CompUSA says it is sending Terry Heaton a $300 gift certificate after his misadventures buying an empty box there. I would have hoped for an actual camera, but Terry seems cool with going to a CompUSA store buying one again. (You can bet he’ll look in the box.) The story caught fire on the web, and CompUSA noticed. Terry writes:
This is a lesson in the power of community — the very people CompUSA needs to court as customers spread the word and reacted angrily to what most viewed as a rip-off. I did nothing to manipulate “coverage†— I only wanted to share a slice of my life. The community took over from there.
Right. There were some people who suggested Terry was trying to game the system somehow by blogging about what happened. Nonsense. Bloggers blog. If the community had decided the story wasn’t a big deal, the community wouldn’t have reacted to the story. As for the volume of people who blamed the victim?
I’ve been taken aback by the number of people, especially on Digg, who were adamant that I was some sort of con artist trying to steal a camera from CompUSA and get away with it. People, really. Another group of people sided with the belief that I should’ve opened the friggin’ box at the store. These well-intentioned onlookers weren’t there as I bought 12 items for $3,339.99. Was I supposed to open each?
There were some good folks who pointed out to the people who said “Buyer beware!” and “All sales are final!” that no transaction took place – selling someone an empty box means Terry was not a “buyer” at all, but rather a victim of fraud. As for Terry’s master criminal plan? He’s a terrible thief, if you ask me. Who buys $3,500 woth of goods with the intention of then screwing a company out of 7%? I mean – you can do that online by avoiding sales tax.
So good for CompUSA for ultimately doing mostly the right thing. One last note: I have been accused in many posts of being biased in this report. I want to make this absolutely clear, so there is no confusion: I am biased.