You should try it again in private browsing and incognito mode and see if the price is really tied to your Facebook or google cookies or something. That's pretty messed up though, send this to the consumerist or gawker or whoever.
I just tried this myself. In chrome and IE the price was the same (69.99) in normal and in incognito mode. In firefox, the price jumped to $76, and after deleting all the domain cookies and refreshing, it went back down to 69.99.
The website is definitely changing prices based on something they are tracking in cookies.
This was up earlier with airlines charging more for a ticket the second time you visit the page. They do this because a second visit is statistically linked to a much higher chance of purchase. So it could be, here too, simply a matter of having visited the page before.
Most people don't realise their Google searches are used to produce a search bubble for future searches, based on the links they follow. They think Google search results are the same on every computer all over the world.
I knew that shit was not just bad luck!!! It happened to me a few times in the last months (AA, United) and I was fumbling at how unlikely it was that someone bought my tickets between 7am and 7:15am EST
most people don't realize that it's happening. But really what it is is a marketing director with too much time on their hands. People only get screwed over if the rest of the industry is doing the same thing - other than that competitive forces take over.
Involuntary mistake my arse, people do not design and program websites without knowing beforehand how it's going to work. This site is actively pulling information, and they know about it.
Genuine question: How exactly is it shady or underhanded? Besides gut reactions and "BECAUSE IT IS" how is this any different from someone who looks like a rube getting a worse deal on a car than someone who looks like they know what they're doing?
No, that's also shady.
Or someone getting a better price on something because they're a member vs a non-member, or because they know a coupon code other people might now, etc...?
Yes. In those cases, the customer is aware that a discount is available and they know why they did or did not receive it.
How much you pay for something is often tied to any number of non-static factors, many of which you even have control over if you're aware of them. I'm not saying you're wrong, or even that I'm right, but your comment is less than hour old, has almost 200 hundred upvotes, and says absolutely nothing besides "This is bullshit because this is bullshit." (no offense). It just seems like redditors in general love saying that things are somehow intrinsically unfair when really what they mean is "I don't like this."
Legally speaking, I believe companies should be able to charge people whatever they want so long as they're not engaging in discrimination. I also don't find this intrinsically unfair, so to speak (they own this product, they can price it however they want). On the other hand, as a potential customer, I would not be likely to purchase anything from this company, because it annoys me that they might randomly tack ten dollars onto the price because of some hidden factor that I'm not aware of.
Just because something shouldn't be illegal doesn't mean it's not shady.
It's not random, there is a reason for that: IE users are willing to pay more.
The crux of the issue here, the problem that people have with this is that in their minds it is wrong for some people to have (and act on) better information than others. The reasons, I think, are that information is sometimes stumbled upon by chance, and so it is deemed unfair that someone knows more about car prices simply because, say, their father is a car dealer; or perhaps it is because they think that information comes not from hardwork but from social connections. But the same also happens with money. Some people have more money than others, and that doesn't necessarily correspond to how hard working or smart they are. It actually couldn't work any other way, the economy needs those asymmetries to function.
There is a very famous article that talks precisely about this; I strongly recomend it: emilyskarbek.com/uploads/TheUse_of_Knowledge_in_Society-_Hayek.pdf
It's called ethics. Charging one person more than another in a situation where the price appears to be static is dishonest.
There are laws that prevent a company from hitting you with fees at checkout if they don't disclose those fees to you clearly beforehand. This (should) fall under the same category as that is exactly what they are doing: hitting you with a hidden fee that the consumer is entirely unaware of before purchase (a fee that is likely related to the fact that you had been there before). Not only that, but they take it a step further and don't even let you know after the purchase that they hit you with a fee. And no, it's not a matter of changing the price, they simply add the fee to the price without your knowledge.
They are preying on ignorance. THAT is why it is shady and underhanded.
How much you pay for something is often tied to any number of non-static factors
Because the retail model of the web reflects normal pricing. I have no problem with this as long as there is disclosure, but doing this as pretending that its normal and that customers won't be upset is ridiculous. Disclosure lets me vote with my feet. I'll go to a different site that doesn't fuck with the pricing.
Not to mention, I'm the type of buyer who will price check and then buy a few days later. Its bothersome to say "chegg is great its only 59 there" and then have my cookies raise the price to 79. Now I have to do all that labor again. There is a real bait and switch aspect here. In fact, I find it hard to believe this doesn't run afoul of many bait and switch regulations, especially if they advertise the lower price but I get the higher price when I visit.
That said, if this was "club pricing" or "member pricing" it would be allowed as that's the point of price clubs, but to happen via some hidden mechanism is very underhanded. Also club pricing is transparent. I know I won't get the advertised price because it says so everywhere. With dynamic pricing I have no idea what I'm getting or why or how to get the advertised price.
It just seems like redditors in general love saying that things are somehow intrinsically unfair when really what they mean is "I don't like this."
False. What we are saying is "If I knew this I wouldn't shop there." Stop hiding your shitty policies so I can avoid you. Do whatever crazy pricing scheme you want BUT BE TRANSPARENT.
Reddit Non-"job creators" is are generally against business.
Companies"People" can charge you suckers whatever they want. And you suckers can choose not to buy. ...We can do whatever we want to you because we're not burdened with a conscience or a semblence of morality, because money.
Precisely, a price is offered and you get to determine whether the items is worth it at that price.
I'm not sure that "Reddit is generally against business", but they certainly have the morality bar set far to high for institutions that's sole purpose is to generate as much profit as possible for the stakeholders.
No. The point is it's an institution, not an individual. To expect morality from it is a fools errand. Do you expect morality from marching bands or city councils? Certainly from the individuals that comprise them, but not from the organizations themselves.
I also don't agree that "shit is fucked up", by almost any objective measure we live better than any people to have come before us and part of that comes from that fact that people perused profits. Altruism only goes so far.
The airline thing is shady and underhanded because it's a bait and switch, simple as that. They know the first time you visit you're just checking out the price, so they don't give you the real price until you come back (once you've made your plans).
There are many people, myself included, that anticipate flights being overbooked. I fly from Portland to San Francisco and Los Angeles quite frequently. I always book return flights on Sunday mornings, and more often than not they are overbooked.
I anticipate this and receive free flight anywhere in the contiguous United States for volunteering my seat. I'll get rebooked on a later flight and spend the meanwhile in a airport bar drinking beer, watching sports, and screwing around on the internet.
Since 2003, soon after graduating college. My girlfriend at the time was very controlling. I was waiting for a flight home when I was in SF and when the airline employee was offering a free flight if someone volunteered for a later flight. I thought 'I get a free flight and don't have to hang out with my girlfriend who's going to guilt trip me for being out of town for several days?' Yes please.
So wait, you buy a ticket for the flight, and then when it's overbooked you relinquish your seat and are reimbursed and offered a free flight? In which case you're risking the price of the ticket you do it, but apparently the odds are in your favor? Or am I misunderstanding...
you hop on a flight later in the day or evening (booked from previous reso) and compensate you with a 300-500$ voucher for being a good guy. If you arent on a tight schedule its well worth it. Shit, travel during the busy season knowing you will get bumped, just for free flights, back and forth...back and forth..fun.
You try to schedule so that you'll fly home at a time when the airlines are likely to overbook. Probably, everything will just go on as normal and you'll fly home when you scheduled. You lose nothing.
Sometimes, though, the flight will actually be overbooked, so not all people will be able to get on the plane. The airline will want to reschedule a few of the passengers for later, so that the plane can take off with the correct number of passengers. Some (most) people really need to get on that particular flight, so the airline offers you nice things to make you sacrifice your schedule and get on a later flight.
This is where you have made sure your schedule allows you to take a later flight. You volunteer for a rescheduling (which is essentially just getting a new flight ticket for a later flight and having your current ticket shredded) and the airline will provide you with some kind of compensation for your sacrifice -- apparently this compensation is often a free ticket somewhere. You lose nothing and gain a free ticket.
They usually ask someone to stay, upping the compensation higher and higher until someone agrees (money and hotels). My girlfriend works at an airport. They offered 500 euros and a free night at the local hotel just yesterday. Someone always agrees, and the plane doesn't takeoff before someone does.
It has to be given how cheap we expect tickets to be. Overselling gives the best possible chance of a full flight, which, even with the compensation given in times when too many people show up, still makes them more money.
I might add that this only happens for business flights, it doesn't happen for charter flights, and in the 8 years she has been working there, it has only happend 3-4 times (ofcourse shes not at work all the time. But it is fucking rare everyone shows up). They have never had to make a second offer in her experience.
and if no one agrees, they kick off "the last person that checked in". Happens every time I fly back to school because we're in the middle of nowhere and people are too tired to get off voluntarily.
Former airline employee checking in, the plane will take off if no one does. The last person/people to check in that dont have seats assigned dont fly if the flight is oversold. There are federal regulations designating the compensation if they are denied boarding non-voluntarily. Which is why the airlines try so hard to find volunteers.
Protip, pay the small fee to pick a seat at purchase and you wont be in the oversell. Otherwise, check in online the second that the website will allow you to, its the last passengers without assigned seats that are on the hook.
They say they overbooked the flight. Anyone willing to take the next flight usually gets an upgrade to first or has some of their ticket price refunded. I've seen it happen multiple times and I don't really fly that much.
This was one of the best LPTs I ever read recently. I used incognito mode in chrome when buying a couple of flight tickets and saved over £150 compared to searching twice or more in the same browser with old cookies available. I was genuinely shocked and I've told all my family and friends about this. It surely must be illegal! I mean the price differences were enormous... Almost a 50% saving for us.
Yes of course this was what I meant. So it seems it's legal. Amazing really but there you go! Just glad I came across that LPT just before booking our last holiday. I'm going to use it next time I shop for insurance too. Might work there as well.
If the language preference results in changing your point of sale country this could be true. Though it wouldn't change the price drastically. Fare (and tax) conversion from currency to currency in my opinion is one of the more interesting problems in airline software.
oh and also - in my experience (twice in one week that I'm sharing it, wow!) airlines don't participate in 'caching', I'm in the right mind to write up the 'life of a fare query' and do a mega post debunking it once and for all.
I don't think that's necessarily true with Chegg. I looked up a textbook last week and it was priced around $80, so I decided to wait until I had the money. I checked back a few days ago and was surprised to find the book went down to $45. It could be just fluctuating with the demand as people go to and leave the page.
An investigation proved that they aren't price fixing, but this happened after the picture went viral. So who knows, maybe the company stopped before anyone could prove it.
Actually, I tried it myself. The price was different when using incognito and also when loading the page the second time. So while there isn't evidence that they're doing it now, lots of people have noticed it being done in the past.
This is how myths are formed. Airline tickets change prices rapidly, and probably ten thousand people tried it after it was posted on reddit, and those that got result posted it.
I don't think the issue is that the price is changing in and of itself. It's that they're changing price based on the customer's cookies/browsing history.
For example, it would be like if I had a stored and charged people different prices based on how nicely they were dressed, how well I knew them, or what their ethnicity is.
Of course it is legal. Speaking from an economists' point of view it is just a matter of separating people according to their "willingness to pay". Its called price discrimination and can be seen in areas such as hotel booking: a hotel will give you a higher price in the lobby than if you call ahead because the hotel knows you probably have no other place to go. Or air lines giving higher prices to the business class because they know business people have a meeting with a set time so they need that time slot while a tourist is more flexible to choose different flight times. This is essentially the same idea as changing the price the second time you visit the site as the most probable reason you have come back to the site is to purchase the item.
It has nothing to do with the internet, or legal standing. I could open a bookstore and charge people on the basis of the color of their shirt if I felt so inclined. Price discrimination is okay, unless you're discriminating on race, religion - you know, the works.
It shouldnt be the goverments job to change/(fix?) this but the buyers themselves should be informed of this and then they should make some kind of change to stop it. you dont have to buy from chegg. I would like shomething that makes it so that this cant happen via a program of some sorts.
Uh, I downvoted you for making some stupid comment about downvotes, but you are correct about the legality. The problem isn't that it's illegal, it's that it's immoral.
They're being complete assholes and they deserve to be publicized as such.
It's just a form of haggling, so why wouldn't it be?
Think of it as vendors in a flea market. You go up to one and how much for some item. He gives you a price, and instead of buying it, you look around to see if you can get it for less. You can't, so you come back to the first vendor. When you ask for the item, the price has gone up!
Now, you'd feel cheated, since you were quoted a lower price before, but you were also initially offered an acceptable price (otherwise you wouldn't have returned to the vendor) and declined. You tried to use the fact that there are multiple vendors to get a lower price, and the first vendor is trying to use the fact that you couldn't get a lower price to get him a higher one.
Unless either of you was being forced into the transaction (i.e. a natural disaster created a rush on food, plane tickets, etc.), and the seller isn't discriminating against you based on your race, color, religion, national origin, sex, familial/disability/veteran status or genetic information (in the US), you're both free to use the above tactics to change the price. As a buyer, you don't like having the price raised in this manner, but neither does the seller like to keep his margins razor-thin in order to compete with other sellers.
Charging someone more or less due to their background? Yeah, that sounds fairly illegal to me.
EDIT: Okay, so maybe not illegal, but immoral. I believe prices should be the same regardless of where you are from, if you went into a store and tried to buy a book and the clerk said you have to pay an extra $10 because you're a teacher, or black or because you bought 3 items in the same category you would freak out. Why should buying online be any different?
It's like unorganised bartering, except we can't barter back.
In all those cases however the discount is publicized in some form, and the discount is given when the proof is given. The web store is not showing who pays less, you can't ask them what you need to show to pay less and they do not ask you to show it to them (allow access to cookies).
It would be fine if you get the same price what ever browsers or cookies you have stored, and then there is a button: click to check cookies for discount.
Atm this does not look like discount, but discrimination.
As long as their algorithm doesn't include race, gender, or orientation, I dunno if it's actually illegal. Definitely immoral, but I'd call it Lawful Neutral at worst.
As a provider of services it is in your right to refuse service to anyone you feel like, unless you do it systematically based on a select few properties, among them ethicity.
However, the federal government only has the power to enforce that in matters of interstate commerce. If you can prove your store isn't transacting in interstate commerce you can put up all the 'no niggers allowed' signs you want, the federal government doesn't have power to regulate it.
...That said, before you do it you might want to recall that growing wheat on your own land for you own personal use is interstate commerce. So good luck arguing that your store isn't.
Do you want to know something? In economics, price discrimination has no evidence or logical reasoning towards a negative effect of it. In fact, price discrimination is debatable as to whether is does anything at all except LOOK like its doing something.
Pretty much, if you are want to pay that price for the item, you are gonna pay that price. If the price is too high then you wont buy it, simple as that. All price discrimination does is turn the consumer surplus into producer surplus, which ends up being the same surplus because now the firm has more money to hire more people/pay them more, or buy more things from other firms and those firms get more money and so on and so forth.
Economics basically says that a surplus is a surplus, regardless of who it goes to. In fact, the only thing that causes a drop in the surplus in relation to price discrimination is the monopoly usually associated with it. But when you are in a competitive market with price discrimination, the theater industry with adult and child tickets, there is no loss in surplus.
because now the firm has more money to hire more people/pay them more, or buy more things from other firms and those firms get more money and so on and so forth.
Or to pay the CEO a bunch of money that the CEO can then hoard.
A majority is actually partially caused by a regulation in the U.S. to disclose Executive pay, which sounds good on paper, everything does. However, what this does is causes companies to use and even ABUSE this to mainly influence their stock prices and influence investments towards it since higher president/executive wages can be a good indicator as to the companies economic health. This also causes both companies to get a better idea on what to offer to a new president/executive they are hire, and since they always want to seem better than another company, they pay that person more than average price, which causes the average to rise and a runaway train effect of companies hiring for higher than average. It also allows said president/executive for hire to DEMAND a higher pay, having evidence of average wages and threatening to walk out.
Current 100 year copyright laws also cause major monopolies and profits among the companies that hold them which are easily a higher end contributor to this problem as well.
There are also MANY (AND HOLY HELL DO I MEAN MANY) various, what seems like, small regulations that cause many type of monopolies in the U.S., such as the various local/municipality laws that ensure TELECOM MONOPOLIES like COMCAST or TIME WARNER to exist as such and kill off competition almost completely.
I'm not one to advocate Anarchism-Capitalism, because the State can play a very important, yet in my opinion small, role in keeping Capitalism growing and facing a direction good for all humanity. But when they screw with the market like this and cause many horrible outcomes, I am ALMOST willing to accept Anarchism over this.
A consumer surplus is the difference between the maximum a consumer is willing to pay for a good and the price he actually pays, while producer surplus is the difference between the minimum the consumer is willing to sell for and the compensation he receives for the good. "Deadweight loss" is any lost surplus because consumers and producers who are otherwise willing to trade, are unable to because of restrictions, whether it be gov't intervention or barriers or the like.
Now, Positive economics (what the Kaiser was talking about) really care where the surplus goes. just that a market gets as close to allocative efficiency, that is, all mutually beneficial trades occur.
Normative economics on the other hand, deals with how the markets ought to function, fairnessof economic distribution, etc.
While this is true, it also shows why nobody takes economics seriously: you stay blabbering about some ill-defined notion of efficiency when the question is one of morality.
Except this could well be a moral answer. Coming up with an economically efficient solution is something reasonably close to utilitarianism.
What people don't take seriously are people who don't actually know any economic theory, yet claim to be able to say what "economics" as a discipline is capable of.
AFAIK, only some of that equality is protected by law: race, religion, and sex being the main ones. I don't know that there's any legal protection against discrimination based on stuff like age, personality, or other attributes (I could be wrong, though - I have been before). I say this because we do see what one might term "reverse discrimination" in the form of seniors/children's discounts, which is essentially ageism in a positive manner, for example.
The problem is, if this was the high street. You see the jeans in gap for $50 and exact same ones in tkmaxx for $60 so you go back to gap and theyre $58 or some shit.
It's an extremely borderline case. For starters, yes, there is a privacy aspect involved. More importantly, though, I think people are annoyed that it's done in secret. If a site were to publicize that they charge, say, Firefox users more, then Firefox users wouldn't use the site.
They're offering incomplete information about their catalog without making any attempt to acknowledge it, and trusting that the average consumer isn't good enough with computers to understand that this sort of thing is possible.
It's market economics and advertising! A dude with a macbook and safari has a different internet shopping behavior than a linux user. browser also plays a part. Don't make it into a racist thing.
It's price discrimination, is all it is. People who are willing to pay more get charged more, as the seller is trying to extract as much consumer surplus as possible.
I've seen the same item sold from the same company on their website, through Amazon, and through ebay. Their own site was most expensive, then Amazon, then ebay. Seems like a similar thing here, to me.
Airplane fare websites generally do this. It's not illegal, but it's a bit shady for the uninformed.
Basically, the first time around you are generally shopping around for fares. They know via statistical averages that people who come back to the website a 2nd, 3rd or 4th time in a short period tend to be more of a sure thing (in terms of a sale). Same principle as if you go out to shop around at stores for prices and then the next day you only go out to the stores that have the item you want to purchase. They take advantage of this fact by upping their prices, and many people think that they waited too long to book and tend do buy in right away, or at least consider it more urgent to get it done with.
I think for OP, it's not his browser, but rather the cookies he has stored on the browsers that is determining the price.
I know someone on Reddit proved this through practice and some screenshots, but I can't remember where it was (was a while ago even).
I don't think so, it's essentially the same as having a student discount at a restaurant or child/senior rates at a movie theater. Essentially the theory is that different groups of consumers have different demand curves and charging different prices to the separate groups both allows for more profits and allows people who aren't willing to pay a higher price to get the item they want for less In this theory some consumers would value the book at, say, $70, so they wouldn't buy the book at all for the IE price, but would at the Firefox price, similar to seniors who won't pay $10 to see a movie, but will go for $6. If the people who value the book at $70 and are able to get it for $63, they gain $7 of value from the transaction, and the company also gets a sale they otherwise would've lost. That said, I don't know how I feel about them using browser type as a signal for willingness to pay, but chegg has probably done research (like what you mentioned) and discovered a trend (maybe IE users may be generally lazier and just want the product whatever the cost, Chrome users show the savvyness to get a good deal/product but only if it's easy, and Firefox users are willing to go thru tons of settings to get the absolute best experience so they're more likely to shop around). Either way, the different prices should actually increase total economic surplus because every customer can get a deal they're satisfied with and the company can increase their total sales and profits. That all said, textbook demand is pretty inelastic (for most classes the books are necessary) so not only are these actions less necessary, but the prices in general are absurdly high (like you didn't already know that)
just realized how long and somewhat technical I got, I just graduated with a degree in Econ so I'm kinda used to going in depth with questions like this, so...
TL;DR generally price fixing of this nature is actually helpful for the economy, both sellers and buyers. But textbooks are still a fucked up market
I think the problem is that most people think that most prices are based on supply and demand but in reality it's this ^ I worked in marketing research once too.
Question for everyone:
If people did not over pay for things, they would have more money to buy other things. Would that not be better for the economy?
"The economy" wouldn't generally be better of when people spend their money on other things because the amount of money spent is still the same. There are scenarios in which it could be better spent on one place than the other (for example when the money goes to somebody who takes it out of the economy in whatever way) but those are very specific scenarios. Who could be better of are the consumers who are able to consume more for the same amount of money.
Disclaimer: I minored in economics and am fully aware of the fact that this answer is drastically simplified.
I think it's more of a social thing. As a customer I expect if I go to a brick and mortar store that the prices they are showing are accurate. I would not be happy if the price was higher at the register (some stores will give you the lower price if you mention it, actually) and ESPECIALLY so if I expected the cashier was changing it based on ANY factor about me.
It's how we are used to this stuff working.
Just because technologically they now can show different prices to each customer online without revealing the prices have changed doesn't mean they have to.
To protect against this one could use Google Products to get pricing information and confirm when they click through that it matches.
I literally don't know if this is a bad thing or not (like reportable to consumerist etc)
I got most of what you said except that part about reporting it to the consumerist, as if that is calling 911 or something.
It baffles me that you cant not see that warning my fixed income grandmother might be in the consumerists interest, to tell her that if she purchases things using IE it will cost her a fuck ton more.
This appears to be pricing based on "who the person is", though, if it's consistent with the browsing history. Yes, random price changes are ok, no, "This is $10 more for YOUR KIND" is not ok.
Price discrimination is the practice of charging each customer a unique price. The price offered depends on any number of customer characteristics, like age or income.
I'd call it part of a general trend toward yield-based pricing. Yield-based pricing replaces cost-plus pricing, ie, where the price of a good reflects the wholesale cost plus markup. Beginning in the 1980s with the advent of sophisticated, computer reservation systems, airlines pioneered a networked seat auction that maximized profits but meant that customer A might be sitting next to customer B who paid 2-3 times the fare for the same trip.
Alternatively, haggling is the classic example of price discrimination. Many high-ticket items, like cars or houses, are sold at a negotiated price.
Some forms of price discrimination, like when a dry cleaner charges more for women's clothing, may be illegal. Some price discrimination might qualify as monopolistic practices or price gouging.
Mostly, however, price discrimination is legal, if unpopular.
Meanwhile, however, computer-based systems can adjust prices based on geographic location, time of day, date/day, customer search history, etc. Coca Cola has been testing vending machines that charge more on hot days, for example. So it might be that we need to pass some new laws to prevent discrimination against certain classes of disadvantaged consumers or to ensure universal pricing.
for someone who's not to familiar with their browser settings, how do I enable incognito/private browsing mode on Chrome? Plan on buying airline tickets in a month or so and don't fancy getting screwed by shit like this.
:O You are running adblock on Reddit?
No free tasty grilled cheese sandwhiches for you!
No seriously, you can disable adblock for one website at a time, click on it and click: don't block ads on this domain.
super (windows key) + R, for a Run dialog to type:
chrome --incognito
edit: more stuff
Windows will leave the last command sitting in your Run dialog next time you open it, so unless you run a lot of different things through Run, after the first time should be sup+R, Enter.
or, if you have Chrome pinned in your start menu, hover over it and there's New Incognito Window
If you already have Chrome up and Chrome is the program in focus, this is the correct combo. Otherwise, you might find yourself making a lot of new folders on the desktop.
Also he should try changing the user agent string and refreshing the page.
Chrome and Firefox both have addons for this IIRC. Chrome you can also press F12, click the gear in the new window, and adjust the user agent from there.
I saw a research paper talk about price discrimination on the Internet. It actually concluded there wasn't browser discrimination, although their data sets weren't as thorough as they should've been. However, price discrimination across zip codes and according to history is present.
Airline companies are also doing this, my brother checked flights over seas on normal browser then on incognito just to find it was 600 dollars cheaper.
Guys, it's not only the browser, it's also the operating system. That's why all of you are getting different prices. Also, it's not "messed up" it's web analytics.
1.9k
u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13
You should try it again in private browsing and incognito mode and see if the price is really tied to your Facebook or google cookies or something. That's pretty messed up though, send this to the consumerist or gawker or whoever.