No, you're not being mercilessly attacked by an unyielding feeling of déjà vu for no good reason -- we really have seen
something eerily similar to this happen before. This go 'round, we've got a totally innocent ten year old boy who was given
Guitar Hero for
DS prior to even owning a console; as the mother finally ended the tease, she handed him a shiny new DS handheld for him to unwrap. Unfortunately for everyone involved, all that was tucked inside was a couple of stones, a Chinese newspaper and boatloads of disappointment. After the Walmart store from which she purchased it referred her to the Big N, she furiously admitted the following: "They don't want to do nothing. They want me to keep the box of rocks. I'm not buying a box of rocks for $138." Thankfully, Wally World finally refunded her and threw in a $20 gift card for the trouble (after being hounded by a local news station, mind you), but the real damage -- losing all hope in humanity -- will never be undone. Ever.
[Via
plugged in]
posted Apr 29th 2009 12:41PM
Oh the irony. "A DS?!?!?! THIS ROCKS!!!!" And it really was.
Dud
A better joke would have been to point out that he was excited about "rocking out" to Guitar Hero.
LOL!!!
At least Rock Band hasn't come out for the DS yet.
the irony would be if he had more fun with the rocks
The uh weird doll avatar guy. You're must be an incredibly disturbed individual to let such a mess of idiotic memes influence your everyday life, and to display them by your comments.
so would 80% of the joystiq population if it were as serious as youre making it out to be, stfu thanks.
Wow, I actually laughed reading your comment.
Quote Charlie Brown, "I got a rock".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYFfOJPMnsw
when my brother (who is now a phd in math) was really young his favorite toy was a metal sucrets box, filled with...you guessed it...rocks and taped shut.
They don't still sell the original DS, do they?
No, they only sell the old package full of rocks.
Zing!
This happened to me via Comp USA back when the Sony Location Free Base Station first hit the streets. I got a block of wood that had a piece of paper wrapped around it with a picture of the Location Free device on it. I went back to the store right away and got the real deal...Q
I worked at CompUSA back in college, and can verify that happened with a couple things there. Apparently when our sales manager asked corporate about it, they had narrowed down one of the Fedex sorting centers a lot of our stuff went through for eastern US distribution had a little ring of employees who had a nice side business going on. They picked out stuff that got palletized for our stores and did the old switcheroo.
When I went to buy my PSP, Target actually sold me a PSP box with 4 C batteries and some newspaper. They gave me a real one immediately, probably were scared of a lawsuit.
Wow Wal-Mart, I know the times are tough, but surely this is a bit too far.
Also Guitar Hero for the DS now rocks the console in more of a literal way.
"They don't want to do nothing"
Doesn't that mean they do want to do something?
That's because a ella le gusta el pollo
"I'm not buying a box of rocks for $138."
How much WOULD you pay for a box of rocks then? (Cause I have some magical ones I can give you a deal on.)
They don't not want to not do nothing.
A ela A gosta a voce
"They don't want to do nothing" I believe it logically means that they want to do something but not nothing :)
"They dont want to do nothing" ??? lol
Ahhh i remember the original DS, hideous beast it was, incredibly dated looking. The Vaio P aint not much bigger :-P.
Hey! I like my hideous beast of a DS...
Fraudulent returns happen constantly, and main items such as game systems and laptops get returned in a still sealed packed replaced with a brick or phone book nearly weekly.
@bolmedias "Wow Wal-Mart, I know the times are tough, but surely this is a bit too far."
Wal Mart didn't replace the DS with rocks you dolt.
How is this news?
Only when it happens to a kid or there is some sob story like this does it get talked about.
In other news, a liquor store was robbed, a cat had to be rescued from a tree, and a car wrecked.
Oh trust me - "They don't want to do nothing" - that's exactly what they want to do. :P
Seriously, learn from all those Engadget unboxing (gadget porn) videos - protect yourself by either videotaping it or taking pictures when opening your new expensive items. Also, if the box even looks remotely tampered with (dodgy shrink-wrap, broken product seals, more than one layer of tape holding box openings closed, busted up cardboard), either pick or demand a different one.
Really? So you would videotape the process of unboxing every $100+ products you purchased, so you can "protecting yourself" from receiving a box of rocks??? Surely there are much more important things to do in your life. And people don't expect to receive a box of rocks every time they purchase electronics!
How am I supposed to video tape the opening of my video camera I am going to have to buy to video tape all of the packages I open? I have a little bit of a conundrum on my hands.
@Jay: Kiff, we have a conundrum.
@Jay
You need to be really, really fast.
use your iphone video recorder...you dont need to video tape the iphone cuz the screen will break eventually anyway.
@ Chris - Of course not every $100 and up item, but this would at least give you some documentation to back up your claim when you try to return the box'o'rocks to the store and they tell you to f yourself. That's what I meant by protect yourself.
Forcewinder has to be a dick, doesn't he?
I used to work for the returns center for Best Buy (not for one store, mind you - the central returns center for the entire west coast). You can't imagine how many times/items come through that people have simply stripped/replaced/intentionally-damaged. People are greedy and this is a perfect example of a store simply accepting a return, not checking inside, and then putting it back on the shelves for sale...
Stupid store, yes - but some greedy punk just cost us all a little more scrutiny next time...
This was on Yahoo News yesterday, it was actually a disgruntled Walmart customer who returned the box with the shrink wrap on it and somehow it found it's way back on the shelf.
Wow! Who would have ever known?! A customer returning something fraudulently?! Well I never!
It's not like this happens hundreds if not thousands of times per year at just one single store.
Obviously an inside job. We need retail exray machines to make sure people are getting what they are supposed to. OR ar least a rock detector!
If an employee wanted it, they would just steal it, they wouldn't go through all of that trouble of swapping the crap inside unless they were doing it at a distribution center, which is unlikely if it's only one product.
$20 gift card? She should claim it was racism and sue Wal-Mart for 20 million for not letting her return it instead.
she is white, I doubt that she can win racism case.
economy is bad, crime is up
Oh yeah! The American way of "life". Just sue yourself to death.
Er... they did eventually allow her to return it, AND they threw in the 20 dollar gift card.
Yeah, I work at the BB and this shiz happens all the time.
Unfortunately, we just have to trust the customer and refund the money, minus the product.
So, what's saying they didn't just buy the thing, and fill the box with rocks and claim it was like that??
Aw well, losing all faith in decent human beings is totally worth a $20 gift card amiright??
That's scary. And today's my bday too!
That is the reason what.... once I pay.... I open it immediately at the register - when they are boxed items. This is specially true if the think costs more then $50. If I buy online, I reject any box that has any kind of damage. Then, I call immediately the Merchant and the Shipping service to inform it. Write down names and stuff.
Stores must hate you.
this stuff seems to be happening a bit too often.
The worst part is that they weren't even Mick or Keith!
I almost missed the edited picture: (Nintendo DS* -- Rocks and Chinese newspaper included; Nintendo DS console sold seperately.) LOL!
Yup, that picture's a riot!
When I USE to work for Best Buy I had a customer come up to me and tell me he had bought a PS3 from Target. Sure enough when he opened it up rocks were found instead of a Playstation. They did take it back too.
Poor little gaffer--that sucked! I hope his Bday turned out OK after the fact.
My brother received an xbox 360 for his birthday a few years ago. When he opened it up there was 2 pound ream of paper inside of the box. Target took it back no problem. They thought it was funny. The strange thing is that it looked factory sealed. At least I now know how to scam Target out of an xbox.
I was reading some forum posts in which people were recommending that someone go buy a new XBox and replace their broken RRoD guts into the new case and return it. Said he had done it before and it went off without a hitch. I always thought that was a pretty shady thing to do as well.
THIS (and the MacBrick Pro that was floating around the Internets yesterday) is why I always take my merchandise to the customer service desk and ask them to open it and how me the product before I pay for it.
Yes, I'm an asshole customer, but I'm an asshole customer that actually gets the product I paid for.
I'd also like to be an asshole customer that actually gets the product you paid for.
Well that asshole customer got what she paid for and a $20 gift card. I'm taking mine home to open it.
Engadget's addition to the side of the box is hilarious.
I totally didn't notice that until I read your comment.
Wow seems like a lot of system returns to me. Strange thing is that to sell a system you have to scan the serial number right off the system though the box. So I am guessing some how the serial number bar code was still there? I know this from working as a DM for a gaming store for over ten years.
One way to tell if it was taken by the person making the claim is when you go to replace said system with another they now do not want it they just want their money back strange right??
But yes at times this does happen by employee theft or an employee that failed to open a sealed return infront of the returning customer and then placed the item back in stock.
As far as Fedx and UPS goes I had a Fedx driver that use to steal a case or two of any hot new game on the day it came out my store would call and say I did not get any and we woud ck and the box just goes poof. And the funny part is the retailer only gets $100.00 for each box that is missing not the true value. UPS was even more fun the driver would just not deliver stuff to the store and the police raided his house and found all the product he stole.
People are just greedy.
A DS might as well be as fun as a box of rocks.
What it is simple time travel you simply go back in time and photograph what you have already done. It involves the simple use of anti-protons a paperclip and some aluminum foil.
Maus
Brutal. Poor kid.
I would have been hounding my parents to give me the DS that they so deceptively hid before wrapping.
Too bad it looks like the switch was made in China.
I ran across something similar when I was going to install a new CD Burner for a client that had purchased it from Best Buy. I opened the box and it was a ziplock bag of sand.. they were like, is this a joke? I said, well yes for the person that put the bag in the box and returned it to the store for a refund and the workers at Best Buy are too lazy to open it up to see if the equipment is still there.
I told him to go to Best Buy and explain it in hopes of getting a new one with the actual product in the box. I felt so bad for the guy.
anyone ever hear of this problem when shopping online, ie amazon, newegg?
Kind of. I've had two products from Amazon (a garmin running watch-gps tracker) and an Flip HD. Two different orders, but both placed around Christmas. The Flip had someone else's old footage in it, and the Garmin came with someone else's biometric already programmed in.
Nothing like putting on the heart rate monitor and realizing someone else has probably sweat through it.
it would be funny if it was an iphone box
" I got a PSP!"
"I got an iPhone!"
"I got a rock. box."
nintendo ds pet rock game what? ....and typical fucking sprawl-mart for you!!!
This is exactly why I order from Amazon. And I mean Amazon itself, not third parties that it hosts.
it seems like one of those stories where the mom teases the kid with the box and the kid starts the tears after everyone gets there little chuckle then they feel bad and show him they just took it out of the box....except someone pulled the trick on the parents XD.
wait its not normal mfor ur parents to give you rocks
If she got Nintendo involved, she would have probably gotten a shiny new DSi, additional points (in addition to the ones that come with the system), and a few games.
The boy is 16 years old. Not ten. Also another Florida Story.
Heres the link Engadget:
http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=104724
I feel sorry for the poor kid who wanted a box of rocks and instead got a Nintendo DS due to this mix up.
hahahhahahahhHAHAHAHAHAH
You know, it is relatively easy to purchase some shrink wrap and a hair dryer...
The worst part is that they weren't even Mick or Keith!
yep
Actually ,the mom can find some cheap box of rocks
liks some factory-refurbished Nintendo-Ds-Lite
via ; http://www.pandawill.com/Wholesale-game-console_c192