Suzanne O’Connor’s Bargains LA

Buyer Beware

I do get 100’s of emails everyday. I sign up for a multitude of e-newsletters, retail and manufacturer sites, industry, business and other sites to gain valuable info or find out about a cool deal.

These last couple of years, dozens of “Deal “ sites have emerged. Lately though they’ve been changing hands, combining with another site, expanding into “niche” markets or sometimes close or disappear even…Even favorite consumer site, Wallet Pop has changed into some sort of Financial investment site…. What the?

Seems everyone has jumped on the band wagon of pre- selling deals. However, complaints are beginning to mount around the web on many of these daily deal sites. So much so that I am backing off on recommending many of them, even though I have bought quite a few deals.

Businesses offering the deals often take huge losses to get their name and product out there, or are besieged by such a large response they are unable to fulfill them. So much so, that some business don’t honor the deals once they are sold, many of the deals are misleading, some even outright lie, making false comparisons of actual retail costs vs. the savings.

Many of the deals are still solid, and a smart, educated shopper should take advantage of these. But unless you’ve done your homework on the service or deal first, its easy to be mis-lead.

Once again it’s buyer beware.