The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

What is the WORST "value" you ever paid for?

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

NaPal

Done > Perfect
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
112%
Apr 16, 2012
229
256
USA
Tech Support

I was forced to buy tech support for my point of sale systems at my last business. $1,500 per year per location.

The only techs in my area that were capable of working on them refused to do work for me if I didn't have the tech support, and the POS brand would not sell parts to me if I did not buy it.

Nobody could speak English.
LONG wait times.
Their only solution was to restart it or dispatch a tech.
Often had LONG downtime's due to their incompetence.
They password protected my system with a daily changing password that I was not privy to. (couldn't even restart it without the password)
They couldn't bill me for their own service correctly.
It cost more if I did not pre-pay an entire year in advance.

Horrible service from a terrible company that built a sh*t POS to begin with. But, they dominate the market anyway...
Why'd you go with a POS POS? We're about to rollout Harbortouch. $100/mo for 2 system as a service, fully supported, with onsite techs.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

NaPal

Done > Perfect
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
112%
Apr 16, 2012
229
256
USA
1. College (Lets start my adult years $100k in debt is not the answer)
2. Marriage (Overrated, it's a piece of paper, kiddos would get so many handouts if my wife was a single mother w/3 kids)
3. Jewelry
4. All cheap a$$ furniture made of particle board, which is everything now days.
 

MidwestLandlord

Legendary Contributor
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
759%
Dec 6, 2016
1,479
11,226
Why'd you go with a POS POS? We're about to rollout Harbortouch. $100/mo for 2 system as a service, fully supported, with onsite techs.

Literally only have 2 POS options in the industry, because the POS has to work with onsite 3rd party equipment. Didn't have a choice, essentially. No other company was compatible.
 

Ronak

Gold Contributor
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
317%
Sep 13, 2013
573
1,815
Oh I have another - my GS1 account.

It costs me $565 per year in Canada for this "privilege" and all they do is give me official account/product numbers so that anyone can look them up to make sure my barcodes are legit.

Things they hilariously don't do:

- Generate the numbers for you (they have a tool that lets you generate them one at a time, after you enter certain information into it, and they give you the math needed to figure it out yourself, but they don't give you any kind of tool to generate all the codes you are entitled to - if you do it in excel you need to figure out the convoluted formula yourself)
- Generate the barcode images for you (they give some links to software and services that either don't work, or cost even more money).
- Tell you ANYTHING about what you should use for what applications (you have a physical product and want to know what images to produce to put on your box? Good luck. With that.) .
- Offer any real help of any kind, whatsoever. Their staff are clueless.

I posted a large write-up on this on the inside in my progress thread because of how annoying the whole process was. The fact that it's one of the most expensive services I pay for in the year is infuriating.

Many larger businesses won't look at you if your barcodes don't match GS1 registration information and all the cheap sites are just re-selling expired numbers that match up to random companies/products in the database so there really is no other options here. I've heard even Amazon is starting to look at this seriously (don't quote me on that - I recall reading about it in my research but don't recall exactly the details).

A little protip, you can get the same exact thing from GS1 UK for half price, I think you get 250 UPCs for 200 pounds or so. The UPCs are good internationally.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

ShellShock

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
108%
Jun 14, 2018
53
57
Bucharest
Some sales book by a guy Geoff King. Seemed pretty generic and honestly i would have better spent my money on Sandler or SPIN.
 

Brian Suh

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
118%
May 19, 2018
479
566
In the spirit of the lengthy sister post of WHAT IS THE BEST VALUE...

NOTABLE! - What is the BEST "value" you ever paid for?

WHAT IS SOME OF THE WORST VALUE YOU EVER PAID FOR?

I'll start...

A couple of weeks ago I went to Picazzo's, a specialty pizza joint...

Home

Ordered a couple of specialty pizzas.

Ordered no alcohol. No appetizers.

The bill, with tip, was close to $100.

For freaking pizza.

And it was just OK.

This is not to impugn their food-- it's usually really good.

But $100 for pizza is a reach.

Afterward I was like, "Woah, what just happened?" LOL.
Bad food. It is the same as purchasing drugs and alcohol imo. No benefit except temporary pleaure (which isn’t that good after you are used to eating healthy food)
 

Maxboost

Silver Contributor
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
214%
Apr 4, 2016
403
861
44

Pauly-FL

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
153%
Jul 26, 2018
19
29
South Florida
a NASCAR team jacket.

Used to go to the Homestead race weekend, which is the last races of the season. Saw my favorite driver's team jacket on sale as I was leaving.

Thought they were in the "better to sell it at a discount than to re-stock it" mode.

Turns out they knew, but had not announced, that they were moving on to a different sponsor for the following season and were trying to shed the inventory. Of course it was "all sales final" so they ignored my later requests for refund.

It was really hurtful, as I grew up as a gear-head, not a jock. All my idols were race car drivers.

It tainted my "special" 25% off deal and woke me up to what NASCAR is really about - sucking every last dime out of the fans. Never went to another race again.
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top