Dumpster Computer

[Copprhed]

Unfortunately, Ripley operates under the P.T. Barnum business model...there's a sucker born every minute....

[MrRiplEy[H]]

MrRipley...your ideas will be the death of our economy, it's unsustainable, and you will see that eventually...businesses that practice fairly always succeed over those who charge all they can get away with...you may be doing well right now, but someone will come along with fair practices, and your customer base will desert you.

Luckily I live in Finland so you don't have to worry about it! Sorry for raising your concerns.

[Bizman]

IMO there's two ends in the ways to make profit: With a large margin to a limited clientele, or with a small margin selling huge quantities. Of course there's umpteen ways in between.

I used to work as a salesman for an international company whose politics was (still is, I believe) the former. A colleague once predicted the future being like this: We'll be selling less and less quantities of more and more special products to less and less customers for a higher and higher price. AFAIK the department I worked for isn't active here any more...

An example of the latter is a large American hypermarket, whose best profiting product had for years been a $1 fishing line with a 1% margin. People bought those reels by the dozen. A billion cents is quite a lot of money...

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Compensation for services and/or products is expected.  I or anyone else should not expect a business to provide a service and/or product for free.  I also believe a business should never offer to provide a service and/or product for free.  This is a bad business practice, and you clearly saw how it can turn out.  

This has nothing to do with ripping someone off.  There are thousands and thousands of business that provide a service and/or product for fair compensation without ripping off their customers, or having to resort to do something for free.  By your words, it appears you want to get as much out of your customers as you can based on their ignorants.  My perception of your business style is similar to, I take my poorly running car in to an automotive repair business, where in reality it had a bad plug wire, but you try to sell me an engine. You can call it what you want, but that is purely unethical.

Fred

Obviously I was provoking you with the choice of words. Business can't be done without healthy margins and in that sense it's always a ripoff of some sort. The more traditional businesses which cannot offer anything unique in terms of services naturally can't be that profitable. There's just too much competition. But when you offer something unique, let's say a Ferrari super car, you can set the price tag to the sky and yet have people lining up to buy it.

The world is full of products and services which are priced at true ripoff prices but yet are so desirable that people want to buy them regardless of the fact. And the companies that have the expertise and know-how to do it are the companies that can rocket in profitability.

By the way your example of auto repair is good and is happening all the time. The car repair services, especially the 'stealership' services operate just in the way you described. They charge you 80 dollars for a ball bearing that can be bought for 2 dollars using the same part number without the automaker branding.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

IMO there's two ends in the ways to make profit: With a large margin to a limited clientele, or with a small margin selling huge quantities. Of course there's umpteen ways in between.

I used to work as a salesman for an international company whose politics was (still is, I believe) the former. A colleague once predicted the future being like this: We'll be selling less and less quantities of more and more special products to less and less customers for a higher and higher price. AFAIK the department I worked for isn't active here any more...

An example of the latter is a large American hypermarket, whose best profiting product had for years been a $1 fishing line with a 1% margin. People bought those reels by the dozen. A billion cents is quite a lot of money...

The best profiting product for most Finnish stores is the plastic bag. They charge 20 eurocents for a bag and it costs less than 1 cent to manufacture.

[bmwgs]

Obviously I was provoking you with the choice of words. Business can't be done without healthy margins and in that sense it's always a ripoff of some sort. The more traditional businesses which cannot offer anything unique in terms of services naturally can't be that profitable. There's just too much competition. But when you offer something unique, let's say a Ferrari super car, you can set the price tag to the sky and yet have people lining up to buy it.

The world is full of products and services which are priced at true ripoff prices but yet are so desirable that people want to buy them regardless of the fact. And the companies that have the expertise and know-how to do it are the companies that can rocket in profitability.

By the way your example of auto repair is good and is happening all the time. The car repair services, especially the 'stealership' services operate just in the way you described. They charge you 80 dollars for a ball bearing that can be bought for 2 dollars using the same part number without the automaker branding.

Since I see you are in Finland, I understand a little bit better.  Ripoff is overcharging a person for a product or service.  The slang, at least in my area, is that it basically means stealing from someone by some sort of transaction.  Not a good word to use when describing business practices.  Sure there are people overpaying for products and services, and if they know they are paying the over inflated prices because they want it now, then it is not a ripoff.  They are willing to pay the price to get hands on.  Big difference in charging a less knowledgeable customer more than a knowledgeable customer.  

You stated in an earlier post "If the customer is dumb enough to think his problems will be solved by a new computer he should be ready to pay overprice too"  You are using the word "dumb" where in many cases it is a lack of knowledge why a customer may think that.  So I guess you are not willing educate and provide a service for reasonable profit, but would rather sucker him for all you can get because of his lack of knowledge.

Anyway, I'm done, I really didn't want to HiJack the thread, I would rather see if he gets the computer running.   

Fred

[wiskyfog]

If the "ripoffee" is agreeable with the "ripoff-er" isn't that the way of business, if you agree to buy the crap at the agreed upon price, regardless of the fairness, THE RIPOFFEE AGREED, RIGHT? SO ALL Y'ALL STFU.
Damm, some of y'all are like a bunch of bored old squabbling hens.

[ebfd11]

Ok back on subject...


Any updates on the dumpster computer?

LawnDart

[Reschke]

Ok back on subject...

Any updates on the dumpster computer?

LawnDart

+1 I wanted to find out if it worked at all and if it did then how much he had to spend to get it up and running again.

[chaser]

Sorry I've been away for a long time. Me and my uncle worked on the dumpster computer 2 days ago and it turned out it was nothing more than a bad switch inside the power supply. I put the power supply from my dad's computer in and it came on, but the CMOS was messed up so we reset the CMOS and the computer booted right up and worked fine. I still need to order my own power supply for it and add some RAM so it'll be a week or so before I get it fully up and running.


It blows my current desktop away with it's capabilities and my current one will run AH on full graphics.

[SilverZ06]

Find any adult amateur videos on the hard drive?

[chaser]

No 


Sad day

Finally remembered to order a power supply tonight so it should be here on Saturday.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Find any adult amateur videos on the hard drive?

Be careful of what you wish for. My uncle received a second hand replacement phone when his own was in the service and it contained images of hairy exposed MALE behind of the previous owner. My uncle said he wishes he didn't look lol 

[Getback]

My son found a computer in the dumpster. Took it home, turned it on, and it worked! He's been using it for about 5 years now. I will say this that is the most ghetto looking computer I have ever seen, lights everywhere.

[chaser]

Got my power supply put in today. First post from the dumpster computer! YEAH!

Everything works perfectly. Even played a little aces high earlier on it.