Circuit City
Avoids honoring its Price Protection guarantee

Circuit City did whatever it could to avoid honoring its Price Protection policy, making up new excuses not to match a price each time I fulfilled their new rules.

I bought a flat-panel television from Circuit City. Within days, I found the same TV for a much lower price on line and requested a match from Circuit City, but I was told the policy does not apply to prices from on-line stores, only to physical stores.

So I found a slightly higher price at a physical store that was still much lower than the price I had paid at Circuit City, but I was told that the policy only applies to physical stores in the local area. (I do admit that the fine print in the policy says "another local store, " so I concede this one point.)

Then I found the next-lowest price at a store in New Jersey, 15 minutes by PATH train from the store where I had made the purchase in Manhattan. No good, I was told, the physical store in the local area must be in the same city.

So I found a lower price at a physical store in Brooklyn, which is indeed in the same city as Manhattan (although 4 times as far away as the other store in New Jersey). Nope, no good — the physical store in the local area in the same city must be in the same borough, they said.

I refused to accept that last excuse, saying I would report the situation to the New York City's Commissioner of Consumer Affairs. The Circuit City store manager said it didn't matter, because even if they did honor price quotes from other boroughs, this particular store whose price I was asking to be matched "is known for selling refurbished merchandise."

I showed the manager the other store's ad that specifically said "Factory Sealed, New Merchandise, " but he said that since the store sells used items, they will not honor their quotes for Price Protection. When I pointed out that even Circuit City sells floor models of some items, he was unmoved.

After filing a complaint with the DCA and sending a copy of my complaint to Circuit City's regional HQ, the store finally agreed to honor the Price Protection guarantee, but it should never have taken such effort to get them to fulfill their own policy. If they want to have a very restrictive Price Protection policy (as Best Buy does, which limits price matches to a very short list of specific, named competitors) then that's their prerogative, but they should do that in writing, up front. Their cat-and-mouse game of adding restrictions as they go along is grossly wrong.

Company: Circuit City
Country: USA
State: New York
City: New York
Address: 80th & Broadway

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