Moderator1 said:
Do NOT let it drop that you're in the news business. That is unethical. What are you going to do, write a story about it?
I have to admit. ... I once did what you suggested is unethical. Except I rationalized it away with a few things: 1) I was not in any position to REALLY write anything, so I was just doing it as a bluff to get someone who was trying to rip me off to do the right thing. And 2) I also didn't mention any specific publication.
I had bought a kitchen's worth of appliances from this retailer that has the best prices around here but is a pain in the butt to deal with. It's a giant game. They carry everything you could want. But it isn't as simple as walking in, looking at the price and buying. You have to haggle. And they don't make it easy. I was buying a fridge, stove/oven, microwave, dishwasher. I had just redone my kitchen. My contractor didn't have a contractor's discount with them, but he knew their M.O., so after I told him what I was going to buy, he basically told me the total price they could go down to and told me to not walk out of there without getting it.
I did. I won't go through the whole story -- how I had to walk out of the store twice (and they came back and chased me) and how it took nearly an hour to just do what we could have done in 5 minutes in the first place. And how aggravated the whole Arab bazaar thing in a retail store made me.
As part of the deal, they gave me 24 months zero percent financing. Specifically threw it in, we discussed it, it was a reason I bought. I just had to pay a small amount, make payments every month and then pay off the whole thing by the end of the second year and I could finance it at no interest. That was great by me. Free money.
Except stupidly, I didn't pay attention to what the sleazebag wrote up. And even though they had sold it to me with that 24 months zero percent financing, what he actually gave me was some of the appliances at zero percent financing for 24 months and some of them at zero percent financing for 18 months.
Admittedly, it was my fault for walking out of there without paying enough attention. And I was dealing with a snake, so I should have been more vigilant.
So after 18 months, thinking I still had six more months to pay it off, I got a bill and they have tacked on all of the interest costs for the past 18 months for some of the appliances, since I hadn't paid off on time.
I called their credit card people (card branded for them). No help. Take it up with the store. I pull out the receipts, and sure enough I just hadn't paid enough attention. So I knew I was in doo doo.
I went into the store, and actually founnd the original sales person from a year and a half earlier and he basically laughed at me. Told me I was SOL, not his problem. So I founnd the store manager (who was even bigger asshole; wouldn't have thought it could be possible). Same deal. Tells me it's not his problem. Turns his back on me several times. So realizing the only thing I could do at that moment was walk out of there with my tail between my legs, because the receipt I had said 18 months financing for a couple of the appliances and it was MY FAULT for trusting them when they sold it to me rather than making sure. ... I improvised. I had a reporters notebook in my bag. My original intention wasn't to do what you said is unethical. I just wanted to document who I had talked to. So I pulled the notebook out and asked him what his name was. Then I asked him how to spell it.
And he said something really sarcastic like, "What are you going to do, report me to the teacher?" Swear it.
That was what got me. The whole attitude. I was pissed. So more by instinct, because I had no real bullets in the gun, I did what you said not to do. I said something like, "Not at all. Thing is, I am a writer, and I am thinking I can write a pretty good public service piece warning people about your store and telling them about my experience, and I wanted to make sure I spell your name correctly in the piece." It just came out. I never mentioned any publication, and honestly, I didn't have an outlet to do that sort of thing at that time. But if he had run my name through a search engine at the time, he would have found stories with my byline and known that I did do some writing.
I won't say the guy cowered or anything, but his tone changed a bit and he took my info and gave me a card and told me he'd see what he could do. A day later I got a call from someone at their headquarters, who got all of the interest charges taken off and gave me the original terms of 24 months, zero percent financing.
I made sure that money was paid off after 23 months just to be safe with those guys.
If what I did was unethical, I can live with it. The way I saw it, they were trying to rip me off and I stopped them from doing it. I just got what I had been promised. Nothing more, nothing less.
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