Ok this is a good one: a guy I know bought one of those cheap Radio Shack ‘mega-pixel’ cameras, but had a Pentium 166, no USB. So he bought a cheap Athlon from me with Windows ME on it. The OEM software would not recognize the camera at all. Any other USB device worked fine in the ports, and the software worked in another system we had with ME.
He went back to Radio Shack in PG and they told him (hold on to your hat),
The software had been installed already and couldn’t be installed again. He had to remove it before he reinstalled it. He told them no, that was on the old computer with no USB, which he donated to our Africa pile* when he found out he had to add USB or get a new system. They told him he had to get back the old computer and uninstall the software from it first, before he could install it on the new one. No, it was either in Africa or torn apart for scrap. They said to go to the dump and try to find the hard drive, because he had to put that hard drive into another computer and uninstall the software or it would not install on another computer!
BTW I forgot to mention they opened a camera pack off the shelf, took out the software and installed it on one of the models in the store * and it wouldn’t read the camera on the USB port*
So they wouldn’t take the camera back for refund or even as a trade for a different model because the software was no good anymore, you installed it!!! The guy is pushing 60, and started yelling at the two guys in the store telling them they were cheap c***suckers and ripoff artists in his thick Norwegian accent. (his command of English expletives is extremely good) and they called security. He ended up throwing the camera at them and yelling to the crowd about the BS he got from them as the mall guys hauled him away. He was told he was ‘lucky’ they didn’t want to press assault charges for throwing the camera.
I swear this is a true story. I know the guy and sent him to London Drugs to buy a decent camera. He threw away his $129 special and to this day sez he hopes they shoved up their arses like he told’em!!!
I go by the philosophy that I never bought my kids a toy there that was still working by dinner on Christmas Day, so only a fool would buy computer stuff there!!
*the priest in our town lives in Kenya. Whenever he goes back we give him some 486s and old Pentiums we’ve collected for his town’s school.