"Free" TV Converter Box Ad In The Cincinnati Enquirer

For those of you who have been keeping up on the digital TV conversion scheduled for early next year, you may have noticed that ginormous "free digital TV" ad in today's Cincinnati Enquirer.

Fortunately John Matarese over at WCPO spared no time narcing on the ad AND the Enquirer.

Turns out the scam in this ad is that you have to pay for a 5-year warranty plus shipping - almost $70 - most decidedly not free.

Now the way this operation is actually supposed to work is that you're supposed to apply for your coupons at the DTV2009.gov site, the government will ship them out (now, be careful, they come in a fairly non-descript #10 envelope that could pass for junk mail). They look like a couple of red credit cards.

The way it's supposed to work is you're supposed to saunter over to Radio Shack, Best Buy, Circuit City, etc., and fork over one of these coupons along with $20 and, voila, you'll have your digital - analog converting tuner.

Obviously this process is WAY too complicated for many people and so the Enquirer obviously is taking great delight in helping to rip people off.

Oh, John Matarese - you need to narc on the government too. They set these coupons up to expire maybe 60 days after you get them and - guess what? - the cotton-picking analog pass-through converters won't be available until later this year so we may never see channel 25 again.

Yep ... I'm thinking someone should have put more thought into this whole deal. Come next February there's going to be pandemonium I betcha' ...