Another reason why Woot.com is Awesome

I just got a package from Woot.com. I didn’t even think about it as I opened it; it had my name on it, so I opened it, simple as that. Inside was a Best Buy Gift Card.

“Huh,” I thought to myself, “I don’t recall ordering one of these.”

The message (which was in nice cursive handwriting) said:

Thank you John!

Jumbo woot

The first thing I did was go onto the various woot sites (

woot, shirt, wine, kids, and sellout) and check My Account to see if I had ordered something recently, but that was not the case (last thing I had ordered was Books — No Electricity Required from shirt.woot.

Then I started to wonder how much it was for, so it was off to BestBuy.com to check the balance. I was floored when I saw it was for $50. I immediately started googling to try and figure out what happened (as I assumed this was a mistake).

Guess what? It wasn’t. This deals.woot post explained it all. It seems that because I had posted a popular deal during March, I got a free gift card to Best Buy. I read through this post and saw some of my fellow recipients also chiming in, my favorite response was this one by bravo6:

I got the gift as well, I was totally confused by it. Wrote woot on twitter saying I had received this but with no idea why, their response was that they were still trying to learn the ins and outs of the nigerian prince scam haha.. too funny

Though the one by jumbowoot also made me feel all special inside (and no I’m not being sarcastic):

Wow! That was quick!

I want to thank the community as a whole for all of the deals posted. Our audience is growing and having good deals around for everyone to participate in encourages real folks to come back every day. I wanted to send out an extra special thank you to the members who posted a deal that the community deemed popular back in March. As I was signing them, I was reminded that each of you are more than just a userID on a deals forum. There is a face, and a voice, and a job, and a home on the other end and I found myself even more grateful that you chose to spend some of your time with us.

Thanks to all.

All told.

In closing, I am a very happy camper and still completely flabbergasted that I got a $50 gift card for just sharing a deal.

woot

Adding a Roku to a Logitech Harmony Remote

August 30, 2010

I got a Roku HD player from Woot.com recently and, as with any electronic device for displaying content on your television, it came with a remote. I have a refurbished Logitech Harmony 880 remote that I use to control all of my devices so after verifying that the Roku worked (and adding my Netflix, Amazon Video, and Flickr accounts to it), I decided to add it to my remote’s repertoire.

Kindle 3 announced, joy ensues

July 29, 2010

At the beginning of the month, Amazon unveiled the 3rd generation of the Kindle DX which was now ensconced in a Graphite colored shell, provided a better contrast ratio, and faster refresh times. This all but guaranteed we would be seeing the Kindle 3 shortly. Yesterday, it was noticed that the Kindle 2 was out of stock, for probably the first time since they started selling them, which caused a few to wonder if the Kindle 3 was nigh. Well, nigh it was and today we have the option of pre-ordering a brand new Kindle 3 (or possibly “Kindle 2, 3rd Generation”, but we like Kindle 3 better).

Filing a claim with FedEx or What the hell happened to my TV?

April 15, 2010

A while back I got a refurbished TV from woot.com, when it arrived and the FedEx guy dropped it on the ground I cringed a little, but signed for it and then dragged it over to my desk to open it up. I removed the Styrofoam padders on the top corners and pulled the TV out. There were some scuff marks on the sides (no biggie there, cosmetic blemishes are part of what makes a refurb a refurb), but there were also scuff marks on the screen, just left of center near the top. This was slightly more troubling, but trying to think happy thoughts, I plugged it in anyway (using a VGA cable from my laptop for the input). Alas, nothing! Well, not nothing exactly, as the screen would flash and it would show mostly black, except for some really colorful sections radiating from the aforementioned scuff marks, which with the TV on were all black and sort of in a fist shape. At this point, I can’t help but think that someone has punched my TV. After a moment of wondering who would punch a TV, I realized I needed to figure out who it is I should contact. First, I email woot, and ask the obvious question (“Did you ship me a broken TV?"), they inform me that they did not. Then I have to decide between FedEx and Magnavox (the latter for some sort of repair service). I opt to talk to FedEx first, which is what led to the hijinks that inspired this post.