Proof-read, please!
12:00 PM 08/17/2004
The story so far...
Got a new hard disk at a popular electronics' store, and hooked it up. Instead of getting the "Please format prior to use" message from Windows, I saw a partition pop-up, and it was about 3% of the drivespace I'd paid for. And that's not funny. To top that, it contained Windows' installation folders and files, some dating back to the start of the month, and some dating back to March. Very un-funny.
A quick call to their customer service had me talking to a reasonably sympathetic rep who said I could return / exchange the product for a similar one at any of their stores around my stomping ground. Seemed fair, but was a potential recursive loop. I'd been sold something as new, and it turned out to be something that could be reasonably inferred as a return or worse, a used product. If I recollect right, I believe there's a law in place that prohibited retailers from doing this [The Dennis Rockstroh Column in the San Jose Mercury News addressed this on August 2, 2004. The article's available online, but would cost $2.95 to pull up, and I've tossed the paper. Feel free to get to http://www.sanjosemercurynews.com and search if you like, though]. In addition, this specific retailer charges 15% as a restocking fee for returned items. So, lets say someone had returned it for a legitimate reason, then they would be charged 15% of the cost just to take it back. At face value, this seems like a good control against people who buy and return stuff just because they can. However, if the retailer does impose this fee, then it would seem fair that they use that fee to ensure that the returned item is adequately examined for (ab)use and suitably restored to a "re-sellable" condition before putting it back on their shelf at regular retail price. In fact, I believe they can't put it back on their shelf at regular retail price at all once its been returned by a customer, but I'll cut them that much slack. What the customer doesn't know can't hurt him / her. However, in this case, it was fairly evident to me that the unit I'd been given as "new" was in fact, not. The potential recursive loop was that - this could easily happen to me again when I returned the one I had. Hard drives don't have an external indicator to show if they've been formatted and/or used. One has to plug 'em in to find out. And if it weren't for USB enclosures, that ain't exactly the best way to spend time. Popping a computer's case, finding a slot, weaving through IDE and power cables and all that blah can be quite daunting to the average not-yet-a-geek-and-not-really-striving-to-be computer user. In addition, I really didn't want to return the drive. I knew I could blow away the data, delete the partition and redo the formatting / partitioning to the way I wanted it without much trouble at all. I guess the idea of being sold a used / returned unit without my knowledge, when I had paid for an unused item, was what was bothering me. Also, I've been to other retailers and have seen their return clerks immediately affix a "Reduced price - customer return" tag on the front face of the box when a customer successfully completes a return.
So, you get the idea - I was a tad "nonplussed". I sent a polite detail (Wipe that smirk off - I can be polite on occassion!) of my plight to the retailer's customer service, detailing almost all the above with order details and more. That was Friday. I received their response today (within their 72-hour response window..) and it had an interesting flub. Here it is..
Spotted it yet? "Kris" just stated, in writing (via email counts as "in writing" now, doesn't it?), that I have a MINIMUM of 14 days to return it. This amused me some more because I was partly expecting some canned text, and this obviously isn't (I hope so!). In addition, the paragraph goes on to say that I "should not" be charged the restocking fee if the product has been tampered with. Isn't that an easily exploitable caveat in their returns-with-restocking-fee policy? Anyone could get a hard drive, format it, use it, and then return it without paying the restocking fee by stating that the hard drive was "tampered with". Ditto for anything else that didn't have physical wear marks. USB drives, computers and almost anything with logical storage media..
Oh, well - I guess I should just delete the partition, format the drive, and get on with life. Or exchange it for a new one.
Update: An article at CBS MarketWatch that told me I wasn't alone with such complaints.
Betcha didn't know...
12:34 PM 08/15/04
Lord Mountbatten was made Viceroy in March 1947, with a directive to transfer power to ‘responsible Indian hands’ by June 1948. The Indian Independence Act was signed by King George VI on July 18, 1947. To the surprise of all and without consulting anyone, Lord Mountbatten announced the date of Independence to be 15 August, 1947. The date remains a subject of debate. Perhaps to coincide with the anniversary of a battle won by Admiral Mountbatten on August 15th during World War II (Incidentally, World War II ended after the atomic bomb 'Little Boy' was dropped from Enola Gay, the American B-29 Bomber, at Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and another at Nagasaki three days later. Thus, if World War II ended on August 9, 1945 - how did Admiral Mountbatten win a battle during World War II on August 15th? Hey, I'm no historian - I just Google..).
But astrologers announced in India that August 15 was an inauspicious day whereas August 14 was an auspicious day! To please all, the time on August 15th of independence was moved forward to the midnight of August 14-15.
Gotta have the astrologers...
Spare me the raised brow, will ya? I may not know it all, but I do know where to look if I want to find it! Here's where I found that piece of histrivia. Also, here's a question: If August 15th was an inauspicious day, how does moving the time to midnight help? As I understand it, 12 AM is the start of a new day, not the end of the current one (spare me the philosophical conjecture and read on..). Its not as if midnight is "neither today nor tomorrow", is it? The ball drops at midnight and its a new year. So, if I'm reading this right - were a lot of people up late the night of August 14th, 1947, for no apparent reason?