How did the Target memo (official Redbird death) story broke out on 10/13/15
Oct 15, 2015, 5:45 pm
#46
Join Date: Apr 2012
Posts: 232
why would they shut it down? that'd make no sense. IB makes money from drama aka the more posts/views/links a thread gets, the better it is for business. #FlameWars = #Good4Business
anyways, I cant decide if NR is an ok guy or a scumbag.
even moderately searching google for MS related things, I'd randomly end up on several diff (and even obscure, unknown blogs) where no doubt there'd be a comment left by NR advertising his crap. its clearly wrong, he has NO moral ground whatsoever - esp when he complains about in this thread, but atleast he was providing a service.
then again those who say buyers should have done their research, well what about NRs marketing blitz for what its worth? its very presumable that only noobs were buying RB from NR, so I very much doubt they'd even know about Ariana or any other MS resource out there. NR def didnt disclose that RB was on its last leg. wheres the onus on NR for shutting down sales if RB was on its last leg? NR created a funnel to his site, where the only goal was to sell sell sell for the last year or so. so thats very disingenuous to blame recent buyers who I'd argue were tricked (conned?) into buying a soon to become worthless product. now most ppl wouldnt care over $30 but its about the principle of the matter at hand.
I mean the audacity of the OP to make this joke of a thread
while he's more or less robbing ppl on the other hand. 
I dont care how you slice it, $30 is a rip off for a piece of plastic. I'm surprised folks havent reported him to TGT, AXP etc yet.
anyways, I cant decide if NR is an ok guy or a scumbag.
even moderately searching google for MS related things, I'd randomly end up on several diff (and even obscure, unknown blogs) where no doubt there'd be a comment left by NR advertising his crap. its clearly wrong, he has NO moral ground whatsoever - esp when he complains about in this thread, but atleast he was providing a service.then again those who say buyers should have done their research, well what about NRs marketing blitz for what its worth? its very presumable that only noobs were buying RB from NR, so I very much doubt they'd even know about Ariana or any other MS resource out there. NR def didnt disclose that RB was on its last leg. wheres the onus on NR for shutting down sales if RB was on its last leg? NR created a funnel to his site, where the only goal was to sell sell sell for the last year or so. so thats very disingenuous to blame recent buyers who I'd argue were tricked (conned?) into buying a soon to become worthless product. now most ppl wouldnt care over $30 but its about the principle of the matter at hand.
I mean the audacity of the OP to make this joke of a thread
while he's more or less robbing ppl on the other hand. I dont care how you slice it, $30 is a rip off for a piece of plastic. I'm surprised folks havent reported him to TGT, AXP etc yet.
Last edited by cbn42; Oct 16, 2015 at 12:03 am
Oct 15, 2015, 6:24 pm
#47
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Land of the parrots and parrotheads
Programs: Several dozen
Posts: 4,820
Only an opportunity cost if you have WMs that play ball. The Blue Bird is a dead parrot in my territory and Serve is also beaks up while the red bird is still good for 5% off and free shipping at Target. When I next go to Target or buy online I certainly plan to give them the bird. 
Any thoughts as to whether the Redcard will get 5% off on the $400 VISAs Target sells for $406 online? Sure they say "Target will provide you with 5% off purchases paid for with your Prepaid REDcard at Target stores in the U.S. and Target.com, except on prescriptions, Target gift cards and prepaid cards, Target Clinic® services, Target Optical® eye exams, and where prohibited by law" but has anyone really tested their controls?
Any thoughts as to whether the Redcard will get 5% off on the $400 VISAs Target sells for $406 online? Sure they say "Target will provide you with 5% off purchases paid for with your Prepaid REDcard at Target stores in the U.S. and Target.com, except on prescriptions, Target gift cards and prepaid cards, Target Clinic® services, Target Optical® eye exams, and where prohibited by law" but has anyone really tested their controls?
That's true, but the other Amex prepaid products are identical in this respect and better in other respects than RB. RB's only advantage (or rather unique differentiator) is the 5% off at Target, but there's an opportunity cost to having RB because you can only have one Amex prepaid product, and this benefit is available via the credit and debit REDcards as well.
Last edited by AlohaDaveKennedy; Oct 15, 2015 at 6:37 pm
Oct 15, 2015, 7:21 pm
#48
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: SFO/OAK, LAX, TPE
Programs: Hilton Diamond, Hertz PC, DL Gold
Posts: 134
Oct 16, 2015, 12:07 am
#49
Moderator: Manufactured Spending
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 6,580
NOTICE:
This thread has seen some snark and personal attacks. How the story broke out is a valid topic to discuss, but please keep the discussion focused on the issue and not the person who posted it.
If the tone doesn't change, the thread will be closed.
This thread has seen some snark and personal attacks. How the story broke out is a valid topic to discuss, but please keep the discussion focused on the issue and not the person who posted it.
If the tone doesn't change, the thread will be closed.
Oct 17, 2015, 11:08 am
#51
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 910
I'll chime in just to add another perspective to this.
First of all, the seller (NoonRadar) is under no obligation to refund the buyer. The buyer took a chance, knew the risk that RB could shutter anyday, but decided to buy it anyways despite major warning signs that RB was on life support via Ariana's blog post (pointchaser.com) just a week or so ago and other warning signs. Had the buyer researched and discovered that article, he/she may have not gone ahead and bought the RB card. So, a stroke of inevitable bad luck/timing befuddled the buyer immediately after buying it. NoonRadar had no control over when TGT would all the sudden kill off the bird for loading. As stated already, he immediately suspended future sales of RB.
That said, I would still refund the buyer. Why? Human morale and integrity takes over. As someone who helps run a business myself, I could not help myself knowing that I took advantage of someone else's misforture, rich or poor, especially over a measly $30, but that's just me. It goes against human decency. The buyer never got to use RB as intended or as heavily advertised. NoonRadar knows this. Priority #1 for me has always, always been to keep my customers happy or do whatever possible to keep satisfied and wanting to come back to my business. He/she could also always leave a negative feedback on ebay as well, if this sale was done through ebay. I would not want this and would do whatever possible to resolve the problem. As I've learned, have human decency and keep your customers happy. I'd refund the buyer. Good deeds are what people remember you by.
There's no right or wrong here. NoonRadar can do whatever he wants. That's all I've got to say.
First of all, the seller (NoonRadar) is under no obligation to refund the buyer. The buyer took a chance, knew the risk that RB could shutter anyday, but decided to buy it anyways despite major warning signs that RB was on life support via Ariana's blog post (pointchaser.com) just a week or so ago and other warning signs. Had the buyer researched and discovered that article, he/she may have not gone ahead and bought the RB card. So, a stroke of inevitable bad luck/timing befuddled the buyer immediately after buying it. NoonRadar had no control over when TGT would all the sudden kill off the bird for loading. As stated already, he immediately suspended future sales of RB.
That said, I would still refund the buyer. Why? Human morale and integrity takes over. As someone who helps run a business myself, I could not help myself knowing that I took advantage of someone else's misforture, rich or poor, especially over a measly $30, but that's just me. It goes against human decency. The buyer never got to use RB as intended or as heavily advertised. NoonRadar knows this. Priority #1 for me has always, always been to keep my customers happy or do whatever possible to keep satisfied and wanting to come back to my business. He/she could also always leave a negative feedback on ebay as well, if this sale was done through ebay. I would not want this and would do whatever possible to resolve the problem. As I've learned, have human decency and keep your customers happy. I'd refund the buyer. Good deeds are what people remember you by.
There's no right or wrong here. NoonRadar can do whatever he wants. That's all I've got to say.
It definitely sucks for people who got Redbird to MS with it and never used it, regardless of how they got it. Even for the ones who just used it a little; basically for everyone who got unlucky jumping late into the Red MS Wagon. But, I wasn’t selling Toyotas with warranty, and I wasn’t selling a joint venture either; people weren’t buying it on the condition of sharing their losses or profits/miles with me, or on any other condition for that matter.
Nor could I have any knowledge or control over what Target or Amex would do with their product; no one did for that matter in the entire MS community. With all due respect to Ariana (I think she is a good blogger who shares a lot with her readers), her October 3rd blog post which you referred was in my judgment an unwarranted scare based only on a couple data points (there’s nearly two thousand Target stores, to put that in perspective), but I understood her concern to warn her readers. There have been endless Redbird scares since Redbird started; hers happened to be the last one and as such to precede the eventual death of Redbird. As I commented on her blog then, I thought when Target would kill Redbird for pin gift cards, it would likely do it in the same manner it did for credit cards back on May 6th, nation-wide, all in one day and by hard coding the registers, which it did on Oct 12.
About the refunds…there were a few-many people who bought Redbird from my online store every day. Only two people asked me for a refund, one that bought it on 10/11, the other one on 10/06. Sure, it would make perfect dollar/business sense for to have refunded them; even if they were 12 instead of 2 it would have made such sense; there would be no complains, no noise. But, in my judgment that wouldn’t be fair to everyone else who also purchased it around the same date range and didn’t ask for a refund, or even to people who got it a bit before and didn’t use it much.
So where would I draw the line if I went down that path? Should I have then refunded all of them, some even based on their word on when, if and how much they used it for MS (it takes 5-10 days usually to get the permanent card after registration)? Nor would this be fair to me for that matter; throughout the months selling it I tried to provide a great and honest service, including answering many questions from people who either got it already or weren’t buying it from me. I was activating Redbirds through 10/12, a Monday which I had taken off my primary job just to do that, because I didn’t know when it would end, just as no one did like I said.
So I made the decision about this primarily based on what I thought was fair, to everyone, myself included, not on what I thought was good PR/business image for me. I didn’t waver on this not for a second, just as I didn’t in suspending the sale on 10/12 when I read the reports, before it was confirmed dead. To me, when in the evening of 10/12 I was reading the reports here, on Reddit and other sites of people not being able to load, it meant it was very likely it was dead for good, hence I called it so after reading those reports, well before anyone else did. My competition on the other hand had their online sales up and going at least through the AM of 10/13, and obviously people on eBay continued to sell it. Some other person on DansDeals forum was offering them “discounted” at $20 after Redbird’s death; to each their own.
I’m sure reading about it, many people would have an opinion on how others should run their business in such cases, or how I should have handled mine in this respect. However, all of this it totally off topic here, on this thread (or in general for that matter). I sold Redbirds since early February and I don’t remember people giving me advice on how best to run that business. I’m guessing because it wasn’t their business and they didn’t give a hoot. Now that it has ended, there’s no shortage of advice on how to handle refunds lol.
Don’t get me wrong, your comment was thoughtful and I appreciate that. Unlike some others who are sh*tting Red bricks because I ran a for-profit business with Redbird (because, you know, they were MS-ing with Redbird for charity, Redbird MS was all charity, I’m the oddball here) you wrote what you frankly thought and as you saw it.
And I get that you commented about it because others did. However, all these comments have nothing to do with what I posted on this thread. Even if I was running a charity or an escort service as a side business, it wouldn’t have any bearing on the topic of me having broken the story and others having taken credit for it and/or not having properly credited me when they very well knew, because I went and told them so on their own blogs. That was the topic, that’s what I ranted about here. My Redbird sale business, which obviously didn’t profit from me having published about the Target memo confirming its death (or from me having published the day before saying I thought it meant it was dead), has as much to do with this as the Sept 27 total lunar eclipse preceding the death of Redbird on Oct 12.
Having said that, obviously people will comment whatever they fell like, and I knew that when posting my rant here, so frankly I could care less; it's the internet, and like Noah's Ark, there's all kinds of people on it. I actually found some of the comments dumbass-ish to the point of them being entertaining (especially people foaming because I made some money with Redbird) hence I started to make some snarky comments hoping to read something more entertaining, now that we're totally off topic
Last edited by NoonRadar; Oct 17, 2015 at 11:49 am
Oct 17, 2015, 3:12 pm
#52
Suspended
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 2,998
What people were buying from me was the info (not the card itself) of a temporary activated Redbird card and all they could do with it was to register for the permanent one on Amex’s website. This was the entire scope of their purchase and what I sold. I didn’t sell the product that they would use at Target (permanent Redbird, which Amex mailed to them) which I didn’t have any ownership or affiliation with, but the service of me going to activate a temporary one for them at a Target store, because it made financial sense to them to buy it from me or others as opposed to travel to a store that had them, as it made financial sense to me to provide this service.
It definitely sucks for people who got Redbird to MS with it and never used it, regardless of how they got it. Even for the ones who just used it a little; basically for everyone who got unlucky jumping late into the Red MS Wagon. But, I wasn’t selling Toyotas with warranty, and I wasn’t selling a joint venture either; people weren’t buying it on the condition of sharing their losses or profits/miles with me, or on any other condition for that matter.
Nor could I have any knowledge or control over what Target or Amex would do with their product; no one did for that matter in the entire MS community. With all due respect to Ariana (I think she is a good blogger who shares a lot with her readers), her October 3rd blog post which you referred was in my judgment an unwarranted scare based only on a couple data points (there’s nearly two thousand Target stores, to put that in perspective), but I understood her concern to warn her readers. There have been endless Redbird scares since Redbird started; hers happened to be the last one and as such to precede the eventual death of Redbird. As I commented on her blog then, I thought when Target would kill Redbird for pin gift cards, it would likely do it in the same manner it did for credit cards back on May 6th, nation-wide, all in one day and by hard coding the registers, which it did on Oct 12.
About the refunds…there were a few-many people who bought Redbird from my online store every day. Only two people asked me for a refund, one that bought it on 10/11, the other one on 10/06. Sure, it would make perfect dollar/business sense for to have refunded them; even if they were 12 instead of 2 it would have made such sense; there would be no complains, no noise. But, in my judgment that wouldn’t be fair to everyone else who also purchased it around the same date range and didn’t ask for a refund, or even to people who got it a bit before and didn’t use it much.
So where would I draw the line if I went down that path? Should I have then refunded all of them, some even based on their word on when, if and how much they used it for MS (it takes 5-10 days usually to get the permanent card after registration)? Nor would this be fair to me for that matter; throughout the months selling it I tried to provide a great and honest service, including answering many questions from people who either got it already or weren’t buying it from me. I was activating Redbirds through 10/12, a Monday which I had taken off my primary job just to do that, because I didn’t know when it would end, just as no one did like I said.
So I made the decision about this primarily based on what I thought was fair, to everyone, myself included, not on what I thought was good PR/business image for me. I didn’t waver on this not for a second, just as I didn’t in suspending the sale on 10/12 when I read the reports, before it was confirmed dead. To me, when in the evening of 10/12 I was reading the reports here, on Reddit and other sites of people not being able to load, it meant it was very likely it was dead for good, hence I called it so after reading those reports, well before anyone else did. My competition on the other hand had their online sales up and going at least through the AM of 10/13, and obviously people on eBay continued to sell it. Some other person on DansDeals forum was offering them “discounted” at $20 after Redbird’s death; to each their own.
I’m sure reading about it, many people would have an opinion on how others should run their business in such cases, or how I should have handled mine in this respect. However, all of this it totally off topic here, on this thread (or in general for that matter). I sold Redbirds since early February and I don’t remember people giving me advice on how best to run that business. I’m guessing because it wasn’t their business and they didn’t give a hoot. Now that it has ended, there’s no shortage of advice on how to handle refunds lol.
Don’t get me wrong, your comment was thoughtful and I appreciate that. Unlike some others who are sh*tting Red bricks because I ran a for-profit business with Redbird (because, you know, they were MS-ing with Redbird for charity, Redbird MS was all charity, I’m the oddball here) you wrote what you frankly thought and as you saw it.
And I get that you commented about it because others did. However, all these comments have nothing to do with what I posted on this thread. Even if I was running a charity or an escort service as a side business, it wouldn’t have any bearing on the topic of me having broken the story and others having taken credit for it and/or not having properly credited me when they very well knew, because I went and told them so on their own blogs. That was the topic, that’s what I ranted about here. My Redbird sale business, which obviously didn’t profit from me having published about the Target memo confirming its death (or from me having published the day before saying I thought it meant it was dead), has as much to do with this as the Sept 27 total lunar eclipse preceding the death of Redbird on Oct 12.
Having said that, obviously people will comment whatever they fell like, and I knew that when posting my rant here, so frankly I could care less; it's the internet, and like Noah's Ark, there's all kinds of people on it. I actually found some of the comments dumbass-ish to the point of them being entertaining (especially people foaming because I made some money with Redbird) hence I started to make some snarky comments hoping to read something more entertaining, now that we're totally off topic
It definitely sucks for people who got Redbird to MS with it and never used it, regardless of how they got it. Even for the ones who just used it a little; basically for everyone who got unlucky jumping late into the Red MS Wagon. But, I wasn’t selling Toyotas with warranty, and I wasn’t selling a joint venture either; people weren’t buying it on the condition of sharing their losses or profits/miles with me, or on any other condition for that matter.
Nor could I have any knowledge or control over what Target or Amex would do with their product; no one did for that matter in the entire MS community. With all due respect to Ariana (I think she is a good blogger who shares a lot with her readers), her October 3rd blog post which you referred was in my judgment an unwarranted scare based only on a couple data points (there’s nearly two thousand Target stores, to put that in perspective), but I understood her concern to warn her readers. There have been endless Redbird scares since Redbird started; hers happened to be the last one and as such to precede the eventual death of Redbird. As I commented on her blog then, I thought when Target would kill Redbird for pin gift cards, it would likely do it in the same manner it did for credit cards back on May 6th, nation-wide, all in one day and by hard coding the registers, which it did on Oct 12.
About the refunds…there were a few-many people who bought Redbird from my online store every day. Only two people asked me for a refund, one that bought it on 10/11, the other one on 10/06. Sure, it would make perfect dollar/business sense for to have refunded them; even if they were 12 instead of 2 it would have made such sense; there would be no complains, no noise. But, in my judgment that wouldn’t be fair to everyone else who also purchased it around the same date range and didn’t ask for a refund, or even to people who got it a bit before and didn’t use it much.
So where would I draw the line if I went down that path? Should I have then refunded all of them, some even based on their word on when, if and how much they used it for MS (it takes 5-10 days usually to get the permanent card after registration)? Nor would this be fair to me for that matter; throughout the months selling it I tried to provide a great and honest service, including answering many questions from people who either got it already or weren’t buying it from me. I was activating Redbirds through 10/12, a Monday which I had taken off my primary job just to do that, because I didn’t know when it would end, just as no one did like I said.
So I made the decision about this primarily based on what I thought was fair, to everyone, myself included, not on what I thought was good PR/business image for me. I didn’t waver on this not for a second, just as I didn’t in suspending the sale on 10/12 when I read the reports, before it was confirmed dead. To me, when in the evening of 10/12 I was reading the reports here, on Reddit and other sites of people not being able to load, it meant it was very likely it was dead for good, hence I called it so after reading those reports, well before anyone else did. My competition on the other hand had their online sales up and going at least through the AM of 10/13, and obviously people on eBay continued to sell it. Some other person on DansDeals forum was offering them “discounted” at $20 after Redbird’s death; to each their own.
I’m sure reading about it, many people would have an opinion on how others should run their business in such cases, or how I should have handled mine in this respect. However, all of this it totally off topic here, on this thread (or in general for that matter). I sold Redbirds since early February and I don’t remember people giving me advice on how best to run that business. I’m guessing because it wasn’t their business and they didn’t give a hoot. Now that it has ended, there’s no shortage of advice on how to handle refunds lol.
Don’t get me wrong, your comment was thoughtful and I appreciate that. Unlike some others who are sh*tting Red bricks because I ran a for-profit business with Redbird (because, you know, they were MS-ing with Redbird for charity, Redbird MS was all charity, I’m the oddball here) you wrote what you frankly thought and as you saw it.
And I get that you commented about it because others did. However, all these comments have nothing to do with what I posted on this thread. Even if I was running a charity or an escort service as a side business, it wouldn’t have any bearing on the topic of me having broken the story and others having taken credit for it and/or not having properly credited me when they very well knew, because I went and told them so on their own blogs. That was the topic, that’s what I ranted about here. My Redbird sale business, which obviously didn’t profit from me having published about the Target memo confirming its death (or from me having published the day before saying I thought it meant it was dead), has as much to do with this as the Sept 27 total lunar eclipse preceding the death of Redbird on Oct 12.
Having said that, obviously people will comment whatever they fell like, and I knew that when posting my rant here, so frankly I could care less; it's the internet, and like Noah's Ark, there's all kinds of people on it. I actually found some of the comments dumbass-ish to the point of them being entertaining (especially people foaming because I made some money with Redbird) hence I started to make some snarky comments hoping to read something more entertaining, now that we're totally off topic
And for someone who couldn't care less, you sure do seem to need to talk about it a lot.
Oct 17, 2015, 3:32 pm
#54
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Socal
Posts: 133
I don't think people care that you "ran a business for profit." I think they're incredulous that you're so starved for attention that you'd ramble on for thousands of words here complaining that your blog comments didn't get the recognition you want.
Oct 17, 2015, 4:17 pm
#55
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 322
Some folks here are acting like a little granny telling everyone on the facebook, hey guys I ate little salad last night looking for likes and good job ata boy. Affirmation and validation, come on, you ate little salad for yourself, not for others.
Last edited by nfpa70e; Oct 17, 2015 at 4:26 pm
Oct 17, 2015, 4:21 pm
#56
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 910
As do you, reading my comments to point out grammatical or spelling errors, which often prove lethal to MS venues. It might be hard to prove, but one can't help but feel that more attention to spelling on Flyertalk would have contributed to a longer Redbird life span.
Oct 19, 2015, 1:35 am
#60
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 120
How did the Target memo (official Redbird death) story broke out on 10/13/15
It's just hard for a person like him to spit out his final business "profit", I guess? Of all things about the RB, I actually am never a fan of this kind of "resellers". Just a rip off to fellow MSers.