I took my nephew to our local Circuit City in Bainbridge Twp, Ohio on Thursday June 21st, 2007. He checked the website the night before on what he was going to get and when he went to go get the product off of the shelf the price was posted wrong on the shelf. He took it up to the register and the lady that waited on him said that will be $184.99 with $25.00 rebate.

He said nope the price was marked on the shelf as $69.99 and she went to go see for herself. We both followed her to the location where he found the product and she took the price tag off of the shelf and rang it up again. I told her that since it was marked wrong that they will have to honor it and her reply was no. I asked to see the manager of the store. She paged Mr John Sima operations manager of the store to the register. He then proceeded to say no we don’t have to honor it and so on. I stood there demanding the price and he kept refusing to give it to us at the price that it was marked…

I just wanted to make sure I was right so I walked over to the Verizon Wireless counter and asked the rep there if a price is marked wrong on the shelf they have to honor it right? She said yes they do and the reason why she knew that is sometimes the cellphones they sell at their counter are sometimes marked wrong and they have to honor it. Well, I demanded after about 20 minutes just standing around in the store for the price it was marked he refused to give it to me. I then proceeded to say I’m calling the police and he told me to get the fuck out of his store.

I finally gave up and left but not without asking some questions from the cashier. I asked the young cashier in front of a customer how often does this store mark wrong prices on the shelves and she replied very often, with that in mind I got the store # and the 1-800 the-city phone number and reported the operations manager on how rude he spoke to me in front of my 14 yr old nephew. I also contact the county auditors office letting them know that they are posting false prices on products and defrauding the customers. I’ll be getting a phone call from the district manager on Friday June 22, 2007 about my problem.

-John

Good for John for standing up for his rights. Bad Circuit City for not following one of the most basic consumer protection laws in retail. We hope John gets an apologetic call back.

A small suggestion, if we may, John might have been better off not getting in what sounds like a heated argument. Instead, after seeing that the manager wouldn’t budge, he could have called the 1-800 Circuit City number right then and there in the store and tried explaining his issue. We’ve heard of other customers using this method to good effect, and employees at other retail stores have advised it as well, and it can result in HQ calling the store and straightening the problem out. — BEN POPKEN

(Photo: Boston.com)

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