Guitar Center and Sketchy Coupon Trickery

Guitar Center, prior to their post-comeuppance used to be pretty aggressive with coupons. You could assume that somewhere there was probably a 15% off one to be had, at least.

Now that they've entered Romney Receivership, and have already laid waste to Mom and Pop Music Retail (r.i.p.), they're falling down. Like most end-state capitalism disasters in the U.S., they're re-arranging the deck chairs while the captains parachute off of the mile-high stern.

My wife sends me a coupon, "20% off over $49". O.k., I don't like buying from there, but there were some things I needed.

But wait, what is this?

Fine print. 20% EXCEPT for the following brands:

Products from the following manufacturers are excluded: A Designs, ADAM, Aguilar, Allen & Heath, Alvarez, Ampeg, Antelope Audio, Apogee, Apple, Arturia, Ashdown, Ashly Audio, Avantone, Avid, BAE, Blackstar, Bose, Boss, Burl Audio, Catalinbread, Crate, Cusak Music, D.W. Fearn, Dangerous Music, Dave Smith Instruments, Dean Markley, Earthquaker Devices, Earthworks, Electro-Harmonix, Elysia, Empress Effects, Epiphone, Ernie Ball Music Man, EVH, Fender, Fender Custom Shop, Focal, Focusrite, Fostex, Friedman, Fulltone, Fulltone Custom Shop, Gallien-Krueger, Gibson, Gibson Custom, Golden Age Project, GoPro, Heritage Audio, ISP Technologies, JHS Pedals, Keeley, Kemper, Korg, Kurzweil, Kush Audio, LaChapell Audio, Lag Guitars, Lewitt Audio Microphones, Lindell Audio, Mackie, Manley, Meinl, Metric Halo, Millennia, Mojave Audio, Moog, MOTU, Native Instruments, Neumann, Nord, Novation, Orange Amplifiers, Pettyjohn Electronics, Phoenix Audio, Radial Engineering, Randall, Reloop, Reverend, RME, Rockett Pedals, Roland, Royer, Ruach Music, se Electronics, Serato, Shure, Slate Digital, Slate Pro Audio, Slate Media Technology, Softube, Soundbrenner, Squier, Steven Slate Drums, Studiologic, Suzuki, Taylor, Teenage Engineering, Telefunken, Teletronix, Toft Audio Designs, Tube-Tech, Voodoo Lab, Vox, Walrus Audio, Wampler, Warm Audio, Westone, Xotic Effects, Yamaha, ZT.

A-Z.

This is not a coupon, is it? It's like a bait and switch tactic, I succumbed to it and wasted some of my time with it.

I suggest the reader not to bother in the future when tempted by their "coupons". It most likely isn't, or won't be until they start their final death spiral.