josetann

UPS and Fedex both constantly do the knock and run, i.e. I'll hear a knock, by the time I get to the door they're speeding off. The mailman on the other hand, will often leave the "Sorry we missed you!" notice in my mailbox without even bothering to actually deliver it, sometimes she'll pull up in the driveway and honk the horn for me to come out (I think maybe we have different mailmen, sometimes I've even seen the package in one of our cars or on the porch). I had to report a few missing packages to UPS, the lady basically treated me like it was my fault. She said I'd need to have a police report filled out, they'd send one of their investigator people out, stuff like that. I more or less said it was their responsibility to get it to me, and if they didn't and the package was insured, it was their problem. Fedex, they would leave stuff and when I checked the tracking number it said there was a signature waiver on file (basically saying I signed something saying they could leave packages without signing for them and they wouldn't be liable). Called them up, they checked it out, verified that indeed I did NOT have a waiver on file, and they would take care of it (most likely a lazy driver not wanting to make a second trip). Things were ok for a few months, but now they're starting to leave packages again. Oddly enough it hasn't been a problem, and our old neighbors are gone, coincidence? Anyways...if you're expecting something expensive, make sure you have the tracking number so you can watch it. Also, note that it may get delivered a day early or late (Fedex is often a day early in my area, UPS is often a day late, I'm sure it varies). You might even go so far as to leave a note up saying to not leave packages without a signature if you're not going to be home, or if you have a regular driver let them know of a safe location to leave the package (I'll often take our not often used car out for a spin to find a package in there, at least it was safe and out of the weather).

I saved so much that I'm broke now.

Most banks will credit back any overdraft fees that are a direct result of an unauthorized charge.

True, you can get as good or better deals year round, if you are patient and keep hunting for the perfect deal. Or you can get everything you want/need for a good price on one day. No having to wait around for a good deal, then wondering if you should go for it or wait and see if there'll be a better one. Just as long as you don't mind the freezing temperatures for 6+ hours.

Well, I'm a guy, and had to wait a long time in line too (only a handful of people were in front of me).

Just to chip in here, I bought four Xbox 360s the day they came out. I only planned on buying two, one to keep and either give the second away as a Christmas gift or resell it. After waiting six hours in the freezing cold at Target and getting a ticket, I had the bright idea to run over to Sam's Club (I have a business membership, so I get in at 7AM instead of 10AM). There was already a line. Once we get in we see the bundle they have is $50 more, and comes with an extra wireless controller (worth $50 by itself) and the play and charge kit (didn't know what it was worth at the time, later found it it was $20). Plus I do indeed have a reseller's license, so once you figure in not having to pay tax, the bundle was a hair over $10 more than the non-bundle. Also, I saw at least two people in line there that were at Target the night before (but they only got the core systems at Target, because they weren't willing to wait in the cold as long as my wife and I). Now, I have sold two and still have two left. I'd like to keep at least one for myself, but I keep looking at ebay, and the prices they're going for, and I'd be an idiot if I didn't sell both for as much as I could. I can keep one, play the one or two games that are out that I like from now until Christmas, or I can sell, make several hundred bucks, and buy one right after Christmas and enjoy the same games plus a few new ones that will be coming out soon. I think it would be greedy AND selfish of me to KEEP the Xbox 360 right now, since I could sell it and use the money for more Christmas presents, or a nice mini-vacation for me and my wife, pay off some bills, etc., and STILL have enough $$$ to buy another one after the shortage is over. BTW, on BF I did buy several items that I MAY resell later. The main reason I bought the items I did was because the deal was too good to pass up. I figured I'd either give them as Christmas gifts, keep for ourselves, or resell them and buy something else for gifts. The REAL injustice is IHOP charging over $8 for five cups of hot chocolate (we shared)! I got two of the $150 desktops, one I might keep for myself (to replace a 933MHz P3 that serves as our home pbx), or I may give to my younger brother and sister. One laptop that I will probably sell though I could give it to my dad. One portable dvd player that my wife will get (don't tell her, I told her they were sold out). One carpet cleaner that we'll keep. One Roomba Discovery that I want to keep, but we have an older one plus they're selling nicely on ebay (I'll probably keep it though). I guess what I'm saying, is I think it's fine for people to buy and resell, as long as they don't hoard (filling up a buggy with dvd players or whatever kid's toy is popular this year is hoarding). Plus I'm sure a lot of the people selling on ebay didn't originally plan to, but it's hard to not sell that $5 toy for $50; you can use that to buy your kid some nicer presents AND have money left over to buy that toy after Christmas. Also, some people would rather just wait until the day after and buy on ebay instead of fighting the crowds and getting frostbite. Their time is worth more than ours.

I'm already in line at BB for next BF, I'm number 2, woohoo!

I don't think it's a problem if someone holds a place in line for someone, as long as they both get to suffer for a while. Now, if there's one person in line the whole time, then a dozen people get in front five minutes before opening, that'd be wrong. Now if someone gets in line at 1AM and the other person shows up at 2AM with a heater and blanket and they both camp out, no biggie (I use that example, because that's what I subjected my poor brother to last night/morning).

2 $149 Desktops at BB 1 $380 Laptop at BB 1 $68 Portable DVD player at Wal-Mart 1 Bissel ProHeat carpet cleaner at Big Lots 1 Roomba Discovery at Big Lots Earlier on, I bought one portable heater at Wal-Mart (to keep warm) plus two tanks (I guess they're propane, I dunno). Plus five cups of hot chocolate (we shared). Also bought a $16 tent at Wal-Mart, but it was too small, ah well.

Where I was at (target), the line formed shortly after midnight. Several people showed up late, around 3AM or so (didn't keep that great of time), and were told that they were probably sold out (rumor was they had 10 premium, 6 core, it ended up being 8 premium and 8 core), but they wanted to stay in line anyways. I don't blame them, but the worse you want/need it, the earlier you need to get in line. At least it was a good practice run for BF. Now we know to get a nice tent, and some gas heaters (the small portable ones for camping) and we'll be set. BTW, never heard of a ticket lottery, what kind of BS is that? The few times they have something we want to see, I just order online. I don't have to be in the front row.

THIS is what's wrong with people today. Nothing wrong with selling them on ebay for tons of $$$, if you didn't want to stand in line since midnight (or earlier, depending where you are), then you pay the big $$$ to get one before Christmas. Same with concert tickets, either you camp out to get a decent seat, or you pay hundreds for a $35 seat (personally, I'd rather sit a few rows back, but oh well). Now robbing someone at gunpoint, THAT's wrong.

I'd like one of the Robosapien V2s, but that's just me. Anything that's a gadget or computer-related is usually a good bet for me. Last year I got the original Robosapien, and a Casio G-Shock atomic solar-powered watch. Well, that's what my wife got me, of course I bought myself a few things too.

Only problem with that, is neither one has a credit/debit card. And nowhere to put a wallet. Actually, the Omnibot does have a drawer in back....

You shoulda dropped someone out of sight, then drove away to make sure they all got back in the van. Then the other person swoops in from the back of the store and bam! First in line! The van people probably would have been pissed, you would have a good laugh, and you'd be on the local news (riots at Best Buy, film at 11).

Yes, I can talk through both, but can only see/hear through the newer one. And I could just have it run right over your G.I. Joe. The Omnibot has been out in public before, keeping our place in line for the movies once, and dressed up for Christmas as seen here: www.thetechguide.com/omnibot2000/christmascumberland.html. The RoboScout (which we have nicknamed Johnny, as in Johnny Five, also known as Number Five, star of Short Circuit) has made an appearance at a Middle School (mom's a teacher), but that's about it so far.

I had thought of the possibility of someone being malicious; if need-be, I can record what the one robot sees, but I doubt that'd be a problem. Also I should have gone more in detail with what I was planning. I would be standing in line for at least part of the time, say an hour or two before the doors open. This would just be used for the "crazy" hours, say 10PM the night before until 3AM or whatever. I think this has great potential to be loads of fun, but I don't want anyone getting really mad (a few grumbles would be ok, they'd probably be more upset that they didn't think of it than anything else). Perhaps if the robot was giving out free hot cocoa, would that help warm people up to the idea? Yeah, I know something might happen to them, but I hate passing up the chance to have fun with one of my toys just because I want to play it safe. Heck, if something did happen, it'd just help us to remember all the fun (the omnibot no longer makes the beeping sounds it once did because my brother loved it so much he'd play with it until the battery was so dead it wouldn't even move, thus frying something in it somewhere...anytime I think of it not working 100% I remember all the fun he had). So, what do you think about it being in line for part of the time, but one (or both) of us taking our place in line sometime before the nice quaint small line turns into a huge angry mob?

Definitely hot cocoa. Now if I could just find a deal on a heated thermos.

I'm wondering if it'd be well received or not. I used this idea once for Lord of the Ring tickets, it worked so-so, but I think it'd work better this time. My main concern is how would others respond to it. Would they get mad that I'm "cheating", or would they find it amusing, or not care at all? Ok, here's my idea. Instead of having another person stand in line for you, how about a robot? I mean robots are taking over peoples jobs everywhere else, so why not as line-holders? I have two that would do the trick, they'd have long enough range to pick up in the car as long as we were parked right up front (didn't work great at the movies, but there were a lot of cars there already for earlier showings, plus I have a newer robot that would pick up even better than the first). So basically let them freeze their electronic butts off while me and my wife sit in the nice toasty warm car sipping hot chocolate. The newer one has a spiffy remote with a monitor and speakers so I can see/hear what's going on (in the robot's point of view, of course I won't go so far that I wouldn't be able to see it at all) and could probably have a bit of fun, the other is an 80's model with a tape cassette in its chest, I doubt I'll use that though. If anyone's interested, the first is a Sharper Image Roboscout, the second is an Omnibot 2000 (I'm thinking of just leaving the older one at home, it's been through a lot already). At least it'd be better than the empty chairs others use.

I've never gotten a bonus. The hospital where my wife works will give them a voucher for a turkey at Kroger (last year we ended up buying one at Wal-Mart, the frozen kind is just too much hassle). Though we will be getting a nice check from Google this month (Adsense), so that'll be nice.

Some store lost a power wheels that my parents were getting for my brother. My parents (mostly my dad) just waited there until they kept looking and eventually found it. If a large box a power wheels comes in can get lost in all that mess back there, anything's possible.

My idea, which I haven't stuck to that well, is to buy one or two people really nice gifts each year, and everyone else gets the usual thing. Without some kind of name-exchange where people understand just why you're doing that, it probably isn't the best idea. I've been the recipient of some of the "crap" gifts before, the ones where no thought was put in and it was the cheapest thing they could get. I'd rather just not get anything, so a name-exchange would be great. Then everyone would get at least one nice gift, instead of a pile of throwaway stuff. BTW, I'm not against the cheap gifts, just the ones that I get only because someone thought it was an obligation so they pick out the cheapest thing there is and throw some wrapping paper on it.

Why should anyone give GottaDeal credit, if GottaDeal doesn't give them credit? Look at the Harbor Freight scanned ads, underneath the GottaDeal watermark there's another one that had its letters changed from black to white, but you can still make out what it says if you look at all the watermarks. I don't think GottaDeal really cares, and neither do the other sites. If the only ads a site could have were the ones they got first, then we'd be having to go to a dozen places to get our BF fix.

I mean, it's not like GottaDeal OWNS the ads, they're owned by the company that put them out. I think that if someone else is hosting the scanned ads, then they'll know who had it first (watermarks everywhere), so it's irrelevant. Now, if someone copied the entire layout of GottaDeal's BlackFriday site (or any other part for that matter), that's a completely different story. If some other forum got the ads first, wouldn't you want GottaDeal to let you know about them too?

Last year or the year before, I can't remember, but I was trying to get the $50 toolbox that Wal-Mart had. Apparently it was a pretty good deal, the first two Wal-Marts didn't have any. The third didn't have any in the spot it should have been in, but while walking around I saw one sitting in the middle of the walkway (where they often stick other items to make you look at them). I figured someone had intended to buy it, but if memory serves me there was no cart or anyone guarding it, so it had been abandoned (either temporarily or permanently). I dragged it to the other end of the store before I could find out if someone had left it there temporarily and we checked out. That's the closest I've come to doing that myself (and it probably doesn't even count). As far as having that happen to me, it hasn't yet. We don't have kids yet so the hot toys aren't a problem, and we generally run right through the store getting what we want so the cart doesn't leave our sight. If someone took something out of my cart, I guess I'd follow from a distance then take their cart.

I think I'm probably one of those kinds of people, the person you don't know what to get so you just get a gift card or give them some cash. Most of what I'd want is probably too obscure, or too expensive. Still, I'd rather have some silly thing that had some thought put in it, than some cash thrown at me (that's just me). I remember one year, my brother kept asking me what I wanted. Told him it didn't matter, a nice shiny nickel would be fine. Well he got a nickel, cleaned it up good, and found a case that would fit it (it was just a plastic case with some foam backing, nothing major, but just the right size). Cheapest gift ever, but I still have it and think more of it than any gift card I've gotten. I'm just weird.