not provide the current expiration, as it is not my intent to renew. The customer service rep, after consulting with someone else, called me back and told me that if I did not provide the information, Barron’s might turn off my account. I expressed surprise, indicating that I had already paid for the period thru April. The customer service person did not offer any more information.
The Barrons’ data for my credit card expiration is for an expiration that occurred months ago, so it seems that this may be a new policy, just in time for end of year revenue maintenance.
After the calls, I emailed Barron’s customer service to turn off auto-renewal, on 6 Dec. I have not received a reply.
=> Sure enough, my account is disabled today, 13 Dec, even though it’s paid up for a subscription that expires four months from now. The nuisances subjected on this Barron’s subscriber also include the three phone calls mentioned, composing this text, and a fourth call which I will make on Monday. I should be billing Barron’s for my time.
In failing to deliver a service, and in taking complete and arbitrary control of its terms, Barrons’ is using Wall St. and the Credit Card industry as its models. One would think a publication w/ the editorial perspective of Alan Abelson would treat its customers with a little more consideration. Or is this Rupert Murdoch’s doing?
I will never subscribe to Barron’s again, nor to any other Rupert Murdoch publication. I would encourage the BP readership to do the same.
December 13th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
slickdeals.net is where I go for my christmas shopping…
December 13th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
caught my eye…
“”Costco has sale offers on jewelry, camera and electronics. They also have TV bundles, such as two 42″ Sharp LCD HDTVs, $1500 after a mail-in rebates of $700.”"
Was thinking about a TV for the bedroom, but 2? hmmm… can’t afford one but 2 for the price of one will work… his and hers TV’s!
December 13th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Not impressive. Slickdeals is okay, I perfer antirebate.com
December 13th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Everything will be cheaper after XMAS, especially in January.
@aka_ces – Threaten to take them to small claims court. Also call up your credit card and file a dispute. Ask for a refund of the money you paid since your access has been disabled. Last, call the executive offices and report the person you spoke with. Ask that they be fired and your account reenabled.
December 13th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
@aka_ces – I had a similar problem with The NY Times. I had my subscription on a monthly charge to my credit card. I called then to cancel the subscription, and they refused to do so. It was not until I filed a dispute with the credit card did they finally cancel my subscription.
But more on topic: I like gottadeal for promotions and discounts.
December 13th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
A couple more shopping sites – http://www.fatwallet.com , http://www.xpbargains.com
Of course there is The Perfect Holiday Gift! –
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/11/the-perfect-holiday-gift/
December 13th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
These are subscription links for RSS deal feeds. The only sensible way to track deals is via RSS.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/techdealsnet
http://www.antirebate.com/xml/index.xml
December 13th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Bah–Hum Bug! Jojo99 is right; cheaper in January and perhaps more so next Christmas.
December 13th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
I saw a 750GB Seagate hard disk for $75 the other day! I will buy one or two when it gets down to $50. [lol]
December 13th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
I picked up a different vibe from Sears at Golf Mill Mall in Niles, IL., this afternoon. Specifically, there seemed to be extra space in the hardware area. I even went back to check again. There were many lawnmowers out for sale but only a few snowblowers. There was other, vacant floor space in other parts of Hardware. Plus, there seemed to be a pretty thin stock of many items which hang in the aisles. May this Sears be closing soon?
December 14th, 2008 at 12:47 am
went to Best Buy in Bellevue, Wa (Microsoftland) this afternoon and there was a waiting list for a parking spot
on the flip side, a buddy in Portland OR area worked Thanksgiving dinner at a local shelter and served a guy who’d been working at AIG for 17 years until he got laid off recently… which doesn’t explain why he had no savings… but still
December 14th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
aka_ces,
I had a similar incident with PayPal: my credit card information had expired with them and they sent me a letter canceling my financial subscriptions (that are not due to expire for another 6 months), and sent a similar messages telling the newletter folks that “I had canceled”. Needless to say, I will no longer use PayPal.
December 14th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
The Apple iPod price stranglehold seems to be ineffective at Amazon.com–I got one of my kids a 32GB Ipod Touch at a DISCOUNT ($30)…with free shipping and no sales tax, they undercut Walmart, BestBuy and Circuit City, all who are at retail. I just checked and Amazon has all iPod’s marked down $10-30 depending on price, etc.
Since the other 3 all have operations in Massachusetts, throw-in the $20+ in sales tax and Amazon is under-cutting these for iPod purchases, saving me $50 (well, and my kid, ’cause the only way he was getting it was to pay-in significantly so he could get that big fat 32GB).
First time I’ve ever seen iPods NEW that were discounted…
December 14th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
My last post gave me a thought, kind of off topic, but with the State & Local funding pressures that will be building over the next year, I’ll bet the Internet sales tax exclusion is going to be under legislative pressure…
December 20th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Anyone that’s looking for last minute deals – 50-75% off on designer women’s fashion worn by the likes of Rachel McAdams, Kate Hudson, Jennifer Lopez and Blake Lively: http://www.whitleykros.com or http://whitleykros.myshopify.com