Circuit City will never get my business again.

Circuit City will never see another cent of my money. We had it out today, and they lost my business. Their computer salesperson didn't tell us or any of the customers who bought the same computer ahead of us that a rebate had expired recently. A manager lied directly to my face and said that he couldn't help us, and then destroyed a sign that showed the price we were given upon purchase. Here's the deal...

Katie's been in the market for a new computer for a little while now, and after a few unsuccessful attempts to buy her a computer we figured that we'd pick one up at Circuit City today.

First of all, I never buy computers at retail locations unless they're clearance deals... so, I'm already to blame for believing we'd be getting a good deal there. Secondly, I don't like the way Circuit City is laid out. It's always so much noisier and more hectic there than in other electronics stores. Lastly, I've never had a really good 'deal experience' there.

Nonetheless, I saw an advertisement on TV for $5.99 DVD's and the Katie and I were out and about, so we stopped by. We didn't see any $5.99 DVD's at all, so we wandered over to the computer section. There were quite a few people and a few computers of the computers had $300 in rebates. We found a computer with a sign that said the computer had $300 in rebates, selling for $929, with a printer a 15" LCD and of course the PC itself(Athlon 64 3400+, 512 MB DDR RAM, Dual-Layer DVD...etc).

So, Katie and I compared the deals and found that these were similar to the deals at office depot last weekend (where we were also unsuccessful because of a computer glitch). So, we chose a computer and waited an hour or so for the only computer representative present, Steve, to wait on us.

After Steve finished selling the same computer to three other customers, he came over and helped us. We went through the perks of the CC Protection Plan, or whatever it's called, and promptly said no thank you. We told him which computer we wanted, by pointing at the sign and he said ok, and started gathering the parts.

Everything went smoothly, we got the rebate receipts and the monitor and PC and headed home. When we got home, however, we noticed that our rebates only amounted to $170. So, I looked online, thinking that the rebate may be printable if the register didn't print it, but it was nowhere to be found. We got the computer loaded back up, just in case we had to make a return, and headed back to circuit city to find out what the problem was.

First we checked the sign again to see what rebate we were missing - a $130 Circuit City Mail-in Rebate. With that information, we went to the tech help desk and told the young man there that we were missing a rebate. He said "It should be online, you can print it there.", and that's all he said. So, I asked if he could show me where it was because I didn't see it. He sighed heavily and got to his little work station and looked it up. He pointed it out and started to close the window when I pointed out that the rebate had expired and that I'd seen that one already at home. So, he continued looking, but gave up soon after he realized there were no rebate forms for it. He entered the receipt, with order # into the system and found that it only offered $170 in rebates, which is why the register didn't print those rebates for us.

He said he needed to go check on something and he'd be right back. A few minutes went by and he returned with the sign we saw and he said, "Oh, look here *pointing to fine print*. This rebate expired 8/29." 6 days ago. We said that the sign was up, and noone told us that this rebate wasn't good...Steve should've told us that some of the rebates had expired. He didn't really say anything other than the rebate was not valid, so we told him we would be returning the computer... no biggie still. Just inconvenient.

Katie and I walked out to the car to get the monitor and PC and as we were walking back in by the tech desk, a manager (Good ol' Frank) was holding the sign we looked at before and was talking to the employee who had just helped us. He said that the rebate couldn't be offered because it was expired. Frank proceeded to tell us that nothing could be done about the rebate because it was a manufacturer's rebate. Since the rebate expired they just wouldn't honor it. I told him that it's not a mfr. rebate, it says right on the display that it's from circuit city. He said that it was in fact a mfr. rebate and that he was sorry we'd been inconvenienced, but there was nothing he could do.

We tried to explain that we'd just wasted the last 3 hours of our lives buying and returning this computer, and that we'd like to get the rebate. He said there was nothing he could do, and that he was sorry again. So, we told him about the three other people in front of us that were trying to buy the same computer. He said he'd bring up Steve's DPSR (?) and he would call the people and tell them there was a mistake and that one of the rebates would not be available. He then pointed us to the Customer Service center to return the computer.

As soon as we got there, the customer service rep, Keisha I believe, asked if we would still be interested if we could get that deal. I said, "Yeah, that'd be great. But the manager here just told us there was nothing he could do for us and that we should come return the computer." "Oh", she said. "We can just price adjust the computer. All we need is the sign that was posted advertising the rebate. Let me go talk to the manager you spoke to and get the sign". We were happy that someone was finally going to do the right thing and give us their advertised price.

While we're waiting on Keisha to return, I see that manager, good ol' Frank) talking to guy at the tech desk. He balled up a piece of paper, threw it in the trash can and went back to the back where Keisha had gone.

Shortly after, Keisha came back and said that Frank had "destroyed" the sign, and that there was nothing she could do for us either. Without the sign, she didn't know what the deal was and could not price adjust the computer. So, in the 3 minutes it took to get over to the counter, and explain our situation he had thrown away the sign, or ripped it up, or rolled it up and smoked it.

I asked if that was the sign that he had just balled up and thrown away, and she said "No, that was something else we were talking about." I nearly boiled over, but I just decided to try to find someone higher up than good ol' Frank, but the store manager was off. So, I took her name, and told them I'd just talk to her tomorrow. We returned the computer and fumed for about 30 minutes.

After a few hours had passed we realized that what went on at Circuit City was dirty. We were never going to shop there again. Even if Coretta, the store manager there, could offer us the money back we wouldn't want to give them any of our money.

My dad told us that there was a similar deal at Best Buy, right across the street from that Circuit City here in Shreveport. So, we looked it up and paid a visit to Best Buy where we bought nearly the exact same model. They had the printer, they had all their rebates ($320 this time) and we got the 17" LCD to go along with it. I'm making this post from the computer as we speak.

Anywho, I'll be going back to Circuit City tomorrow to try to talk to Coretta and tell her that her technology manager (Frank) needs to try not to lie directly to the customers when he says "I can't do anything for you. You can just get a refund for the computer." Not destroying the sign that would give us the ability to price match would also help. Basically, anything I can say to her to let her know that her managers and employees convinved me to spend $1000 at a competitor...

Oh, and about Frank, I hope he's more helpful when it comes to actually giving other customers advertised sales/rebates. Throughout the process of returning the computer, he was nowhere to be found except when he threw away the sign (I can only assume it's what he threw away). He was probably aware of the store policy of matching advertised sales/rebates through a price adjustment if we can show the posted price is different that what we paid. He just didn't care to help us get that price... and made sure that we couldn't prove that the sign was up (a full 6 days after the posted price was no longer valid).

I'm through ranting I suppose, but I hope I have some good news to post later about what happened with Coretta. Wish me luck in getting through to a corporate manager.