Remembering 800.com...RIP
 

I was just looking at some old forum threads and came across a few discussing 800.com (ah the good old days!!!). Which "bargin" dvd websites out there are the "new" 800.com. Obviously buy 1 get 3 free will put most sites out of business (see 800.com...lol). What is your opinion?

holy cow man...i was wondering why a "cool new member" was posting about the "good old days"...then i saw you joined in sept of '00.

and you have 39 posts!

stop by sometime, ya' hear?

I've been more of a lurker...like to think I'm still a cool member though...lol

It wasn't "buy 1 get 3 free"

It was buy 3 for $1.

I remember when we'd go INSANE here if a DVD was mispriced for $5 or so. Anything less than $18 was uheard of.

Now I walk past $5 DVD bins without even looking in them half the time.

Even better.........

I know what you mean......but every once in a while I do take a look...lol

To me, nothing beat the Reel.com trivia game. I would get about 2 free DVDs a month, per user account, with that one. Lasted a long time too.

The trivia game was great. I miss my days of jabooming and freeriding. I would get around $100 a week in amazon gift certificates through these two sites. The brandsforless rebates were also awesome(you would link through their site and they would mail you a check for $25 on a $50 order). I'm starting to get misty.

What was the name of the site that had "free" DVDs and other merchandise after rebate, but the price was something like $150 per DVD? The catch was that you had to pay the extremely large amounts up front, then they would send you the rebate after a couple months.

There were people who were buying thousands and tens of thousands of dollars worth of stuff because it was free after rebate. When the company went bankrupt these people were out of luck because the credit cards wouldn't reimburse them because they had received the merchandise - the rebate was a separate transaction.

I also remember the Buy.com coupons.....weren't they like $5 off $25? I think time has clouded my memory....lol I know they jumped to $5 off 100 or something crazy like that. I used to jump from reel.com, to 800.com, to buy.com and see who had the best deal.

Ahh the good old days....

around the time when Terminator 3 came out, one of those sites that gave points for doing offers which you could then spend on dvds, had a special where you had to do 3 offers and then you got to pick a dvd and not worry about points.

There were 3 offers by the same company that you could sign up for a 30 day trial for $1 and then you would cancel all of them at this one webpage. Then you'd get the dvd sent to you right away.

They said you could only do their special offer one time, but it was a couple of months before they figured out people were doing them over and over with the same account.

What was nice/annoying about my debit card company was that every time I'd sign up and cancel the three offers, I'd get a call that night asking me about the charges and just making sure nobody stole my card/number.

The first time I almost hung up because I though it was some visa telemarketer but then I got used to the calls.

In the real old days, Buy.com had $20 off of $20 coupons. I got The 39 Steps-Criterion for around $3 with that coupon.:)

The best deal at buy.com was the $20 off a $20 purchase around the end of '99. Those were the days when companies thought they were going to get rich by just getting traffic to their site.

Another good deal around then was the MSN Passport checkout promotions at various sites like 800.com that would offer their own discount in addition to any website coupons, resulting in $40-off-$100.

I wasn't a huge trivia player, but I scored hundreds at jaboom and freeride! Still, going over some of my other purchases (when I'd regularly pay $20 for a DVD that now can be had for $5) is painful.

For God's sake, stop responding!!! You've already spoiled your 0.01 posts/day record!

Cyberebates...Had a frog as the Logo.
People lost 1000's when that Pyramid crumbled.

the BigStar few minutes window with the coupons, yup, good times, lot's of free DVDs in those days.

Didn't 800.com give you the free popcorn? I used to order from them occasionally. I got some balsa wood gliders too, but I think those were from buy.com.

That's the exact reason why I would NEVER participate in a deal like that. No way I'm tying up a bunch of money with a company that could disappear tomorrow and leave me with nothing. I don't feel any sympathy for people who were dumb enough to send money to a pyramid deal like that. :lol:

There was one seller on Halfcom when it was
actually a half off site. That gave Tissues
and Popcorn when you purchased a dvd.

I still have a black t-shirt with 800.com on the front and Blair Witch Project on the back. And lots of popcorn but that is gone.

-popcorn-

I got more dvds from reel.com than anyone... loved the trivia game and 20 off 20 coupons.

Yeah, 800.com used to include a bag of microwave popcorn; I also recall getting some Red Vines from them once or twice.

I used to score most of my discs from DVD North back in the day before using Reel.com. I forget which site it was but I used to get my international shipping rebated from them!

reel.com always had a coupon going. When they changed over, my dvd purchases near stopped.
800.com didn't last very long after they did that dollar promo.
Freeride was a daily visit in order for me to get points for Amazon certificates.

Whatshotnow didn't have too many dvds but was the easiest to get free points for rating stuff. I got tons of swag from them. They had no business model.

Buy.com and Amazon had great coupons, 20 off 20 and 15 off 35 respectively, but they somehow were able to sustain business.

awww...the old days. :( wow, forgot about some of those. loved the real trivia.

I did most of my purchases from Reel.com back in the coupon days. Reel coupons combined with Brandsforless rebates were the best way to buy a lot of cheap DVDs.

Probably because DVDs weren't their primary business.

The interesting thing about the Amazon 15 off 35 was that if you ordered two items (with one being a pre-order), the $15 discount was applied to the first item that shipped and you could cancel the pre-order with no penalty.

Ahh, yes I remember these guys...and a little program called 'ghostmouse'. Using them together I raked in lots of crap.

Can't believe no one has mentioned the greatest free money (not just DVDs) site ever: Pointclick.com.

You could click on links (I think up to 3x a day) and receive anywhere from .01 to .15 per click depending on the site (and if Pointclick was awarding money at that time). The site was flakey and it took a ton of work to find out which sites paid well since in the beginning your balance only updated ever 2 hours or so, but there were probably 50-100 sites you could click on. The catch was you had to spend the money you earned on one of the sites, then Pointclick would cut you a check.

I made about $1200 in 4 months or so before they dropped their payouts considerably in early 2000. Paid for Christmas '99 and a got me a new TV in the deal as well. Sadly the site went under with $90 still in my account which they encouraged you to spend soon as they were filing Chapter 11 and never paid anyone anything. It only cost me about $60 in the fiasco, but it was stuff I needed anyway so I couldn't complain too much.

On the flip side of the great deals, how about flooz? I still curse Whoopi since I had $40 left in my account from the American Greetings promotion that I didn't spend before flooz went under.

They opened and ran the 3 for $1 promo in 1999. They closed in 2002. So, they were around for a little longer than you might think but were still another victim of the bubble. Sad, IMHO, since they had pretty good service - especially compared to some of the other etailers. Bought a 16:9 TV off them in 2001 and got a great price.

People still got money back after the bankruptcy. Only it was around 8 cents for every dollar.

Lets not foget ValueAmerica.com. I don't think I use them much for dvds. But I enjoyed the three Sega Dreamcast Consoles I was able to buy for was it like $99.99 each.

What was the name of the etailer that had like $100 of $200 type coupons all the time and they had that huge error in mailing out duplicates of items ordered that was in news...people received an extra tv or dvd for instance and were told to keep it(I forget what dvd I got to keep but the email telling me to keep the merchandise was nice touch) ...they were one of first to go belly up...It was like buyusa.com or some name...that kinda told me internet stocks were heading for a fall...

Hey maybe it was valueamerica :)

Toshiba DVD in 1997 for 1/2 price...those were the days...

I bought the first batch of DVD's from VA and miss them. :-)

Ha! Been a long time since I heard of "ValueAmerica"....I did buy a DVD player from there for half-price....oh, the good old days of the internet!