Businesses using underhanded tactics to increase sales: paranoia, or truth?

[Athena]

Every once in a while I hear about some company using an underhanded tactic to increase sales. This thread muses that phone companies may generate "dead" calls to compel frustrated consumers into buying caller ID plans to find out where these calls come from. I heard the same idea about 6-8 years ago, when CallerID was first available in my area.

Another less believable one curculates on the Everquest boards. Everquest, for those unfamiliar, is an on-line role playing game. The game evolves constantly as new content is added, and older stuff gets adjusted or removed so as to be more in line with the new stuff. Every time one of these adjustments is made, there's a group of players who insist that Sony is doing this intentionally in order to a) cause more bottlenecks that force people to play longer and generate more revenue for Sony or b) intentionally making the game more difficult and less fun so that players are forced to purchase and play Everquest II when it comes out later this year. As neither of these strategies are particularly good business, I highly doubt either is true (ie, the best thing for Sony would be to have a group of people sending in their $13/month to play the same ol' EQ that's been around forever, and Sony would not have to pay to develop a new, more modern sequel).

Of course, the grandaddy of all these is the idea that New Coke was a clever yet underhanded way to increase sales of Classic Coke.

So, to get to my question, are there any cases where a company actually *did* do something like this to increase sales? I can almost believe the phone company story, but not quite.

[bup]

Well, if there are documented cases you're looking for, you might do better in General Questions.

Another one I've heard, but don't believe, is that alarm-system companies will hire people to break into houses.

[Athena]

I debated over whether or not to put this in GQ. Mods, move if you feel like it.

[RealityChuck]

The type of things you talk about in the OP are not likely to happen. They depend on people behaving in one particular way. So, for instance, for the dead calls, how would the phone company know that people would get caller ID just to identify them? Would it be worth all the time and effort? Not likely.

It's like people claiming antivirus companies develop viruses. They don't; they don't have to.

The problem with the "who benefits?" analysis (i.e., "they're making money on it, so they're behind it") is that people may unintentionally benefit from something they had nothing to do with.

[happyheathen]

I know of two cases, both small time:

1. Person who works for shop which has the contract to repair damaged/worn upholstery of commuter trains is cought slashing said upholstery.

2. Auto glass shop hired thug to smash windsheilds in the neighborhood.

and one biggie:

In 1949 GM, Standard Oil, and Goodyear (may have been Goodrich) were convicted of forming a company which bought up inter-urban (commuter) rail systems, tore up the tracks, sold the rights-of-way, and scrapped the rolling stock (including the Key System, which used to run trains across the SF-Oakland bridge).
Why did they to this? To force people to drive to work - thereby increasing consumption of cars, gas, and tires.

Yes, Virginia, sleaze exists, as long as there is a buck to be made, sleaze will live on.

[Neurotik]

Now, now, happyheathen, let's not go spreading urban legends.

[happyheathen]

Maybe Cecil should take a little more time.

http://www.njtpa.org/public_affairs/...om/trolley.htm

There was a conviction and fine under Federal anti-trust laws. I'll let the lawyers cite the specific case.

[Czarcasm]

Since you're looking for facts, not opinions, I'll go ahead and move this to General Questions.

[js_africanus]

If you're interested in some not-so-underhanded ways of increasing sales, you may enjoy checking out Paco Underhill's Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping. He's a cultural anthropologist (something like that) who put his skills to use watching shoppers in stores.

Originally posted by Athena
Another less believable one curculates on the Everquest boards. Everquest, for those unfamiliar, is an on-line role playing game. The game evolves constantly as new content is added, and older stuff gets adjusted or removed so as to be more in line with the new stuff. Every time one of these adjustments is made, there's a group of players who insist that Sony is doing this intentionally in order to a) cause more bottlenecks that force people to play longer and generate more revenue for Sony or b) intentionally making the game more difficult and less fun so that players are forced to purchase and play Everquest II when it comes out later this year. As neither of these strategies are particularly good business, I highly doubt either is true (ie, the best thing for Sony would be to have a group of people sending in their $13/month to play the same ol' EQ that's been around forever, and Sony would not have to pay to develop a new, more modern sequel).

Actually, the first strategy is what monopolies do all the time. That's why we (should) have anti-trust laws. It's not that they are greedy, it's the characteristics of a monopoly market. It's not underhanded either, because...well, you know the story about the woman who saves the poisonious snake? Same thing.

[Zagadka]

To paraphrase Coca-Cola's statement regarding the whole New Coke fiasco (mainly, in being accused of doing it as a PR thing):

"We are neither that stupid nor that smart."

As for that Everquest thing, why the bloody hell would they add bottlenecks so you would play more? The best situation for them is that you pay your monthly fee and play as little as possible. This reduces the bandwidth they need and server overpopulation/lag. As for getting them to buy EQ2, that is pretty stupid. The MMORPG market is going to be absolutely saturated next year, and creating a reputation (reputation is more important than almost anything else with video games, especially MMORPGs) of being inept will just drive more people towards other options.

[Dr_Paprika]

Underhanded is in the eye of the beheld.

Businesses use questionable methods all the time. Marking up the "pre-sale" value of an item, fake sales, pretending to be "going out of business", charging more for larger volumes of a product, putting expensive items next to "sale" items so that the buyer may confuse them. These methods can be seen every month in the entertaining "Selling It" column on the last page of Consumer Reports.

Business often collude to maintain prices, and often get away with it. They have been caught controlling the price of oil, diamonds, citric acid and poultry. Anti-trust laws and consumer protection groups have been significantly weakened. The common defense "we live in a capitalist democracy" ignores the fact that many businesses sidestep the laws of supply and demand through political influence and regulations reimbursing companies with public money or providing unwarranted protection from litigation.

The sort of exmaples you mention, however, probably are limited to a small number of companies. The real operators aren't interested in being caught in small scale acts that are clearly that are so hard to defend publically.

[Meros]

Sure there is. Just about anything and everything done by Microsoft is typically less than entirely aboveboard.

For example
Windows 98 was essentially just a big fix for Windows 95 but rather than release it as such M$ opted to sell it as a completely new OS and therefore pull more money from the consumer's pocket.

WindowsNT was shipped with over 63,000 (yes that number is correct) known bugs.

These sites can offer many more little interesting factoids
http://www.kmfms.com
Why I Hate Microsoft
M$ Eradication Network

Not to mention www.intertrust.com and www.lindows.com who are the source of a few nasty lawsuits against the corp. America loves to hate.

If any of you geek/techie types doubts me then telnet to mail.microsoft.at on port 25

If their server software is the best on the market as they claim....why don't they run their own servers with it?

[Meros]

Forgot a biggie.

The Halloween Memos
IIRC M$ actually confirmed that these were the real deal.