Today my love affair with Amazon.com diminished by a sizable notch. In one fell swoop they moved from my preferred shopping site to being on par with everyone else. It happened when I learned that Amazon.com offers customers no price protection whatsoever. And that makes it not such a good deal after all.

You see, after weeks of searching for a new printer I finally settled on the Brother MFC-9840cdw Color Laser Multi-Function Center with Wireless Interface. Basically everyone had it for $649-699, but I decided to get it from Amazon.com because they have been my favorite retailer for a while since I paid the $79 per year fee to become a member of Amazon Prime, which gives you free 2 day shipping on all your orders.

Well, even though the printer doesn’t arrive until Monday, I saw ads from two different major retailers this weekend that this printer has dropped to $549.99. Instead of being upset, I was actually glad because I figured that Amazon would match the price! But when I contacted them my joy turned to disappointment.
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Hey folks, this season there are going to be some serious deals to be had if you’ve got the spare cash to take advantage of them. But don’t run all over town hunting down those damned Black Friday deals! First of all, they never have the item you went for in stock, and secondly… just remember all those lines and whiny people!

Instead, prepare by doing your research online, and keep an eye on the following Web sites to see all the hottest deals being offered. The key is to act quickly, because a lot of these deals will disappear quickly.
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Yeah, yesterday I got an e-mail from Best Buy welcoming me to their Premier Black membership level, presumably because of the amount of cold, hard, raw, green cash I give them on an annual basis. It read as follows:

Congratulations! We’d like to welcome you to the Best Buy® Reward Zone® program at our most elite membership level – Premier Black.

Premier Black is a pilot in select areas that rewards our best customers for shopping at Best Buy stores.

Your Reward Zone program member ID is: XXXXXXXXX

But then a few hours later they sent me another message telling me they had made a mistake, and apparently I’m not “Premier Black” quality:
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So, today my friend Bruce gave me a call and told me that Best Buy had a 42″ 1080p LCD HDTV on sale for $796.99. In fact, he had just come from our local Best Buy in Frisco, TX where they had 17 of them in stock. He said it looked pretty good, and recommended that I get one.

So, of course, I blew about 30 minutes looking at the Web site and eventually placed an order online for in-store pickup. Before doing so, you have to choose a local store and it checks availability. (Clearly I did this, and placed the order.)

Flash forward to this evening, when I finally get around to heading over to Best Buy to pick it up, and lo and behold – no TV!
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Lately I’ve been getting increasingly more angry whenever I visit either Costco or Sams Club. I buy a LOT of crap at these places and I’ve got the top membership levels, so why is it that they always want to see my receipt before I leave the damn building?

I mean, let’s face it. I just waited in some horrendous line, they don’t even bag your stuff up for you, and then 50 feet from the checkout they want me to stand in another line and then reproduce my receipt to allow some lackey to glance at it, glance at my cart and draw a line on it with a marker? What the hell is up with that!?!
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A couple of weeks ago I came across this article on The Consumerist written by an anonymous former Circuit City employee. Having had a friend who did time at CC, I will say that this seems like a very real article and I recommend that everyone give it a read.

It sheds light into the sales tactics employed by Circuit City, and you should also keep in mind that many of these are similar to all other consumer electronics (and other) stores. The moral of the story… information will set you free.

One other little note. Instead of simply asking you to take this anonymous guy’s word for it, I’ve provided substantiating links within the various points where available for more background reading. Hope it helps.
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I routinely get Best Buy coupons sent to me and since these are valid for the next few days I figured I’d post them in case anyone could use em.

Essentially it’s 12% off just about anything as long as you sign up for the free membership, or 10% off if you don’t.

So if you’re about to go get a new digital camera or camcorder to photograph the Fourth of July festivities print these out and take them with you when you go! Hope they are of use to someone…
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This little tidbit from WorldNetDaily.com

A man trying to pay a fee using $2 bills was arrested, handcuffed and taken to jail after clerks at a Best Buy store questioned the currency’s legitimacy and called police.

According to an account in the Baltimore Sun, 57-year-old Mike Bolesta was shocked to find himself taken to the Baltimore County lockup in Cockeysville, Md., where he was handcuffed to a pole for three hours while the U.S. Secret Service was called to weigh in on the case.

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Everyone has been driven crazy by a poorly staffed call center, sitting behind a horrible Interactive Voice Response Unit (IVRU) while calling a service provider like the phone company, cable company, government office or technical support. Well, help has now arrived.

Paul English, the CTO of Kayak.com, decided to build a site to help people get through to a real human after one such frustrating call. The result is GetHuman.com.
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Have you ever purchased an expensive piece of electronic equipment along with an extended warranty only to have that product break during the warranty period… wait, I’m not done yet… but then when you try to contact that company (Circuit City, this means you!) you find out that they dodge you like a stray bullet? Well, you’re not alone.

Here’s a story of a man in New Jersey that had a problem with a Dell laptop and found a basically fool-proof way to get that problem solved!
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My living room wasn’t bringing the kind of audio visual pleasure it once did, so we had to take the step up to a new HD TV. The problem was, which one to get?

The absolute dimensions for our built in cabinetry dictated that we could go no larger than a 40-42″ flat panel TV, depending on the brand. After doing quite a bit of comparative analysis we finally decided on the Sharp 42″ Aquos LCD (LC-42D62U), which we got at Best Buy.
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It’s amazing how much communication costs. If I add up my cellular bills, Internet bills and home phone service we’re looking at $250 a month! $3,000 a year is more than the average income of a family in 90% of the countries on earth. That is simply criminal!

Luckily, ever since the advent of the Internet those costs have been plummeting, and I would expect them to continue dropping until it costs almost nothing to talk to anyone, anywhere. (When wi-fi Internet has the same coverage as cellular networks all calls will be free!) For now, however, I’ve put together this handy little guide to help decrease the various costs associate with making phone calls.
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