Re: [NTLK] [OT] Tiger Direct

I've also heard that Tiger Direct is difficult to deal with when
there is a problem, but I've never had a problem with them that I
recall. I know this is OT, but, I thought, as a lawyer, that I'd
address some points in Clayton's list posting in the hope that it
helps someone.

BBB is not what most people think it is. It was a neat concept in the
1960's before the existence of consumer laws. But, it is not and has
never been a place for enforcing consumer complaints. BBB is a
private, not for profit business which earns its revenue by selling
memberships to local businesses. If your business has an acceptable
number of complaints resolved acceptably, then you can buy a
membership including the right to display their sticker and to have
them say nice things about you to people who call. If too many
complaints come in or are determined against your business, then the
BBB can't take your dues money next year, and you are out. Obviously,
it is not in the financial interest of the BBB to have complaints. It
is very much not in their interests to have unresolved, adverse
complaints against a member. They usually don't.

BBB can be useful before you make a purchase, provided local
companies are interested in them. I'm not sure whether they provide
any marketing advantage in an Internet marketing world. The local BBB
representative will likely answer your questions about whether they
have active, unresolved cases against a particular business with whom
you are considering business. That's a fairly bad indication,
depending on the activity level of that particular office of the BBB.
But, once you've done business, the most powerful sanction the BBB
can level against a business is to refuse to renew their membership
-- provided that the business is a member.

Private attorneys are generally useless in consumer law. Unless you
can describe a class action, there is no way that a lawyer can feed
his family on 1/3 of $25 for 250 hours of work. The filing fee is
often larger than the amount of the damages. Even if you have a class
action, the law has drifted during my 21 years in practice sharply
against class action suits. It is very hard to make money handling
them in the Washington metro area, though that result varies across
the country. (I've heard unconfirmed rumors that judges in Houston
and Southern California tend to make sure that successful class
action lawyers get significantly overcompensated.)

Local consumer affairs offices or attorney generals offices can be
much more effective. New York City, Fairfax County and Montgomery
County in the DC Metro area used to be powerful tigers. There were --
and, surely, are -- some survivors. Unfortunately, budget constraints
have turned most of these into paper tigers along with the
disemboweling of the Legal Services Corporation in the 1980's. A
complaint to a local consumer affairs office -- even if it is no
tiger -- can be much more useful than time spent on a BBB complaint.
At least the Government has the power to do something, even if it has
150,000 complaints active per lawyer and nobody is fooled about its
powers. But, if 20,000 of those complaints are about the same
business, you can guess that there will be an investigation. Well ...
maybe not in Florida....

You can also seek resolution through your local small claims court,
but that is fraught with jurisdictional problems. Finally, and most
powerfully, you can receive an insufficient form of justice (which
wouldn't really help in the facts Clayton related) by using a credit
(not debit) card and learning how to do a chargeback correctly. Other
than that, it's pretty much caveat emptor since the '80's. It's hard
for an honest business to compete on price with one that uses sharp
business practices and is aware how hard it is to stop them. But, you
needn't shop there.

-- Richard S. Sternberg, Esq.

Sorry for the long OT. I hope it was more useful than annoying.

On Mar 5, 2006, at 10:46 PM, Clayton Mitchell wrote:

> Have to throw in my 2¢ on this. Will try and keep it brief.
>
> ordered 1TB drive from them, same cheep good deal as ya'll. They
> shipped it to the wrong address (no fault of my own) contacted them
> and
> asked them to ship to correct address. no response, three months and
> many many hours later I thought I was getting some where. Worked
> my way
> up the food chain in the org. Got a hold of someone who could
> actually
> look up the order correctly they said they were going to re-ship as I
> had actually purchased the item and never received it. one hour
> later I
> got a call from some dork who said "we finally looked at what you
> ordered and can not sell it to you." I countered and said they
> already
> had sold it to me so may I please have my merchandise. Piss off
> was the
> most polite response I got. I also got it all on tape.
>
> I reported them to the BBB (they are in Florida so you have to use the
> BBB there). The BBB said they got no response from Tiger direct case
> closed. WTF We have no consumer writes as on line consumers. The
> next
> level I can take it is the Florida attorney general, like I am
> going to
> get satisfaction there.
>
> Avoid Tiger direct like the plague. They have very unsavory business
> practices
>
> And yes I also get the catalogs now, funny how they can get the
> correct
> address for those and not my order.
>
>
> Norma Gjuka wrote:
>> I dealt with them once. And only once.
>> I ordered Mac software; they sent the 'other kind.'
>> The issue was never resolved.
>> And they kept sending catalogs for the 'other kind' of stuff.
>> Norma
>>
>

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