Last night I go into Circuit City to pick up Eternal Darkness. I buy two for $49.99 (one for me, one for a gift) knowing that its $14.99 at Gamestop. I pay for them and go to customer service to get the pricematch, thinking "wow, this is a good deal after I get my extra 10% off." The guy wasnt exactly happy about it from the start, saying things like "TWO of the same game?" and when I told him I wanted to him to match it at $14.99 w/ gamestop he said "where is there a gamestop? and you DO know I will have to call and double check this" in a fairly rude manner, the way he looked at me was like he was accusing me of trying to pull something. I tell him "of course, thats not a problem." He leaves to the back to "call" when there are phones right where he was at and takes a really long time to come back. When he finally returns, he says "I can only give you a full refund, but I will NOT be pricematching this." Of course I ask why, his answer being something around the lines of "well, gamestop deals primarily with used stuff, and the guy I talked to told me there was NO way for him to verify the $15 game was new." I told him I was just at a gamestop, and saw the new sealed games for $15 and that if it was used the price would be $13.00, not $15. He said he wasnt going to do it, that the best he could do was give me a refund. I said "no thats ok, I will take them to the other Circuit City where hopefully they honor their policies." Where he replied "I guarantee you they will not do it"

Here comes the kicker, this guy was a Sales Manager. I would have loved to complain to somebody, but who do you turn to when a Manager is giving you grief?

I have to ask... if you were already at Gamestop and saw the prices there, why not just buy them there? It seems it would've saved a lot of hassle. So did you go to the other CC, and what did they say?

The Sales Manager still has a boss. Don't know the hierarchy of CC, but there probably is an overall store manager or a district manager to field complaints. I'd contact one of them.

Agreed. Seems like a lot of hassle over a couple bucks.

Putting aside the fact that pricemathcing is a scam or they would have just pricematched it right?

Did you go to another CC? What happened there?

Between the two games I would be saving $9, for someone on a budget, its a good deal, and it has never been a hassle before. I have pricematched CC with EB, Gamestop and Best Buy numerous times before. One time I got a Tribes from CC for $6 and Mark of Kri for $7 after pricematching EB and Best Buy, same situation as above, except the CSR had no problems doing the pricematch.

I havent gone to another CC, will be doing that tonight, and I have called to find out who I can speak to, they said there will be a store manager working tomorrow.

C_fletch, not sure I understand your question.

Yeah, talk to a store manager.

C_Fletch...

Call me cruel...but I'm with CC on this one. The buyer seems just as (if not more so) arrogant as the guy from the store. Actually, I'm kind of hoping he won't get either a price match OR a refund!

Price matching is supposed to be used if you buy something at one store and then find it the next day at another store for a few bucks less or if you have a CC store right next to you and another store across town has it for less. I'm with some of the earlier posters, why didn't you just go to Gamestop? You're going to use up $9 in gas and even more $$$ in free time trying to get your precious price matching.

Also if they can't verify it, why should they "take your word on it"? Was it in a ad? or just a in-store offer? LOTS of places run an ad and run out of stuff and never plan on getting more in, and have a zero raincheck rule (CC being one of them)

(I was a CC sales mgr for 5 years)

I am never again shopping at Circuit City. They are currently conducting a nationwide lie campaign which alienates the customer they are lying to in addition to a smear campaign against a manager just trying to sell tv's. Let me explain:

First off let me say that I had 3000 dollars in store credit at my local Circuit City that I was unable to get in the form of a gift card or use at any other Circuit City. It was in that Circuit City's computer system. This was because I owned the 34XBR800 Television (Sony 34 inch high definition widescreen set) and after 3 service calls it was still defective so it fell under their "no lemon" policy and since that model has been discontinued they gave me a store credit instead. They gave me credit for the stand for the set and the remaining 2 years on the service contract as well.

I did research online, and at avsforum.com about what tv I wanted. I decided on the PT50LC13 set (50 inch widescreen High Definition Panasonic LCD set) because of its' size and it being impervious to burn-in which is a big plus to me due to playing lots of 4:3 aspect ratio videogames.

The price listed for that set at my local Circuit City was 2899.99 At avsforum.com, a Circuit City store manager named Keith out of the Circuit City in Boca Raton, Florida was posting and letting people know that he was selling the set for 2399.99 I live in Raleigh, North Carolina. It just so happened that my uncle's wedding was taking place in Boca Raton. When I went to it, I stopped in to the Circuit City there with my father and Keith was working. He was in fact the manager there and we talked to him about the price which he assured us was completely legit. He asked if I wanted to buy it directly from him and I explained about me having store credit at the Circuit City in Raleigh, North Carolina which I was unable to have transferred.

He gave me his business card which had the phone number and address of the Circuit City store in addition to his cell phone number. He told me to just have my manager give him a call when I was making my purchase and he would confirm that was the price he was selling the set for.

I returned to the Circuit City in Raleigh, North Carolina armed with this knowledge and ready to make my purchase. Unfortunately, the manager that I had been dealing with about my store credit was not on duty that day and none of the other managers knew about my store credit or how to look it up. I asked the manager on duty about the pricematch though and after leaving for about 10 minutes to talk to another manager about it, he returned and said that it would be perfectly fine to match that price. I returned later in the day to show my mother the television set I would be purchasing and again asked the manager on duty if everything was perfectly fine with the price match. He assured me everything was okay and told me not to worry. He also laughed and said that if Circuit City was not willing to price themselves than he would go work somewhere else.

So I go in there and make my purchase the following day with no worries right? HA! Dead wrong. That night, i looked on the Avsforum.com and more and more people had been getting their local Circuit City's to match Keith's price. Several of them had posted their exact receipts. I printed one of these receipts out (The name, address, and phone number of the customer had been whited out as he did not want to distribute that information freely over the internet) and brought it into my local Circuit City along with Keith's business card and cellphone number. The manager I was looking for was on duty. I informed him I was ready to purchase the set. He then begins to ring it up and asked if I could get a price match. I let him know I had talked to the other managers about it. He asked me what the price was and I told him 2399.99 His eyes proceeded to bulge out of his head and he did not say a word.

I broke the silence by placing the printed out receipt (enlarged so that the information could be easily read as my printer quality is not very good) along with Keith's business card and cellphone number and began explaining. He cut me off and said "Why would you not have told me about this sooner?" I explained that I had just gotten back from Florida where I had talked to this store manager and he had quoted me that price and told me to tell you to call him when I was making my purchase. He completely ignored that information and picked up the receipt.

He looked it over for more than a minute then tried scanning it. It would not work. He said: "This is VERY strange". He then proceeded to tell me that the receipt was not real because the reader would not scan it. I explained that my printer is horrible and that it had been greatly enlarged so that he could see the item numbers and price and he kept saying that receipts ALWAYS scan. The receipt had a Virginia Circuit City store's phone number listed on it (the poster lives in Virginia and got that Circuit City to match Keith's price after calling him) and after leaving for 5 minutes with the receipt he told me he was going to dial that. While it was ringing, he repeated twice to me "You know this makes you look very bad don't you?" At this point, if Circuit City did not have me by the balls so to speak (store credit only usable at that location) I would have immediately left. I was doing NOTHING wrong and did not understand why I was being made out to be a bad person.

He started off the conversation with the person on the other end with, "I have a VERY wierd and VERY suspicious receipt here in front of me that says it is from your store." He gave them some of the numbers on the receipt and after listening for about a minute said "That's what I thought" and hung up. He told me that this was not the price this tv was being sold for and they never would have sold it for that price. He then smiled at me and said "Mind if I make a copy of this receipt thank you." which was said as a statement and not a question with no break in between receipt and thank you.

He returned a good TWENTY minutes later and showed me the copies he had made. He had made a copy of both the front side of the printed out receipt and the back side of that piece of paper where I had written down the manager in the Boca Raton Florida's cellphone number. He then informed me that the receipt was completely fake and was made up.

That was a complete and total lie. The piece of paper that I had given him included a copy of a 100% real Circuit City receipt purchased by a real person in a real Circuit City store, sold to him by a real employee whose name was on the receipt. He told me that this copy had been showing up at Circuit City's all over the nation and that the Circuit City corporate headquarters was aware of the fake receipt. He said they are trying to track down the originator of the completely fake receipt and that this is a very serious matter. He said that the first thing that tipped him off was that their receipts now looked different and that they had switched receipts about 2 weeks ago. This was the 19th and the receipt was dated the 2nd. I informed him of this and he quickly changed the subject to reward money.

He let me know that if I gave him the name and address of the person who had posted the receipt that he would give me 50 dollars in the form of a gift card. He let me know that I would not get this 50 dollars immediately but that the information would be sent to Circuit City headquarters and they would personaly track down the culprit and then if it checks out that he created this fake receipt I would be given the 50 dollar gift card. I asked about calling Keith and he refused to do this. He asked in a tone of voice that suggested I was lying, "So you went to Florida to go to a Circuit City hm?"

I had to restrain myself from laughing. Everything I had just been told had been completely made up. At the time I thought it had been made up by him but I should have known he would not have been clever enough to think up such a fantastic and absurd story.

At this point he again let me know that this made me look very bad (???). I asked him if I could use the computer quickly. I found a website that was selling the set for 2299.99 and brought this to his attention. He agreed to meet me part-way on the price and sold me the set for 2700. I went ahead and purchased the set, I just wanted to get the heck out of there. I still couldn't believe the song and dance I had just been fed and that I had actually been offered reward money!

After getting home I immediately posted about my experience on the avsforum.com They responded with things like "I would not have bought from that jerk" and "He is quite an actor!". This was when we still thought this was just an isolated incident and that this manager was just so hellbent on not matching a price that he would make up this story.

I'll say right now that I am perfectly fine with my Circuit City not wanting to price match a Circuit City store outside of its' region. Posters on avsforum.com were having the Boca Raton price matched all over the nation but I was perfectly aware that my Circuit City may not want to match that price for whatever reason and at that point I would be fine either paying the price they wanted or seeing if they could meet me part way on an internet price. I am, however, not perfectly fine with being told I am in a bad situation and lied right to my face repeatedly about the authenticity of a receipt that I knew to be real in addition to being told I would be given reward money if I told him the name and address of a paying Circuit City customer who had done nothing wrong.

A few days later, other posters began reporting similar problems at their local Circuit City's. One went into his Circuit City with one of the real receipts from the message board and asked if the set could be price matched and he was told that he needed to leave the store immediately. Another poster was told the same stuff I was....that this was a 100% fake receipt and that corporate Circuit City was aware of it. He however, was told to leave.

When posters that lived in Florida but not near Boca tried to get their Circuit City to pricematch as they did not want to have to drive all the way to Boca to get the television, they mentioned Keith's name they were told by the manager of their store that he was fired weeks ago. Another lie. I had talked to him in person more recent than that and many posters also knew for a fact that he was NOT fired. The lie was repeated by many of the Circuit City's in Florida.

Meanwhile, 95% of the Sears stores in the nation were perfectly happy to fully match the price, or match it all of the way except 100 dollars and give a gift card for the remaining amount. They knew the Circuit City receipt to be a real one and were glad to price match. A few Sears said they could not price match due to it being out of the region which was perfectly acceptable. They did not conduct a nation-wide lying campaign.

By this time, many posters reported that their local Circuit City's were telling the same story they had told to me. Some of them now (outside of the Florida area) though were telling their customers that corporate Circuit City knew about Keith and that he had been fired. This was still a lie and he was definitely still an employee at the Boca Circuit City.

To be fair, several Circuit City's DID match the price with no lies or stories that only a 5 year old would believe. My only guess is that they either did not get the memo to misinform their customers or got the memo and decided that it would be against their better interest to flat-out lie and act rude to a customer.

Make no mistake about this though, this was a corporate decision that was passed down to individal Circuit City managers to lie to their customers. There is no way that managers in Circuit City's all over the nation all came up with the same lies right off the top of their head, this was something told directly to them.

Keith updated us on the situation and let us know that he had been told that his Boca store was being held under very close scrutiny and that he was not allowed to sell televisions to people over the phone from any other areas, only in the store, and that he had to raise the price of the set to I believe 2500 though he did not say why.

This was all completely ridiculous. Circuit City managers and owners telling their customers that someone had been fired for wrongdoing when he had most definitely not been. Managers telling their customers to leave the store immediately for bringing in what they called a fradulent receipt which was in fact anything but. And managers trying to go out of their way to make the paying customer feel like he was a criminal when he had done nothing wrong by telling him that this made him look very bad. And managers actually offering reward money for the capture of a made up perpetrator.

I had always shopped at Circuit City but after this string of lies to me, the customer, and defamation of character of a suprisingly helpful and knowledgeable Circuit City manager I will never again shop there. I think if you had the same experience as me you would feel the same way too. It is really quite sad the extraordinary and fantastical lengths that this very large company went to in order to get out of matching its' own price. A simple "I'm sorry, we can't match that price because....." would have worked wonders.

Just wanted to let you guys know about this.

Yikes. I would not have bought from them. Or I would have dealt with the other guys (from the day before) that said they'd match the price.

folgersnyourcup,

Your story is interesting, but a bit vague. Could you give us some more details?

Unfortunately, I could not because this manager told me that my store credit was between him and the store owner only and despite the other manager telling me specifically that he could match the price that he was not the one that was in charge of my store credit. It was all pretty surreal actually. Definitely not good business. Perhaps I should have come in on some day when both managers were in store together and brought it up but I wasn't looking for more confrontations when it was obvious that all this manager cared to do was lie to me.

I wrote all this quickly this afternoon from a quick recollection of what had taken place on the 19th of August and the days following. I'd be glad to provide any more details that you want. I can find the exact receipt that I printed out and post it here if you would like. By details do you mean exact addresses of the Circuit City stores and such? I can find those as well.

To be honest, I can see the manager's point of view. If somebody came into my store with a receipt which wasn't very legible and couldn't be scanned and was almost a thousand dollars less than what my store sold the TV for, I'd be suspicious, too. I've downloaded coupons for Borders and they scan or can at least be "punched in" with a code that makes the coupon work. (You know, of course, that with a program such as Photo Shop almost anybody can easily doctor a document to make a false receipt, birth certificate, driver's license, etc.)

Sounds like Keith was the one who was selling the TV below the price that the corporate office had set as the low-end. (Sounds like he was trying to boost sales at his store, but it backfired.)

I don't understand why Circuit City has a "no lemon" stipulation which only allows you to spend the money refunded at one store. That's the part that sucks. Their credit should be good at all their stores.

Sounds like you came out of it okay, but not as good as you had hoped.

By the way, it might be time to invest in a better printer.

The information was perfectly legible at the size I printed it out at. When I say my printer is not very good, I mean that the ink doesn't jump out at you the way the actual receipt does. I just made it bigger so he would not have to stare for awhile, I thought I was doing him a favor. I'm sorry but I really don't see how you could possibly think that it was alright for the manager to lie to me concocting a story that more than likely was given to him to tell me and then offer me money for tips leading to the apprehension of an online friend who very legally purchased the set and did not create a fake receipt.

The manager did not care about manually punching in anything, he just quickly scanned the barcode again and again saying "See? It does not work. It is a fake!" His call to the Circuit City store in Virginia inquiring about the price the tv was sold at either was completely fake (he was not really talking to them) or was met with more lying on the other end because I am 100% sure that the set was purchased for that price at that store. I have talked to the owner of the receipt and seen his set.

All it would have taken was a quick phone call from my manager to Keith's cellphone to verify the receipt (The Virginia store called him in order to verify the price match) and the reasons behind the pricematch.

What about the whole "This receipt has been attempted to be used at many Circuit City stores and headquarters is aware that it is a fake"???? That was obviously a complete lie. Perhaps corporate deactivated the bar code on that receipt after it was used once because they were scared of it being used again and told their stores that if it showed up again it was a fake? A simple "We can't price match outside of our region" would go a long way instead of lying and making the customer feel bad. And what's with the bribery? I felt like I had just been caught making a cocaine deal or something.....

I understand corporate being upset with Keith if he was selling below the low end (though many online sites have it listed for 2299.99) but that is no reason to make me feel like I am a terrible person for politely asking if the television I am purchasing can be price matched to another Circuit City store's price which I was quoted in person. The refusal to call Keith, which would have quickly remedied things, shows that they were not willing to price match, which is fine.

But I do not go into Circuit City with the intention of being lied to and made out to be a complete fool.

But they have e-reader cards for $1!

folgersnyourcup, I have trouble with your story because all Circuit City receipts have a Ticket Number printed in big numbers. If the receipt doesn't scan, all the manager had to do was type in those numbers and he would have been able to bring up the transaction. I find it hard to believe that a manager wouldn't know that. I also have no idea what you're referencing with regard to your store credit. When an item is returned and no gift card is issued, that credit is left on your original ticket. Any employee should be able to bring it up. I've never heard of it only being able to be accessed by one manager.

(disclaimer: I work for CC)

That was NOT the case at all. My information COULD NOT be brought up by any employee in the store due to the repair place contracted by Circuit City (CEI Electronics) refusing to replace my set even though it had been serviced three times. The store owner and manager that I dealt with had to do a SPECIAL OVERRIDE of the repair center in order to give me the store credit. I asked specifically if I could get the credit in the form of a gift card and I was told that I could just take that gift card and sell it to someone and they did not want me to do that because of the override. They let me know several times that they were doing me a favor by replacing my set (despite it had already been serviced 3 times and I had a service contract).

The store manager let me know that only he and the store owner knew of the transaction and that it WOULD NOT be stored in the computer system, but instead be written on slips of paper and put in the safe. Interestingly enough, when I went to purchase the set, the manager went to get the slips of paper with my two ticket numbers (one for the set and warranty and one for the stand) out of the safe he said it had been cleaned out (???) and he had to take 10 minutes to bring them up again. It was all VERY sloppily handled.

I don't understand how you have "trouble" with my "story". In fact, your reply got me a little hot under the collar. This is not some sort of revenge tactic by an ex-Circuit City employee or a current Best Buy employee to take away customers. I merely saw that a thread had been started here about trouble getting Circuit City to price match an item and decided to post my experience here. Not being a Circuit City employee, I have NO idea how their computer system works or how to bring up a receipt on the computer system using the item number. You find it hard to believe that a manager wouldn't know that???? I have already clearly explained how I was lied to numerous times and since I am unknowledgable about how to pull up purchases on Circuit City computers I knew nothing about what to tell him to do with it. Being a Circuit City manager, I assumed the guy knew enough about the computer system to bring up a simple receipt. The thing is that he obviously did not care to do so.

You came across as a real jerk to me there BJacks. All of my posts in this thread are 100% factual. Your arrogant post only makes me more confident that I made the right choice in choosing to avoid Circuit City in the future for any of my purchasing needs and to let others know to do the same. Let's see....one Circuit City employee calls me a liar and the other lies to me. Great business.

I notice you don't touch at all on the lies told to me by the manager. Are you choosing to naively think that my initial post in this thread was a complete falsehood????

The store the receipt is from is:

Store 3752
Glen Allen, VA 23059-4529
(804) 262-8011

folgers, lighten up on the caffine man. it'll kill ya.

I didn't read any sort of attitude in BJacks reply. He was just stating the facts as he knows them. [being an employee]

But, you FIRST & ONLY mistake was showing them the printout. If you had that guy Keith's businesscard and confirmation regarding the TV [and he volunteered to talk to your CC salesperson], that's ALL I would've presented. Let your CC salesperson call him and let Keith handle it. Hell, people on here have had problems with printed out coupons for $14.99 DVDs. [I was one of them.]

And, looking at a sales reciept that I have in front of me, I see the barcode you're talking about...but I also see the ticket number that BJacks mentioned.

One more thing...do you have the link to the avsforum thread..?

This guy's so anal that he can't detect sarcasm. Maybe he should WORK at Circuit City...he seems qualified.

im not too familiar with the whole primematching thing...a couple questions...

1. what is the 10% off for?

2. if you were just at gamestop, why didnt you buy it for $15 if thats how much you wanted to pay for it? you were already there...why did you leave and go buy the same game elsewhere for triple the price?

Circuit City (and some other stores as well) offers a "lowest price guarantee" where if you find something at a lower price someplace else, they'll match it and give you 10% off. Regarding the initial story in this thread, however, I do believe there's a limit of "1 per customer" (I could be wrong).

Isn't it also a condition of price-matching at many stores that the price being matched be advertised and in-stock? I know a lot of places don't actually call and check the stock if you have the ad, but I don't know of any stores that price match non-advertised prices..

From the Circuit City Web site...
...so basically you're mad at them for following their written policy and not bending to your will? The fact that you had gotten away with it in the past doesn't mean you'll get away with it everytime. If your on such a strict budget why not by one for the gift and get your's later?