Still a good ploy any way it’s sliced. Given my work is more sitting in the office than it used to be (so I’ve been putting on some pounds), I might just join them as they’re the closest gym to my house.
Paying what? $10 a month? for something you don’t use, but might use someday, and don’t wish to give up on the idea of; is way less painful than paying, say, $40 a month.
@therealjrn Don’t sleep on the free bagels once a month too… (Full disclosure: I’ve never eaten the food [that I recall ;)].)
It is crazy. At $13/mth (there’s an additional yearly $30 charge) if you use it twice a month, you’re ahead of paying two daily use charges somewhere else. It’s hard to bring myself to cancel.
Avoid them. My son has been trying to cancel his membership after moving. He was told it must be done in person at the home gym or with a certified letter. He has called a few times but it never gets done. He would cancel the card it’s on but has been told they will sue for non payment.
@cahuston Are you sure this is Planet Fitness you’re talking about? It would take YEARS of $10 a month payments from a customer to make it worth suing them. That doesn’t sound like Planer Fitness.
Either way, send the stupid letter, keep a copy and documentation and cancel the card payments at the bank.
Curious, how does someone do that? As someone who has worked for banks for 27 years where 11 of those were in the credit card division, I don’t know of any way a customer can cancel legitimate charges.
The best they can do is dispute a charge for a specific reason such as they do not recognize the charge, item was not as described, MOTO didn’t receive, etc. None of them are for a membership of something where you want to cancel but they keep billing. You can dispute it each month the charge appears but then you have to submit your proof that you did cancel according to the methods of your contract.
Sometimes if the amount is extremely low, like $10, the bank might just write off the charge instead of disputing it because the costs to the bank to dispute greatly exceeds the $10 charge. But that doesn’t mean they will do that for each recurring charge.
Your RICA (retail installment credit agreement) states that you have to make a good faith attempt to handle the dispute with the merchant BEFORE putting the charge in dispute. Be prepared to tell the bank what you have done with the merchant to resolve the problem. Keep all paperwork regarding all your cancelation attempts.
@cengland0 Thanks for the illumination! My answer was incomplete of course. Since we would (presumably) have the documentation of the son’s efforts to cancel his ongoing mehmbership, I said “cancel” when I should of said “dispute.” Added to that is, of course, incomplete knowledge of what type of contract was signed. I answered hastily and am grieved by my carelessness.
Thanks for your insider knowledge! Now I know who to go to for consumer disputes such as these!
Go to target. Holiday stuff is 90 percent off. I bought wrapping paper for 25 cents a roll(including some that are better as birthday wrap), 10 price nail polish sets for 1 dollar, A ten cent goat cookie cutter, some candy, some red and white napkins all 90 percent off.
eStories, an audiobook merchant, is offering two free months, plus two free books for new members.
The site setup seems to be nearly a clone of Audible, but has cut their membership cost to $12/mo (versus Audible’s $15/mo). Book selection, excepting the Audible Exclusives titles, seems reasonably complete. I’ve selected the GOT collection and Steven King’s it. Both titles are by the same publisher, and same narrator as those offered on Audible.
Book deals did overwhelm some of the older monthly deal threads. So that tech and so forth just kinda got buried.
And some people didn’t wanna read about book deals; and when there were too many book deals in the monthly deals thread, these people kinda seemed to stop checking for regular deals.
I am hoping that people who like regular deals and people who like book deals will keep an eye on both.
And with a separate book deal thread, this way, if all the readers go nuts and want to go thru ever single Isaac Asimov or Agatha Christie book ever published, the hot laptop and home automation and game and maker and hardware stuff will still be easy to find.
I love these threads. I just like not to see the books take over in the deals thread.
It’s cool. I thought it might have been teasing, was not completely sure.
I love these topics. I have to avoid getting all spendy tho.
Slickdeals can be evil.
(Gonna blame Slickdeals, not me. I haven’t blamed the Goats, because for the last several years, I’ve been wary of being tempted by Slickdeals.)
@f00l Ha. Looks like they updated the stand – it’s now a “media stand”, which I think I would like as I track progress with a tablet app. I also think in my exhausted desperation to clumsily replace the dumbbells I’d probably smash my tablet to bits, so maybe not.
Humble Bundle has the Amnesia Collection for free for the next day or so. I’ve played all the games from this developer and I like them. They are REALLY strange, creepy, but I found them fun.
New 2017 version. 4K UHD, HDR (HDR10), XLED 12 zone full array LED backlighting, integrated SmartCast, dual band WIFI, Bluetooth, WiFi remote control and smartphone app remote control, Google Home support, built-in apps for all the major streaming sources like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, Google Video, etc.
Basically all the bells and whistles you can expect to get in a sub-$1000 TV, but for nearly half the price. It is important to note: this is considered a home theater display, not a TV. It does NOT have a OTA TV tuner and therefore cannot receive over the air television broadcasts from your local stations. For many, no big deal. For others who are using Silicon Dust tuners, still not a problem. For those who only use a TV antenna to watch TV… no bargain for you!
Caveats:
Why YMMV? Only certain pickup locations will net the additional $150 discount. In my immediate area, only one store qualified, and only 3 stores in my metro area.
How did I get this for $540? Bless the Best Buy price match policy. I did my due diligence and found the Walmart nearest me which qualifies for the $150 pickup discount. Got it all loaded up in my phone’s browser and headed to Best Buy for the price match. THEN, I paid with my Chase Freedom Visa using Chase Pay (their smartphone payment app). Chase is offering 10% cash back at Best Buy if you pay with your qualified Chase credit card using Chase Pay. Price before tax: $598, less 10% cash back = net price of $540.
Here’s the Vizio product page. The Walmart product page is linked above.
Marketing ploy or devious trap?
Monday, January 1, 2018, Planet Fitness is giving away slices of pizza at their stores.
@therealjrn I thought they regularly offered such “cheat day” foods? It’s a profit motive to keep folks paying for memberships they don’t use.
@narfcake Mehbe they do? I don’t know.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
They just announced it live on Dick Clark’s New Years Eve show.
@therealjrn First Mondays of every month, apparently.
http://www.businessinsider.com/planet-fitnesss-business-profile-2015-10
Still a good ploy any way it’s sliced. Given my work is more sitting in the office than it used to be (so I’ve been putting on some pounds), I might just join them as they’re the closest gym to my house.
@narfcake
Paying what? $10 a month? for something you don’t use, but might use someday, and don’t wish to give up on the idea of; is way less painful than paying, say, $40 a month.
They’ve got a good biz model.
@f00l
Kind of like paying $5 a month to a certain website for “free” shipping huh.
@therealjrn
https://shirt.woot.com/offers/planet-sitness
@therealjrn
Exactly.
@ACraigL Nice! I wonder if I can eat $10 worth of their pizza each month?
@therealjrn Don’t sleep on the free bagels once a month too… (Full disclosure: I’ve never eaten the food [that I recall ;)].)
It is crazy. At $13/mth (there’s an additional yearly $30 charge) if you use it twice a month, you’re ahead of paying two daily use charges somewhere else. It’s hard to bring myself to cancel.
Avoid them. My son has been trying to cancel his membership after moving. He was told it must be done in person at the home gym or with a certified letter. He has called a few times but it never gets done. He would cancel the card it’s on but has been told they will sue for non payment.
@cahuston Are you sure this is Planet Fitness you’re talking about? It would take YEARS of $10 a month payments from a customer to make it worth suing them. That doesn’t sound like Planer Fitness.
Either way, send the stupid letter, keep a copy and documentation and cancel the card payments at the bank.
@therealjrn
Curious, how does someone do that? As someone who has worked for banks for 27 years where 11 of those were in the credit card division, I don’t know of any way a customer can cancel legitimate charges.
The best they can do is dispute a charge for a specific reason such as they do not recognize the charge, item was not as described, MOTO didn’t receive, etc. None of them are for a membership of something where you want to cancel but they keep billing. You can dispute it each month the charge appears but then you have to submit your proof that you did cancel according to the methods of your contract.
Sometimes if the amount is extremely low, like $10, the bank might just write off the charge instead of disputing it because the costs to the bank to dispute greatly exceeds the $10 charge. But that doesn’t mean they will do that for each recurring charge.
Your RICA (retail installment credit agreement) states that you have to make a good faith attempt to handle the dispute with the merchant BEFORE putting the charge in dispute. Be prepared to tell the bank what you have done with the merchant to resolve the problem. Keep all paperwork regarding all your cancelation attempts.
@cengland0 Thanks for the illumination! My answer was incomplete of course. Since we would (presumably) have the documentation of the son’s efforts to cancel his ongoing mehmbership, I said “cancel” when I should of said “dispute.” Added to that is, of course, incomplete knowledge of what type of contract was signed. I answered hastily and am grieved by my carelessness.
Thanks for your insider knowledge! Now I know who to go to for consumer disputes such as these!
@cahuston
Incidentally, had a friend who was
a member at Planet Fitness for a while. The person moved and couldn’t really get over to the nearest place anymore.
They drove over and cancelled in person. (just one visit was no biggie). No prob with the cancellation.
The person was happy to rejoin later.
@cengland0
Good stuff. Thx.
@therealjrn There is someone you can blame for any oversights, errors, or what have you in your missive. If we just knew who that would be…
Go to target. Holiday stuff is 90 percent off. I bought wrapping paper for 25 cents a roll(including some that are better as birthday wrap), 10 price nail polish sets for 1 dollar, A ten cent goat cookie cutter, some candy, some red and white napkins all 90 percent off.
@CaptAmehrican I will go tomorrow. I already hit lowes and home depot.
I just bought $10.00 boxes of Baklava at Walmart for .61 cents a box. I will have a Baklava problem for a while.
eStories, an audiobook merchant, is offering two free months, plus two free books for new members.
The site setup seems to be nearly a clone of Audible, but has cut their membership cost to $12/mo (versus Audible’s $15/mo). Book selection, excepting the Audible Exclusives titles, seems reasonably complete. I’ve selected the GOT collection and Steven King’s it. Both titles are by the same publisher, and same narrator as those offered on Audible.
https://www.estories.com/
@ruouttaurmind
Hey! This should go in “book deals”!
https://meh.com/forum/topics/share-book-deals-here
But I’ll link to it from there. : )
@f00l Thread cop.
@therealjrn
Apologies.
Book deals did overwhelm some of the older monthly deal threads. So that tech and so forth just kinda got buried.
And some people didn’t wanna read about book deals; and when there were too many book deals in the monthly deals thread, these people kinda seemed to stop checking for regular deals.
I am hoping that people who like regular deals and people who like book deals will keep an eye on both.
And with a separate book deal thread, this way, if all the readers go nuts and want to go thru ever single Isaac Asimov or Agatha Christie book ever published, the hot laptop and home automation and game and maker and hardware stuff will still be easy to find.
I love these threads. I just like not to see the books take over in the deals thread.
Didn’t mean to be “police-y” about it.
Again, apologies if I was.
@f00l Ah, go ahead. It keeps me from being the only one.
@f00l I was just teasing. Sorry if I’ve made you a little jumpy around me.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@therealjrn
It’s cool. I thought it might have been teasing, was not completely sure.
I love these topics. I have to avoid getting all spendy tho.
Slickdeals can be evil.
(Gonna blame Slickdeals, not me. I haven’t blamed the Goats, because for the last several years, I’ve been wary of being tempted by Slickdeals.)
Amazon has a pretty good deal on the Bowflex SelectTech adjustable dumbbells and stand for $299 shipped. The stand is $179 normally, so this is a good price.
https://www.amazon.com/Bowflex-SelectTech-Adjustable-Dumbbells-Bundle/dp/B077ZGS799/
FWIW, I’ve been using this setup at home for years and I really like it.
@ACraigL I have both. That is a good deal.
@ACraigL
I need to rent someone to come over and use them on my behalf.
@f00l Ha. Looks like they updated the stand – it’s now a “media stand”, which I think I would like as I track progress with a tablet app. I also think in my exhausted desperation to clumsily replace the dumbbells I’d probably smash my tablet to bits, so maybe not.
@ACraigL Yeah, I have the stand but it looks like this.
@mfladd Yep, that’s mine too.
Pizza Hut’s pizzas are 50% off thru Monday, January 8. Online only.
Attn: @RiotDemon
Regional Mexican joint Taco Bueno has free bean burritos today w/purchase.
tacobueno.com
@therealjrn
Thx. They are (imho) better than many fast food places in quality.
Newegg “shell shocker” daily deal for Friday, January 12th: Rosewill fully articulating wall mount for 37” to 70” TVs for $19.50, no tax in most states, ships free. Includes a free 4K HDMI cable.
Heiyo Wireless Bluetooth Earbuds at Amazon. $7 with free Prime shipping. Available in camo or lime green. 6.5 hour battery life.
Fakespot gives the reviews a fat “F”, suggesting 75% are questionable. But for seven bucks, they’re basically disposable, innit.
For those who have heard of Todoist (and especially if you already use it), you can get a year of Premium membership for free.
I don’t know if you can enter these codes in-app, so here’s the browser version.
Each of these links is worth 3 months subscription (though after using all 4, my Premium membership expires Dec 22, 2018, so…)
1st link.
2nd link.
3rd link.
4th link.
So as it turns out, the first 3 links give 3 months each, and the 4th point adds another 2 months.
Hence the total of 11 months.
@PlacidPenguin
Cool.
@PlacidPenguin
codes worked.
Humble Bundle has the Amnesia Collection for free for the next day or so. I’ve played all the games from this developer and I like them. They are REALLY strange, creepy, but I found them fun.
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/amnesia-collection
@ACraigL woohoo! This is exciting.
YMMV: Vizio E65-E1 65” 4K smart home theater display for $598 with in-store pickup (or $540 if you work the system; more on that below).
New 2017 version. 4K UHD, HDR (HDR10), XLED 12 zone full array LED backlighting, integrated SmartCast, dual band WIFI, Bluetooth, WiFi remote control and smartphone app remote control, Google Home support, built-in apps for all the major streaming sources like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, Google Video, etc.
Basically all the bells and whistles you can expect to get in a sub-$1000 TV, but for nearly half the price. It is important to note: this is considered a home theater display, not a TV. It does NOT have a OTA TV tuner and therefore cannot receive over the air television broadcasts from your local stations. For many, no big deal. For others who are using Silicon Dust tuners, still not a problem. For those who only use a TV antenna to watch TV… no bargain for you!
Caveats:
Why YMMV? Only certain pickup locations will net the additional $150 discount. In my immediate area, only one store qualified, and only 3 stores in my metro area.
How did I get this for $540? Bless the Best Buy price match policy. I did my due diligence and found the Walmart nearest me which qualifies for the $150 pickup discount. Got it all loaded up in my phone’s browser and headed to Best Buy for the price match. THEN, I paid with my Chase Freedom Visa using Chase Pay (their smartphone payment app). Chase is offering 10% cash back at Best Buy if you pay with your qualified Chase credit card using Chase Pay. Price before tax: $598, less 10% cash back = net price of $540.
Here’s the Vizio product page. The Walmart product page is linked above.
I would start a February deals thread, but I’m unaware of any deals, anywhere at any time. I think everything’s selling for full price this month!
@UncleVinny
Solved the issue.
@PlacidPenguin
You’re the man now, dog!