Toshiba in Hot Water Over Free Laptops Offer

[zak_mckraken]

I understand the need to have customers registering, else everyone who purchased a Toshiba product would ask for refund, regardless if they used the promotion or not. However, Toshiba should have indeed make it clear on the promotional material. Maybe they could offer a partial refund to the ones who didn't register?

 

[igot1forya]

If it sounds too good to be true, read the fine print...

 

[Guest]

@ ajcroteau: This is in no way "bait and switch". Not even close.
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My thoughts:
Toshiba is a business, not a non-profit. They do not have a "moral obligation" to do anything. Their only task (like any other business) is to make money. Anybody that thinks they are owed something because they couldn't be bothered to read the rules deserves what they get.

 

[waylander]

While I do think that Toshiba probably should have included the fact that they had to register in order to get the "rebate", it's always up to a consumer to determine if he meets the eligibility of that rebate. As more and more things are going online (many manuals, instructiions... etc.) you're going to see less and less "fine print" at the point of sale.

I think it was a great promotion by Toshiba and since they advertised this in 5 countries it and registration had to be by June 17th it was obvious that you can't wait to buy one until the final when you have a 50/50 chance of winning... how stupid is that? I'm sure many even tried to purchase AFTER Spain had already won.

This just goes to prove that "common sense" is not common.

 

[hellwig]

I'm still waiting for that FreePC I signed up for back in highschool. It should arrive any day now.

 

[victomofreality]

you should always read the rules before you fork out a lot of money! I've learned that from being a Canadian and watching all the american only competitions go up on places like tom's...

 

[dextermat]

Toshiba is crap: so are the misleading add campains

 

[ksampanna]

Did Apple just bite Toshiba?

 

[cookoy]

and if the promo still ran after June 17 then it was really done with bad intent, to deceive their customers

 

[coldmast]

Toshiba
shi* support
shi* bios updates (will crash windows and brick you laptop)
shi* support

Never buying Toshiba laptop.

 

[kinggraves]

Consumers are so idiotic anymore, did anyone really think Toshiba was going to give away thousands of free TVs for the hell of it? They'd lose millions, this isn't even "bait and switch", it's usual rebate tactics and practically every electronics company uses them. What they wanted was for people to go buy these products out of faith in their team, BEFORE the event ended, not to give everyone in Spain a free TV afterwards. Making it a rebate means they make their money back in sales from all the countries who thought they'd win and bought these products beforehand. Any lawsuit filed against them will be struck down by any decent justice system since they did in some form provide the details necessary. I wouldn't hold this against Toshiba at all, but I certainly know which country to sell magic beans in.

 

[wawa sxm]

what did u expect anything else from this generation....always wanting somethig for nothing....and who the hell expects any kind of service/rebate or anything related to a product without registering it

 

[mandoman]

i'm sure there were many winners who were smart enough to read the terms & conditions online. toshiba is not at fault here. they do what every other company does with marketing. consumer advocacy groups should educate consumers to always read the terms and conditions.

 

[gpace]

This is why the first thing I read is the fine print.