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Trolling vendors for a laugh: sending today vintage registration cards...!

P

Pepinno

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So, I was wondering whether anyone has done this trollish thing: get the VINTAGE "Registration Card" for that IBM PS/1 system, or from that Windows 3.1 box, or the one that came in the box when you bought your first ISA ethernet card, and fill it in and mail it to the vendor TODAY, as if time had not passed. :cool:

They will get a blast from the past receiving it, for sure! Did the vendor respond with something?, like trolling you back with a "Thanks for registering with us the product you bought, please don't hesitate to ask for further support if needed" or something to that tune... as if time had not passed. :cool:

(PS: Yeah, I have a dangerous mind when fed with free time... :D )
 
As lame as it is I've thought about it but always thought to myself I'd rather keep the registration card/complete package. I've thought about it though out of curiosity for some of those request a backup copy or lost disk types but I imagine most likely either the company would no longer be around or the address would no longer exist.
 
When I find registration cards I find them too precious/collectable to send them in, but would love to.

Hopefully some companies respond. Usually I find most companies when contacted about equipment they designed 10+ years ago actually just completely ignore you. I was however impressed when I wrote to IBM many years ago about the IBM PC XT, they sent back posters and a thank you card :D
 
I do have a registration card for PCs Limited. I wonder if the current Dell Inc. would actually remember what it's origins were?

This reminds me of that book called "Letters From a Nut."
 
Oh man I've wanted to do that to - I usually look up the company, and if they're still around I have this urge to send in the registration card, or send them a letter asking some support question.

On the flip side, I'm using various dos utilities to test early pc's 386 to pentium) and most of them are shareware. I actually have a note on my desk to see if the guy who wrote syscheck is still around, so I can send in the shareware money.

Jeff
 
I would think the ship to address on those cards is probably a dead end for most companies by now. Somebody like IBM or Microsoft probably has some place to forward their mail to, but who knows is they even look at it.
 
Unknown_K said:
I would think the ship to address on those cards is probably a dead end for most companies by now. Somebody like IBM or Microsoft probably has some place to forward their mail to, but who knows is they even look at it.
Click to expand...

Hmm, perhaps spend the extra buck and send it registered. :p
 
I do vaguely recall a conversation where someone did that with probably a smaller company (game?) and ended up getting a response and some other memorabilia in return just because whomever thought it was cool that they were still a fan. I suppose there's a minute chance that a company does have a physical archive or ability to recreate some package, etc. Of course I've never seen any result from registering any products other than spam. Some companies used to claim you were required to register the device for your warranty to take affect but from what I understand that's not a legal claim and they're required to uphold their warranty regardless. Ever since that I stopped registering things.
 
Anonymous Freak said:
I have the IBM branded version of King's Quest 1 - I should send in the card to get a backup copy...
Click to expand...

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

(screams the Sierra freak) - mail it to me!! In an envelope and not filled out, of course ;)
 
Pepinno said:
So, I was wondering whether anyone has done this trollish thing: get the VINTAGE "Registration Card" for that IBM PS/1 system, or from that Windows 3.1 box, or the one that came in the box when you bought your first ISA ethernet card, and fill it in and mail it to the vendor TODAY, as if time had not passed. :cool:

They will get a blast from the past receiving it, for sure! Did the vendor respond with something?, like trolling you back with a "Thanks for registering with us the product you bought, please don't hesitate to ask for further support if needed" or something to that tune... as if time had not passed. :cool:

(PS: Yeah, I have a dangerous mind when fed with free time... :D )
Click to expand...

I haven't sent in a registration card, but I did once try calling the customer service number on the back of a box of Floppiclene(R).

floppiclene.jpg


http://jonsip.sdf.org/files/floppiclene.mp3
 
Ole Juul said:
The guy who answered the phone sounded disoriented. That was really weird. Perhaps it was the cleaning guy expecting a friend.
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Perhaps the result of breathing too much of the cleaning solvent.

Kodak used to sell their own brand of floppies with an "unconditional lifetime replacement" warranty. I can imagine the response if you tried to redeem a defective floppy today.

Which brings up a point--"lifetime" doesn't mean what people think it means--it's the vendor's estimate of what the lifetime of a product should be, according to their own (usually unpublished) standards. I ran across this when a drain spade I was using for planting a few thousand seedlings yielded to the hard clay we have here. I was told that, under the conditions that I was using it, the estimated useful lifetime was about 6 months.

On the other hand, there are some remarkable vendors. I was given a Le Creuset cast iron dutch oven about 25 years ago. About a year ago, the porcelain on the bottom popped a big chip. Willing to risk being laughed at, I called the US office and explained. They promptly sent out a box with paid shipping for the old pot and about a week later, I received a brand-new replacement. It probably was worth it to them--I'll never buy a different brand of their products.
 
About eight years ago, at a previous job, we were doing some cleaning and I found a cardboard box originally from an Apple Disk II drive - complete with the warranty card. We filled it out and mailed it in, but received no response.

Some companies are incredibly good about supporting their products - really it depends on the product. I would not expect any computer/electronic vendor to still have any support for old stuff - it just goes obsolete too quickly. Someplace like Sears, however, really does stand behind their Craftsman tools. I broke a ~35 year old 14mm socket while changing brakes on my car, and brought it back to Sears and they gave me a new one, no questions asked. But, then again, it's not like tools go obsolete, and the sockets they make now are functionally the same as ones made 35 years ago (all arguments about declining quality aside).

I have known someone to return a worn out tube to Radio Shack - one of their "Lifetime" tubes, within recent years, and obtain a free replacement. Of course, the new one wasn't a Radio Shack tube and doesn't carry the same warranty. I wouldn't doubt that they simply order them from AES on the odd time that some nut brings in a tube.

-Ian
 
Ole Juul said:
The guy who answered the phone sounded disoriented. That was really weird. Perhaps it was the cleaning guy expecting a friend.
Click to expand...

It was the seer shock and awe of an employee being pulled out of his routine and being asked to support a product his company was just discontinuing ten years ago when he got hired, as he vaguely starts to remember now... And the box of the product had this legend: "Lifetime warranty" (*). Bwahahahahah!


(*) That part is just utter guessing from my part.
 
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I remember many many moons ago (this is late 80s or early 90s) when Zip Technology were advertising the ZipChip as carrying "Life Time Warranty" (this is shortly after the cache blew up in their face) I called them and asked for a replacement of a 3 years old dead part. The guy that answered the phone went "No, we won't. You got three years of use out of it, what more do you want?" and then proceeded to hang up...
 
They obviously mean Life Time Warranty according to a fruit fly. You technically got 1,095 life times. You should be so lucky!
 
OT but there ARE quite a few life-time guaranty scams out there such as Ginsu knives. They came out with their infomercial touting a life-time warranty, sold a crap load then filed bankruptcy, resulting in no longer having to handle the warranty. They later came out with the Ginsu 2 and I guess changed their name or called themselves ginsu2, same warranty scam, same bankruptcy and profit.

Given with computers and computer companies I think the catch would just be available product or selling off the division. I don't know what legal ramifications would be but most likely not worth the cost for an end user to do anything about.
 
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