The $15 Drone...Too Good To Be True

"You should check out the website Geek! They have a ton of sales--great prices," the patron at Lagoon Amusement Park told me on Saturday night. "If you've got a smartphone, open an account."

"Do they have drones?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah! Check it out!" The patron then did a quick search. "Look at this!" he said excitedly.

I did look. I then became excited.

"This drone's regularly $113, but it's on sale for only $17! And if you click here..." I watched him click. "See what the final price is."

I did see. It was $15. I also noticed there was a one-hour time limit on the "sale." I checked my watch. In one hour I would be home and could buy this thing. Yippie!

I had done some drone pricing as of late. My little drone had a mishap last spring and so I'd like to replace it, but I don't have a lot of money. I noticed that drones costing over $100 would have some of the features I wanted, mostly a camera attached. Even though the picture on the website he showed me on his phone was small, I saw it had a camera. Still, I couldn't tell how big the drone actually was. Since it cost $113, it couldn't be that big.

I got home and had about five minutes to pull up the site, enter in my credit card info and place the order. I think I made it with seconds to spare. I was excited.

I then did a google search for the drone I had just bought. Guess what! The drone in the picture--the same drone that was pulled up on the patron's phone was nice, not just one-hundred dollars nice, but way nicer than that.

"Uh-oh," I said to my wife.

It was then I did a little checking. Turns out that drone in the picture costs between $600-$700. And what I bought was this:

That's right! I bought four propeller guards.

Fortunately, I was able to immediately cancel my order for drone self-tighten propeller prop guards for a drone I didn't have. Had I not checked, I would have received the package in the mail and been very disappointed.

A couple of things got me...wanting something for nothing (or, in this case, something somewhat expensive and pay very little for it...), the time limit--always a way for customers to make stupid decisions and not knowing that this particular drone would never sell for only fifteen bucks.

Have I learned my lesson? I guess we'll have to see what I do next time.