In article , Warren wrote: :$Bill wrote: :> > Price of modem: $79.99 :> > Cash rebate from Motorola: $20.00 :> > Cash rebate from Circuit City: $60.00 (new service :w/Comcast req'd) :> > Merchandise card from Circuit City: $50.00 (new service :w/Comcast req'd) :>
:> That's what I'm talking about - $50 cash and a free modem ! :>
:> Dave will try to tell you it's a factory reconditioned second and :> they won't honor your merchandise card. :) : :This is misleading. Only $20 is coming from Motorola, and none of it is :really coming from Circuit City. The bulk of the money is coming from :Comcast. And the cost of the Comcast service required for some reason :wasn't included in presenting this deal here.
Oh yes, terribly misleading. Once the decision to buy service from Comcast was made, my choice was between:
a) Have Comcast supply the modem and charge me $3.00 a month for however long I keep the service (and lock myself out from ever getting a "free" modem in the future, since I wouldn't be a new customer any more), or
b) Buy the modem from Circuit City for nothing (after the cash rebates) and receive $50 in Circuit City merchandise in addition.
[SNIP] :Now here's the other questions: How much money does one have to part :with to purchase this deal? Would this modem and cable Internet service :be worth it if something went wrong, and the rebates never came? What if :the Internet service is unacceptably bad? After paying for the service, :you're certainly not going to be ahead $50. If the service sucks, how :much did you spend?To qualify for the rebate I needed to keep the service for 60 days at Comcast's introductory rate of $19.95/month, which was less than I was paying for dialup service. Comcast does not require any service contract (unlike buying DSL from SBC, which would require me to commit to a 1 year contract).
"If ..., if ..., if ..., if ... ." Basically you're asking, "If the whole deal went bad, would it still be a good deal?" Of course not. Heck, I could walk up to you on the street and hand you a $50 bill. Good deal for you? Not if that $50 bill turned out to be counterfeit and you ended up spending a couple of hours in a police station explaining where you got it.
[SNIP] : If the consumer had no need for broadband Internet service, :despite the rosy picture painted initially, it's a crappy deal.Hey, if I had no need for high speed Internet service, then at least it wouldn't matter if the service sucked.