On Ashland just north of Diversey!

LOL I've been to that one! Never had any memorable expreience tho.

I'm just like you Groucho. Fortunately my DVD buying is rather limited and my income is high enough that I don't have to scratch and claw my way to $5 savings here and there. I love a bargain but I'm just as happy to pay $45 for a great Indiana Jones box set as opposed to finding someone to pricematch Eckerd's. If I pay $200 more over the next two years, well...no biggie.

You mean following store policy is bending over backwords?

Everything you said would make sense IF ONLY you couldn't go to blockbuster.com and see that they have a pricematch policy.

He never lied like the manager did.

WOW! Here's my take(not like we neede another). Pricematching should be ILLEGAL. I'll explain why.

Is it legal to advertise something at let's say 14.99 and then when you reach the store they say it's 19.99. No. It is illegal.

Here's the linky:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/ad-faqs.htm

Frequently Asked Advertising Questions: A Guide for Small Business

GENERAL ADVERTISING POLICIES

What truth-in-advertising rules apply to advertisers?
Under the Federal Trade Commission Act:

advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive;
advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims; and
advertisements cannot be unfair.
Additional laws apply to ads for specialized products like consumer leases, credit, 900 telephone numbers, and products sold through mail order or telephone sales. And every state has consumer protection laws that govern ads running in that state.

What makes an advertisement deceptive?
According to the FTC's Deception Policy Statement, an ad is deceptive if it contains a statement - or omits information - that:

is likely to mislead consumers acting reasonably under the circumstances; and
is "material" - that is, important to a consumer's decision to buy or use the product. "

So if we mislead the customer into thinking he can price match is that not illegal? I say ABSOLUTELY YES!!! Now here's the hitch. Pricematching is not an ad but a policy..........

Putting all os that aside I agree with the original poster. I also stick it to THE MAN every chance I get. I just follow the rules(read policy) that they lay out. In fact MOST of the time they don't give me that extra 10% off of the difference but I just let it slide. They typically can't do the math anyway so what's the point. I very rarely pricematch due to the issues brought out in this thread. The store has the ability to say "F U" and you can't do a dman thing about it. That is why it should be illegal. I see it as no different than a store advertising a product for 14.99 and then going back and charging 19.99.

What's the point of even having the policy if they are not going to follow it through thick and thin. Sure they lose $2 or $3 but they gain a customer. THIS IS THE WHOLE POINT OF PRICEMATCHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TO KEEP THE CUSTOMER!!! So the knucklehead lies, cheats the customer........oh but they have that great pricematching policy!! Whatever

This statement of yours is misleading. You didn't explain and don't believe that pricematching is illegal. You believe that having a pricematching policy and then not honoring it is illegal. There's a difference. I agree with everything you said after your statement quoted above. Having a pricematching policy and honoring it appropriately, however, is not and should not be illegal.

I guess I'm fortunate to have a well run BBV. I've handed them BestBuy printouts from their website before and they've pricematched for me.

While I don't necessarily agree with how the situation was handled, I can understand chanster's frustration.

You won't have to worry about price-matching at BBV anymore because the price match policy is about to be cancelled at BBV. I am not sure when this will go into effect company-wide, but I took the price match signs down today. Glad I got my price-match for Indy last week.

I can confim this with a reported end in price matching on Oct 31st.

Maybe the rumored trade-in with used DVDs for $7 off on new DVDs would be true.

I am more pissed about the price-match thing for one customer in particular. He comes in every Tuesday and picks up a couple of new releases with his ads in hand to price-match. He's real cool and we talk about different movies. It sucks that now I will have to tell him that I can't price-match anymore and he will take his business elsewhere. It is pretty foolish that BBV is doing this because this one guy is one of about 4 people total that have ever brought in an ad wanting a price-match since I have worked there. This is probably the case in most stores as most people will not go through the trouble of price-matching to save a few dollars.

There is some trade-in thing that is going to start up soon (not sure on the details). I do not understand why they are doing this because all it does it make credits go up and sales go down. I am sure that they will try it for a while and then ditch it after we can't sell all these used titles that people are exchanging (there will be qualifying titles). We can not even sell much previously viewed product unless there is a sale at my store.

Have you contacted Blockbuster corporate or the franchise corporate over this incident? Seems like you should have done that then vent to choir on this forum.

Seems odd they would stop price matching, but it is their company.

They probably looked at sales and did not see any reason based on the few customers who used it or they realized probably correctly that in general the customer who pricematches is not loyal so they are not retaining a loyal customer at all.

I know I pricematch and I am not loyal at all. I buy from the lowest company that I find is dependable.So a company who pricematches does not make me more likely to buy from them in the future. Unless I am getting them to pricematch that is :)

I support Chanster on this one. He probably didn't think that BBV would give him a hard time about pricematching so he didn't expect any hostility. If he's like me, most of my arguments happen when I am not ready for it. When I know some one is trying to argue with me or give me a hard time in advance, I will not say anything back. When I'm not ready and I get caught off guard, that's when I get really confrontational. So Chanster, thumbs up to you! Even though we're not suppose to stoop to their level, once in a while it feels good doing it, I've heard it's bad for our health in the long run though =) .

You know what? You are absolutely right. But if all that was at stake here was five dollars, I would say you were completely right, however, I don't see five dollars just at stake here. There are some major principles at stake here, mainly the manager bold face lying to the person standing before him. If he could present a valid reason he couldn't allow the price match, then fine. However, even if the sale was over yesterday at Circuit City (which it wasn't), somebody pointed out the policy is that people have thrity days in which to take advantage of a price match. But the sale was still on at Circuit City, so that's beside the point. The manager had no right to refuse service. What the hell does he care if somebody price matches? IT'S NOT HIS MONEY. If his corporate office tells him this is what they are going to be doing for the customers, then he, especially as a manager, needs to back that policy even if he personally doesn't agree with it because that's his JOB. The manager can either let the customer do what is according and acceptable to policy, or he can simply resign his post and let somebody get in there who will represent the company properly. If I was a district manager of that store, and this situation came to my attention, I would be wanting a better explanation from the manager.

Yes, you are right. It starts up Tuesday at the Blockbuster near me. How it works is you take one of your unwanted DVDs in the store (doesn't matter the title, it just has to be something they can scan and get a part number for in their system, so I guess no imports or Internet exclusive titles or things like that) and you can trade it in and get a select number of new release DVDs for 12.99 brand new. The way I see it this is beficial to the store, because they can get in quality used product they can in turn and sell as previously viewed and they give you a discount on top of it for a new DVD. The details are that the DVD must come in it's original case, without stickers (so no taking back unwanted previously viewed movies you got from them before!) and they must have the original UPC code and they must be free of scratches. The only thing that gets me is if you were to price match a new release for 15.99 from Best Buy, and you take a used DVD in there to get the new release for 12.99, you are only saving three dollars than if you just simply priced matched in the first place, or got the DVD elsewhere. And Blockbuster comes out ahead because you know they are going to sell the DVD for 9.99-14.99 easilly.

And somewhere earlier in this thread, the claim was made that Blockbuster jacks up the prices on their DVDs. Uh, no they don't. They just don't mark down new releases as loss leaders the week they come out like other stores do. The DVDs cost Blockbuster and Best Buy and Circuit City the same, but Best Buy and Circuit City use them as loss leaders to get you in their store. Now, price matching for Blockbuster is doing the DVDs they price match as loss leaders, and they hope you buy something else with the DVD. But they don't make much money on new DVDs, even at 21.99 brand new, believe me. It's one of their lower profit margin items.