You do if you’re smart… … Or stupid and don’t check with them first and get ripped off by a company the BBB posted warnings about or given an “F” rating… even then the BBB will still help if you file a complaint… Which is 100% free. FYI the BBB is NOT a government agency, it is a Non-Profit organization to help consumers find trust worthy businesses.
[QUOTE=bluemaple, post:40, topic:378459]
Not sure humor is allowed here 
(be careful to whom you gift tablets…)
(I promise, the link is clean - and the video works on iOS and Android)
[/quote]
Well- it does have Gorilla Glass
[QUOTE=tred009, post:41, topic:378459]
You do if you’re smart… … Or stupid and don’t check with them first and get ripped off by a company the BBB posted warnings about or given an “F” rating… even then the BBB will still help if you file a complaint… Which is 100% free. FYI the BBB is NOT a government agency, it is a Non-Profit organization to help consumers find trust worthy businesses.
[/quote]
The problem with the BBB site is it needs to express the complaints as a comparison to the amount of sales. Any large retail company is bound to end up with a less than stellar rating. If you think about the volume of business Woot does, 83 complaints in 3 years really doesn’t seem that bad.
I bought a refurbed Toshiba Thrive from Woot in Dec of 2011. It lasted exactly 13 wonky months. Lots of bugs I couldn’t (read: wasn’t smart enough to) fix - browser crashing, system locking up, etc. Now it’s a paperweight that will not boot up.
Am I in for the same problems with the Excite?
[QUOTE=tred009, post:41, topic:378459]
You do if you’re smart… … Or stupid and don’t check with them first and get ripped off by a company the BBB posted warnings about or given an “F” rating… even then the BBB will still help if you file a complaint… Which is 100% free. FYI the BBB is NOT a government agency, it is a Non-Profit organization to help consumers find trust worthy businesses.
[/quote]
Case in point - woot is rated F.
While being a ‘public’ entity, more often than not equates to poor performance, BBB being a private entity does not equate to good.
It has simply become less and less relevant. Not enough companies with enough history at its site to be relevant. BBB didn’t mature with the Internet age. And I live in a large metro area - very weak activity at BBB.
BTW, calling someone stupid is a really effective way to persuade.
I bought this same tablet from another site a couple of weeks ago, and I liked it so much I bought one today here for my wife. There is an upgrade to Jellybean available. I just went to the Toshiba service station, and it told me an upgrade was available. I am now on version 4.1.1
Just got mine - woot! So excited - I’ve been wanting a tablet forever and everything by Toshiba I’ve ever looked at is primo - this price is really great - thanks, Woot!
How does it compare to Galaxy Note 10.2. I still have my heart set on it.
[QUOTE=gak0090, post:43, topic:378459]
The problem with the BBB site is it needs to express the complaints as a comparison to the amount of sales. Any large retail company is bound to end up with a less than stellar rating. If you think about the volume of business Woot does, 83 complaints in 3 years really doesn’t seem that bad.
[/quote]
that is a good point! regardless, we’d do whatever we can to see those 83 folks walk away satisfied.
i gotta speak as a “civilian” and not staff, here:
as a shopper, i have reservations about the BBB. HowStuffWorks has a pretty good page about BBB criticisms here.
They do what they can. They mean well. It’s just worth bearing in mind.
Does it look like this?
[QUOTE=gak0090, post:43, topic:378459]
The problem with the BBB site is it needs to express the complaints as a comparison to the amount of sales. Any large retail company is bound to end up with a less than stellar rating. If you think about the volume of business Woot does, 83 complaints in 3 years really doesn’t seem that bad.
[/quote]
“Any large retail company is bound to end up with a less than stellar rating.” This is not really supported by fact. Here are just two examples. Take for example Dell Computers, which has an A+ rating.
http://www.bbb.org/central-texas/business-reviews/computers-dealers/dell-inc-in-round-rock-tx-41453/
Or, Best Buy which has an A- rating.
http://forums.bestbuy.com/t5/Best-Buy-Geek-Squad-Policies/BBB-rating-for-Best-Buy-US-headquarters/td-p/34796
The volume of business is part of the equation. For example 100 complaints over 4000 units sold would not have near the negative effect as only 10 complaints in a 50 unit volume. So, it could easily be an advantage toward larger companies if they follow up on complaint answers.
But still, the BBB should be considered a good resource and not the one and only judge over good or bad. It along with other resources can greatly improve one’s ability to find the best vendors via their own records. So to totally discount the information that can be gleaned from the BBB would be somewhat reckless just as making it the only litmus test to quality just as reckless.
I was greatly surprised to see the F rating for Woot as my personal expieriance with Woot has been good on pricing as well as delivery. With that first hand expieriance I will continue to shop and buy from Woot but at the same time I am not going to just ignore every rating the BBB puts out. Infact if I found something at the exact same or nearly the same price from two vendors that I had zero expieriance with and one was rated with an A and the other rated with an F, I would order from the A rating rather than just toss out the rating all together.
[QUOTE=gak0090, post:43, topic:378459]
The problem with the BBB site is it needs to express the complaints as a comparison to the amount of sales. Any large retail company is bound to end up with a less than stellar rating. If you think about the volume of business Woot does, 83 complaints in 3 years really doesn’t seem that bad.
[/quote]
They do express complaints in regard to the amount of sales… Having a complaint does NOT lower your rating AT ALL… What lowers your grade is not answering complaints… A company does not even have to satisfy a customer’s demands to comply with the BBB complaint system, a company simply has to answer the customers complaint… So, case in point woot.com has 3 completely unanswered complaints and 9 left unresolved. The BBB views unanswered complaints as completely unacceptable business practice and DRASTICALLY reduces a rating… If woot were to simply respond to those complaints it would see a more “acceptable” rating.
I bought the same one, my Thrive stopped working a few weeks ago. Am also concerned that after 12-13 months this tablet will stop working.
… but I sure did like the tablet… I miss it…
I would recommend contacting the BBB in your area and informing them you are willing to answer ALL complaints. They can re-open the 12 unresolved complaints for you to reconcile. If you did this you would no longer have an “F” rating… In fact, it would probably be an “A”… Providing the BBB with current information is key to properly maintaining your profile with them.
check this out:
You really can’t go wrong with either one, they are both good tablets. If you are going to use the note taking features- I think the Galaxy note is a much better choice. If you aren’t really going to use that feature, then I think the Toshiba is a better all-purpose tablet. The CPU/GPU is a trade-off- some people say the Exynos (Samsung) is better than Tegra-3, but there is more software optimized for Tegra-3.Both CPU/GPU are excellent, most users would not notice a difference between the two. The Toshiba has an HDMI out. The pricing on the Samsung looks to be about $400, so unless you are considering to using it for note-taking functions, I think this Toshiba is a better bang for the buck.
[QUOTE=tred009, post:52, topic:378459]
They do express complaints in regard to the amount of sales… Having a complaint does NOT lower your rating AT ALL… What lowers your grade is not answering complaints… A company does not even have to satisfy a customer’s demands to comply with the BBB complaint system, a company simply has to answer the customers complaint… So, case in point woot.com has 3 completely unanswered complaints and 9 left unresolved. The BBB views unanswered complaints as completely unacceptable business practice and DRASTICALLY reduces a rating… If woot were to simply respond to those complaints it would see a more “acceptable” rating.
[/quote]
http://www.bbb.org/business-reviews/ratings/
BBB analysis of a business’ complaint history generally takes into account the business’ size if BBB has reliable information from the business to establish its size. If BBB cannot reliably determine business size, it will consider business to fall within BBB’s smallest size category.
You think that maybe this is skewing their rating? I can’t see how a few complaints like that should cause Woot to get an “F” especially considering the volume of business they do. If you follow any of these blogs you will see that woot reps jump right in if there is a customer service issue, and either resolve it, or direct them to the right resource. There is some defect in the algorithm that the BBB uses to calculate this grade.
[QUOTE=charliecarroll, post:51, topic:378459]
“Any large retail company is bound to end up with a less than stellar rating.” This is not really supported by fact. Here are just two examples. Take for example Dell Computers, which has an A+ rating.
http://www.bbb.org/central-texas/business-reviews/computers-dealers/dell-inc-in-round-rock-tx-41453/
Or, Best Buy which has an A- rating.
http://forums.bestbuy.com/t5/Best-Buy-Geek-Squad-Policies/BBB-rating-for-Best-Buy-US-headquarters/td-p/34796
The volume of business is part of the equation. For example 100 complaints over 4000 units sold would not have near the negative effect as only 10 complaints in a 50 unit volume. So, it could easily be an advantage toward larger companies if they follow up on complaint answers.
But still, the BBB should be considered a good resource and not the one and only judge over good or bad. It along with other resources can greatly improve one’s ability to find the best vendors via their own records. So to totally discount the information that can be gleaned from the BBB would be somewhat reckless just as making it the only litmus test to quality just as reckless.
I was greatly surprised to see the F rating for Woot as my personal expieriance with Woot has been good on pricing as well as delivery. With that first hand expieriance I will continue to shop and buy from Woot but at the same time I am not going to just ignore every rating the BBB puts out. Infact if I found something at the exact same or nearly the same price from two vendors that I had zero expieriance with and one was rated with an A and the other rated with an F, I would order from the A rating rather than just toss out the rating all together.
[/quote]
BBB has become irrelevant case in point 2: Best Buy has A- rating.
The ability of an organization to simply respond to a third party’s log of complaints does not qualify it as treating its customers right. And some customers are just plain irrational in their expectations or were the cause of the problem themselves.
As a shopper I give much more credence to systems that include both positive and negative feedback. The irrational or rare negative experiences become statistical silence. These feedback mechanisms + decent customer treatment are a big reason why Amazon & Newegg are trusted.
One thing i have learned from Toshiba:
NEVER BUY
Why? They will forget that they made this product in 6months time and it will be stuck on Android 4.0.
I would prefer to by the Nexus instead and I ended up having both.
I have the Thrive from a year ago. My battery recently died too but I had an extra from buying the previously mentioned accessory pack. Those of you having problems can pick one up for cheap. The back cover comes off easy and replacing the battery is straight forward.
Toshiba has actually been really good about keeping old hardware up to date with newer versions of Android. It took a little while but the ICS update for the Thrive was awesome, not every vendor released an update for their honeycomb tablets.
Need to replace the Visio tablet that my daughter had (now that was a bad woot buy). Might buy this for me and give her my thrive. Need to check with the boss first.
[QUOTE=gak0090, post:55, topic:378459]
check this out:
You really can’t go wrong with either one, they are both good tablets. If you are going to use the note taking features- I think the Galaxy note is a much better choice. If you aren’t really going to use that feature, then I think the Toshiba is a better all-purpose tablet. The CPU/GPU is a trade-off- some people say the Exynos (Samsung) is better than Tegra-3, but there is more software optimized for Tegra-3.Both CPU/GPU are excellent, most users would not notice a difference between the two. The Toshiba has an HDMI out. The pricing on the Samsung looks to be about $400, so unless you are considering to using it for note-taking functions, I think this Toshiba is a better bang for the buck.
[/quote]
^^ quality post…thanks (I don’t know how to do the quality post thingy)
I’ll just save my pennies for what my heart is set on. 