Friday, February 6, 2009

Beware the Circuit City scam

So several people I know are raving about the "great" deals they're getting at Circuit City. I went last week to check it out for some home theater equipment and possibly a new TV. There are signs everywhere of "25% off of all TVs!" and "Everything MUST go!" and "20-50% off all items!" Looked like some potential there. I got caught up in the hype and spent some bucks on some stuff. Feeling like I got incredible bargains, I went home proud and smug. Upon researching several of the items when I got home, I found the exact same prices - EXACTLY THE SAME DISCOUNTED PRICES - on Amazon. So what they've done is marked everything back UP to the MSRP, then "discounted" them for clearance. While I didn't get ripped off (they were still good prices, especially on my wall speakers, and I still think they made a mistake on the Onkyo theater system I got for under $200), I didn't get any better of a deal than I would have with some frugal online shopping. Plus I avoided any shipping charges.

Bottom line, don't get caught up in the frenzy. Know the price beforehand of what you're buying before you plunk it down. My wife saw a Circuit City salesman at breakfast this morning and he told her everything went down another 10% today. So we went and checked it out. Everything worth anything is still only at 20% off (like tv's and Blu-ray players), same as you get on Amazon. Some examples of what I'm talking about in knowing the price: a 1TB My Book drive was discounted at 30% off to $231. I bought the exact same product on Amazon for $130 2 months ago. A pair of Skull Candy earbuds was discounted to $23. I bought a pair at Target last year for $15, not even on sale. Now some things I DID get a deal on were DVD's (Blue Harvest for $7!!), DDR for Wii ($48, regularly $70), and a cordless laser mouse ($40).

Just be cautious and don't let your eyes get too big for your wallet. The really good deals there are still few and far between.

2 comments:

  1. You want smug? I'll give you smug. I didn't buy any of those things, therefore all of the money is still mine.

    Waiting to be wasted some other way.

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  2. CC sux, buy everything direct or from someone on ebay who now realizes they cant actually afford their purchase.

    shots of patron help. don't know what that has to do with anything but thought I should share.

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