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Too Good To Be True (2/17/99)
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So were you one of the brave souls so firmly secure in your role as "Consumer Dude" that you signed up for a free iMac from One Stop Communications? You remember this deal, right? People who agree to spend at least $100 a month for 36 months at One Stop's online mall get a free iMac. Of course, it's a little more complex than that; you actually have to spend at least $25 in each of at least four stores, and you also have to use One Stop's Internet service, priced at $19.95 a month. That means that you would have to commit to spending an absolute minimum of $4318.20 over the course of three years in order to get your "free" iMac. Sounds kinda scary to us. And it gets even scarier once you read about the company offering the deal.
Katie, AtAT's Goddess of Minutiae, noticed an article over at Wired that casts a pretty serious pall of doubt on the whole venture. One Stop's CEO, Israel Rosenfeld, apparently tried a similar promotion last year through a completely different company, when he offered customers free ISDN Internet access if they spent $100 each month in an online mall. Several customers paid their first month's money and never got their ISDN service-- the company went bankrupt and the money was never returned. Add to that questionable past the fact that the online mall for the iMac offer doesn't yet exist-- Rosenfeld claims that his webmaster is "caught up in some storms" in Chicago. Then consider the fact that Rosenfeld claims that One Stop's biggest venture, a massive global high-bandwidth network called Studio 2000, is "secured against loss by a $600 million guarantee from... a subsidiary of the London Guarantee Insurance Company," when in fact the LGIG says that's patently untrue.
Worried yet? Sure, Rosenfeld's reportedly revamping the iMac program to include "no advancement payment," but is that really enough to earn customers' trust? And is it just us, or is anyone else a little concerned about the fact that One Stop won't accept credit card payments, instead billing by checks only? If this whole thing fails to materialize, we'll be sorry for everyone caught in the collapse-- including Apple. Seeing as One Stop's stated plan was to provide 25,000 free iMacs to its customers, Apple would be losing a sizeable chunk of potential sales income if it's all just a scam. We figure, why take the risk? You can have an iMac in the color of your choice for a mere $28 a month via Apple's consumer loan; or better yet, you can put that $1199 on a credit card and pay it off early, saving yourself a chunk of interest. Think before you jump.
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SceneLink (1348)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 2/17/99 episode: February 17, 1999: Apparently the planets were out of cosmic alignment during the Macworld Expo Tokyo keynote address, as demonstrations failed left and right. Meanwhile, that free iMac deal is looking more and more like it's too good to be true, and Microsoft admits that videotaped evidence they've provided is once again an inaccurate portrayal of things as they really are...
Other scenes from that episode: 1347: The Best Laid Plans (2/17/99) So as far as Steve Jobs' keynote addresses go, this last one at Macworld Expo Tokyo wasn't particularly memorable-- or perhaps we should say that it's one that Jobs (and the rest of us) will be trying hard to forget... 1349: Strike Three, And How (2/17/99) When last we checked in on "Redmond Justice," we stated that what started out as funny had just become sad and pathetic. We were referring to the way in which every time Microsoft introduced some new videotaped evidence, government lawyers found some way to show it as being somehow questionable...
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