Saturday, June 23, 2012

Best Buy's Reward System is a scam: Why "Best Buy" is the "Worst Buy"

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Best Buy is the Worst Buy. They're dishonest. Most people don't care. We buy things, spend money, get junk and when they break, we just move on. That's what society has taught us over the years. When someone gives you garbage, just accept it and move on. That's the American Way.
I've been buying technology products from Best Buy for many years. I have spent a lot there. I had a Rewards Card with them and every time I make a purchase, they ask me for the card, but I don't have it. So they look it up using my telephone number on their system. The cashier tells me she found it and then the sale goes through.
I figured I got my credit for the purchase on my Rewards Card.
But that's not the case.
Turns out when they ask you if you have a Rewards Card and enter it into the system, they are not really entering it at all. It's just a scam to get your information in to their system so they can send you sales pitches for junk that has to be pushed. Good merchandise sells itself. Junk needs the Best Buy push.
All these years of entering my Rewards information at the register and I finally went online and discovered none of it has been entered at all. But I have been getting their junk mailings, spam emails and harassment at the register everytime I buy something.
When I finally complained to someone at the store, he confessed. It's all a scam, he acknowledged. They just want your contact information. The real system works this way. 
You buy something at Best Buy. They list your Rewards Card number on the sale. They want you to leave the store thinking you got a "reward" when in fact you really didn't.
The clerk explained it to me this way. "If you don't go home and log into the Best Buy web site (myrz.com) and enter the information from your receipt, your purchase doesn't count towards the reward at all," he said.
Wow. What a scam?
Every time I make a purchase, I am supposed to go home and log into my Reward Zone membership online to give them traffic and put up with all kinds of online push sales pitches. New Windows pop up. The web site is confusing to use. They are hoping that if 5 percent of the people who waste their time doing all this will actually end up buying something online, they've achieved their goal.
So the next time you are in Best Buy, tell those assholes to shove it up their asses.
Fortunately, we have alternatives in Orland Park. Wal-Mart's technology section is phenomenal. And there is also CompUSA nearby.
Unlike Best Buy, which is the Worst Buy, they don't lie.
-- Ray Hanania

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Connectify works to create a WiFi hotspot from your laptop

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It's rare that in today's age of everything is technology that someone would actually come up with a great technology that does what it not only is supposed to do, but does something that is badly needed.

Connectify, the Internet company in Philadelphia, has come up with one of the greatest innovations for travelers in today's world of multiple WiFi needs.

I was traveling with my family in Negril, Jamaica and we needed WiFi at our hotel, the Grand Palladium Lady Hamilton. The hotel charged us $20 a day (with a 1.9 GB data download limit -- which was disturbing on its face).

But in the old days when we traveled, we brought one laptop and it was easy to connect to the paid service. We only paid one daily fee. But nowadays, we don't just have one laptop. We have a laptop, three iPads and two iPhones. In other words, to give everyone in my family WiFi Internet access, we'd have to pay $120 a day for each. Yikes! That would have been $840 just for internet access.

Instead, I downloaded a software program called Connectify. What a vacation lifesaver! I downloaded the free Connectify version and then easily installed it on my laptop. We used one WiFi internet account attached to the laptop and then created a WiFi Internet HotSpot using Connectify. I created a simple password and every iPhone and every iPad had access to the Internet, all at one time.

Since leaving Jamaica, I decided to buy the premium version of the Connectify software. It's $39 but they have a sale going on for only $29 so you might want to go there NOW and download it and buy a full version.

The full version allows you to connect a laptop to the internet using an Ethernet cord, and then creating a WiFi hub from the laptop. This is great even if it is just for yourself and you're at work, or someplace outside of the home. 

It's a problem I always have because the iPhone and iPad require WiFi. Now, instead of eating up my 3G or 4G connections for the iPhone and iPad, I can use the WiFi hotspot I create at my laptop to download updates without eating away at my data limits for each phone.

It's a lot easier to transfer info on WiFi rather than connecting the iPad or iPhone to the laptop, too.

This is essential in today's world where I have multiple internet gadgets and they ALL need Internet access.

It's a simple system, too. Connect your laptop to the Internet using an ethernet cord. Then, make your WiFi accessible (turn on WiFi on the laptop). Once that is done, you can use the Connectify HotSpot name that is automatically generated, or create your own hotspot name. Add a password to restrict access to it.

It's that simple, something you can't always say about other software programs.

Connectify does what it promises.

Go to www.Connectify.com and download your premium "Pro" version today.

-- Ray Hanania