I don't know about you, but there are lot of intelligent people out there who are penny wise and pound foolish. They just don't seem to have the willpower to resist a great deal. Take one of my friends for example. He's a really bright guy...got a 1600 on his SATs and managed to get into MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, etc. But he's one of those people who will stand in the rain for 5 hours on Black Friday to pick up stuff that he doesn't need, just because it's on sale at a great price. You'd think he'd have learned his lesson by now.
A few years ago, there was this fly by night online retailer that was advertising a ton of stuff that was virtually 'free'. The trick was that you had to buy the product at overinflated prices and then submit a rebate form to get back the equivalent of the amount that you paid. Well, after charging several thousands of dollars worth of stuff on his credit card to buy stuff that he didn't want or need, and then dutifully cutting off the upc codes and sending in all of the necessary rebate forms, the company went belly up and my friend was left holding the bag. Thankfully, after several months of wrangling, his credit card company reversed some of the charges, since it turned out to be a total scam.
Anyway, I still have a razor kick scooter and atomic clock that he gave me, one of several that he bought from the fly by night retailer, thinking that he'd get them for free. They're both sitting in a box in my closet, unopened and untouched, albeit missing the requisite upc codes.
The moral of the story is that if it looks too good to be true, then it probably is. It's not a good deal at any price if you're buying stuff that you really don't want or need.
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