[ale] Tiger Direct going Rogue?

[Jim Philips]

On Monday 21 July 2008 12:47:04 Robert Reese~ wrote:
> I have an incidental client that needs memory for an older Dell, and
> thankfully she's a little more experienced than the average user.  A
> little, at least enough to add the memory herself.
>
> Instead of contacting Kingston or Crucial directly like I recommended,
> since her memory is so cheap with them anyway, she chose to call Tiger
> Direct.  According to her, the sales weasel told her she HAD to purchase
> Pitstop Optimize 2.0 for $30 otherwise the new memory would wipe out her
> information!
>
> Anyone else have, or your clients have, any experience such as this? 
> Obviously most (if not all) of us are not going to have this encounter
> since it is typically obvious that we are tech professionals and know
> better.  In fact, it's probably rare that we use the phone; on the other
> hand if something like this is in an email, that would be particularly
> interesting.
>
> I'm wondering if this is an indication of financial trouble for Tiger
> Direct as well?
>
> Cheers,
> Robert~

This would be a good thing to report to The Consumerist. If they pick up the 
story, they'll investigate. They can be reached at:

tips at consumerist.com