Wal-Mart and the impossible remote control

I've noticed this odd trend lately: stores like Wal-Mart and Costco selling products that have a peculiar, unique existence suited to one-time cheap purchases of what are otherwise expensive products. I 've seen this in two things that I now own, and both have presented problems that are sort-of unsolvable.

The Aroma rice cooker from Costco
This has worked fine in it's rice cooking ways. After I lost the unique, not-metric, not-imperial, why-in-the-world-do-they-make-this-size cup, I searched online for just how much this elusive cup measured. I remember before I lost the plastic guy that measures the rice,
I poured its volume into a measuring cup, and it enigmatically measured somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of a standard cup. What in the wide world of small appliances caused their engineers to develop this size is unimaginable, especially when it's a small, losable, though necessary part of an otherwise good product. To summarize, this product requires you to use their unique measuring cup to measure rice into the cooker, and that measuring cup is of an indiscernable size and volume.

Now here is where the greater problem arises: when you search the product number or name online, or on the aroma website, the product appears to not exist or to be out of production - as a result, no support is available. More on this later. The following video gets at how I feel toward this.



The RCA 20F510TD Television from Wal-Mart
When I unpacked the things in storage from the fall at school I couldn't find the remote that accompanies this TV/DVD combo. Ever resourceful I bought the RCA Universal Remote from Wal-Mart; the RCA name on both the TV and the "universal" remote said they should work together without a problem. Ok, no worries yet, but when I began to program the remote to the TV the confusion started. I used the codes for "RCA TV/DVD Combo" it would not respond. When I used the codes for "RCA TV" the TV didn't respond; when I used the codes for "RCA DVD" the DVD didn't do a thing. I turned to the computer and searched the above product number and name, and the results were scanty. Stranger, the RCA website seemed to say that this TV/DVD combo didn't exist or isn't supported by their website, exactly like that rice cooker.

Furthermore, when I searched the product number and "universal remote problems", there were a lot of sites that mentioned the problem I've described here: the RCA universal remote will not program to the RCA TV/DVD combo that I own. I emailed the RCA support address with the name of the remote and the TV and got back a form email that basically said to check the batteries, and if that doesn't work, call this phone number. Like a strange joke on people who buy their TVs from Wal-Mart, the automated phone response urged me repeatedly to check my batteries, and made sure nothing stood between me and my TV.

What is going on with these things?
From these two issues, I imagine that both the Aroma rice cooker and the RCA TV are both produced outside of both their companies "umbrellas". That they don't seem to be sold anywhere except Cosctco and Wal-Mart, respectively, that their websites don't list or support their products, and that they were both purchased at surprisingly cheap prices all indicate that they are the things we should avoid buying because they aren't properly supported, like the companies "normal" product line.

Suppose, another reason not to buy from Wal-Mart, Costco and the like: the low prices bite you in the butt, and you spend too much time thinking about your rice cooker and TV.