Monday, September 22, 2008

Best "buy" from Best Buy

I know that I told a lot about being a desi. But before I begin, please be clear that I did not pull a "desi" though Satman and Srikanth can be categorized as one. This started a week back when Satman called one evening and asked for my home address and verified whether I have a cable connection at home. Though I had a doubt whether he is going to gift us a free cable connection even though my birthday is very far away, I put away that thought knowing that I might be forced to buy a new TV if we get a cable connection. When Me and Srikanth met him in Best Buy, one of America's largest electronics store chain who have absolutely no idea of what they are selling and might even say 250GB hard drive computer is faster than 160GB computer, he was acting secretive and behaved like a secret agent making unfocussed eye contacts and speaking in a low voice as if we are "watched". He was not ready to disclose his intentions even after asking him. His face appeared as if he have stolen a 55" HDTV and was wondering how to hide it in the pocket. Not able to understand what it was all about, we just waited for an hour and finally found that he pulled a "desi". The unintelligent BestBuy guys have priced a Gateway laptop at 520 which is actually sold at 800 bucks in their online store. Now getting the news from his friend, Satman had made a hush-hush purchase of the laptop and came out victorious. Now this is not the entire news. BestBuy also has an offer of $100 off on your laptop if you get a broadband connection from them. And this is where the "Desi" mind came to act. The 520 dollars laptop became just 420 when bought with an Internet connection. And guess what. You can terminate the Broadband connection as soon as billing completes. And that is what I call a "Desi buy".
Hearing the amazing deal, Srikanth too pulled a "Desi" and came out with a laptop for his own on the same day.
One must understand that no laws or rules were crossed in this deal. The wrong pricing was a mistake by the Best Buy store and they had no intention of correcting it even though the mistake was pointed directly on their website by some users. And even the broadband connection was terminated legally by the helpdesk.
So after watching this for a week and when the news reached that the price was corrected in the store but in the wrong direction from 520 to 440 dollars, I too had no hesitation in pulling off the deal. But as I mentioned in the start, I did not pull it in "Desi style" for my mind could not find any justifiable reason for taking the broadband connection and canceling it just to benefit from the offer. But still 480 (incl. taxes) for a laptop with configuration Intel Core 2 Duo 5750 2GHz processor, 4GB RAM and ATI HD2600 512MB graphics card is not a deal but a steal.

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