A few days ago, FT announced a nice promotion where they were giving people up to $100 to use their FT points.  Aw... so thoughtful to their customers over the holidays.  They also announced that they were going to make a change to their points structure, and that tourney tickets would be unaffected.  Not sure if you guys remember,but I had written a post a few weeks ago saying how retarded it is that the merchandise in the store is priced the way it is.  I had also posted the text in the Doug thread, so naturally I thought... "wow.  not only do they listen to their customers, they act quickly when there is something that is egregiously wrong."  Well it turns out, a FT customer service rep said that they are NOT IMPROVING the value of points in the store but DEVALUING the points.

Hello,

Thank you for your email. Due to the recent change to how FTP points are earned, the price of store items are being adjusted to reflect the
increase in the amount of points players can earn. As a result players will see an increase in the prices of the items currently in store.

We have had many complaints from players about the pricing of certain items. Please note that the pricing in the store does not just reflect the retail value of the item. There are other cost associated with the price, mainly shipping cost. Some locations will have different taxes and fees added as well. The retail price alone will not determine the FTP price of an item.

Let us know if we may be of further.

Thank you
Carlos
FTP Store

Now I still think this *MUST* be some kind of error on the part of the customer service rep.  Because how can you take something that was crappy and make it even crappier?!?  If no one had an incentive to get merchandise thru the store before (because the merchandise was so over-priced relative to tourney tickets).  What is the point of raising prices more on the merchandise?  A price increase is just beyond mindbogglingly stupid.  I mean if you owned a brothel and the brunettes were in less demand, would you start charging *more* for the brunettes?  What kind of monkeys make decisions like that?!?

Again, I hope the customer service rep was incorrect.  If this is some kind of cost-saving move, here's a cost saving measure for you... JUST GET RID OF 90% OF THE FT STORE!!!  I'm talking employees, warehouses, equipment, etc.  But still offer tourney tickets, cash and more merchandise.  Let me explain...

At my old job, the promised land was anything that was arbitrageable.  Some condition in the markets that exist where the pricing is so bizarre that you can profit just by buying one thing at a low price and selling a similar thing at a higher price.  Well, the monkeys at the FT store have created just such an arbitrage situation.

Continued tomorrow....