Circuit City and Black Friday

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 12:51:31 -0800

I went home for Thanksgiving, to Pheonix, AZ. My brother in law, who is an avid Black Friday shopper, expressed his interest in several products that were advertised for Black Friday. Several of them were from the advertisement at Circuit City. One such was the Seagate 500gb external HD, advertised for $79. The fine print said the actual price was $129 minus a $50 rebate. Being the seasoned shopper that he is, my brother in law and I searched for any fine print which indicated any limitations on the item. While other products had astericks with references with the price only being honored with activation or a limit of the number of items that could be purchased, this one didn't. So we set our strageties, clipped the advertisements, and went out boldly into the (somewhat - hey, it's AZ) cold, dark night. I arrived at Circuit city at 3 AM, 2 hours before it's opening, confident that the items I was going to purchase (the only one I was interested in was a laptop cooler from Antec) were not popular enough. Promptly, at 5 AM, we all hustled into the store. I immediately searched for the Seagate drives, which we assumed were going to be the quickest to sell out. I found three, double checked the product number with the ad to make sure they were the right ones, then proceeded to grab the other products. Then, I went into the line for the cameras and camcorders. After 40+ minutes, I finally made it to the store representative, and showed him the camcorder that my sister wanted. He found the item, then assurred me that I could pay for my other products alltogether there. After making my purchases, I headed home for some rest.

After Thanksgiving was over, I drove back to California with my other sister, to finish the semester. At the end of the semester, after having checked to make sure the rebates were not expired, I proceeded to fill them out. However, while filling it out, I noticed that the rebate for the Seagate drives, at the bottom, said (and I paraphrase) "limit one per product type." Being perplexed that Circuit City would have failed to inform me, both in the advertisement and in person, about such a limitation, I called the customer service number present on the rebate form. I spoke with a representative, expressing my concern about what the rebate said, and desiring to return the products if I would only recieve one rebate. The representative assured me that they would honor all three. I asked again, "are you sure." He confidantly told me to ignore what was written on the rebate form, that they printed that on all their rebates and that it would not be cost effective to change it. So, having been assurred, I followed the directions on the rebate, highlighted all three purchases of the Seagate drive on a copy of the receipt, and mailed it in.

Many weeks later, I received an email confirmation for my rebates. No notice was given that anything was denied or refused. Yesterday, I recieved my rebates. I got one $50 rebate for a Seagate 500gb external HD. I looked up the rebate online, and confirmed that only one was being sent to me. I called the customer service line for Circuit City and asked about this issue. At first, the representative said I should have gotten all three, and put me on hold as he investigated what might have happened. After some minutes, he came back on line and informed me that I would have had to purchase three different makes and models of HDs in order to get three rebates. I informed him, again, that I was told by a customer service representative that they would honor all three. He apologized, but informed me that they couldn't do anything. I told him I wanted to return the drives for a full refund then. He told me they couldn't do that.

At this point, I was a bit agitated. I asked to speak with a manager. After dawdling a bit, I was firm that I would not be satisfied. So he put me on hold while he fetched a manager. Later, Marino came on the phone and reaffirmed that Circuit City would only honor one rebate, since it was written as such on the rebate form. I asked for the phone number to their legal department. He told me they had no such thing. I asked to speak with someone higher up who can make these important decisions. He informed me that there was no one higher than he who worked there. I asked for contact information for the CEO. He told me he could only give me an address to send my complaints to. At that point, I, rather angrily, recounted once again my experience from the beginning, including what the advertisement had said and its clear lack of any limitations. He then miraculously found a phone number to the HQ, which he gave me as 800-843-2489. After hanging up with him, I called that number, and eventually connected with their national system again, which just put me back into the queue for their call center.

I don't know about other people, but the reason we shopped at Circuit City on Black Friday, the reason we waited out in the dark and cold when every other sane person was sleeping comfortably, was to get some great deals on products. I purchased those hard drives for my family because they were on sail for $79 dollars, not for $129. I'm a grad student, and $100 makes a big difference to me. They not only misrepresented the price by not posting the limit on the rebate in their advertisement, but also lied to me when I asked them about it. My only remaining avenue is to pressure the higher ups with legal action (which I'm unlikely to be able to persue for time/money reasons) in order to get justice. Never, never, never again will I shop at Circuit City (which I wouldn't have in any regards if not for their Black Friday sale). Be warned.

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Circuit City and Black Friday