On Sunday February 20th I woke up, grabbed the paper and headed off to the throne, this is where I usually do my best work. I was thumbing through the ads when I came across the weekly CompUSA ad. They were having a special 6 hour sale from 8am - 2pm on top of their regular sale items. One of the items for sale struck my fancy so I dedided to hit the store and pick one up. It was around 10, definately plenty of time to pick one up.
Got dressed and drove over to CompUSA. I was all set to pick up a few things as the 6 hour sale had other things I could stock up on. The first thing I wanted to get my hand on was the Lite-on 'LVW-5005 DVD+/-RW Recorder'. It was on sale for $99.99 after rebates. An excellent price considering it regularly retails for $289.99. It was sale priced at $199.99 and there was an instant rebate that dropped it to $169.99. Then they make you work for the last $70.00 with two rebates ($50 and $20) where I need to do the UPC thing.
Now, I walk in the door and look around a bit and can't find it. So I get a hold of a sales rep and ask him to help find the Lite-on burner. They are out of stock. I ask about a rain check and he says "We don't do rain checks". Now I am pissed. No where on the ad does it say limited to the stock on hand or anything along those lines. I point this out to the sales rep and he takes the ad and talks to the manager. He comes back and points to fine print at the bottom of the ad which does sat 'quantities limited' ... but that directly refers to the AOL PC they are selling.
At this point I am just aggravated and I head home where I am in just a flat out bad mood. I just got screwed by CompUSA and I wasn't happy. So I decided to give two other CompUSA stores a call. Both stores ... their frigin phone systems were down. BOTH STORES. Well, I decided I would drive over to one of the stores and see if they had any left. Naturally they don't. A sales rep says why don't you pre-order it and when they come in they will call. At this point a manager is walking by and I asked him how does this work? He says they try to fill in the pre-orders from other CompUSA stores that didn't sell out. If they can get it, they will. If they can't they will refund my money in about a month when the rebates would have expired. I asked how many they had in stock to start the day, "17" he said. Sounds like a bait and switch to me.
It's getting close to 2pm and the 6 hour sale is about to end so I pre-pay for the DVD burner and I feel a little better. Over the next few days I don't hear from CompUSA but when checking their website it shows that they have it in stock. So, I decided I would stop in and see for myself. They don't have them in stock although the system says they have seven.
Well, a week goes by and still no word. While on their website I see the return policy states you can return items purchared online at any retail location. Now the wheels in my head starts turning. I don't want to wait for them to pull through I decide to take things into my own hands. I purchase the DVD burner online and have it shipped 2nd day ground UPS, cost $325.
I could go on and on about other things that happened, but I will digress. In short, I take the DVD Burner back to the store where I pre-paid and they credit my credit card. Then I picked up the DVD with the pre-paid receipt that I received a week and a half before.
Well, I know this story will be boring to most, but for those of you who shop at CompUSA, keep this in mind. It could save you a few bucks and a whole lot of aggrivation.
That is my latest shopping adventure.
