Caught: Lowes Price Chicanery

[Tom G]

Having worked in retail for over 25 years, I can tell you that it is common practice. Especially at Sears. And watch out for the sale prices when a store closes. Was working at a Sears Hardware when they were closing most of them. They hired a "close out specialty" firm to handle the closing. Almost all items were cheaper the day before the close out started. I was discussing this with the man who was handling the sale. I mentioned that I had lived in Arizona when the Home Base chain went out of business and the state and the media had a field day with the way they had actually raised prices instead of lowering them. He said he was familiar with that as that was were he got his start doing the closeouts. As P.T. Barnum said.....

Tom G.

[Joseph Meehan]

No, you buy three you get three and they give you a 4th no additional cost. It is 0% off the first three and 100% off the last one. If you use strict pricing then if you buy two you get nothing off if you buy three you are entitled to a forth one free, but if you only want three then you pay full price for the three. If you by any number devisable by four then you get 25% off what the total would have been without the sale.

[EXT]

Here in Canada, Sears got hauled into court, for selling tires at a discount off a "regular price" that they could not prove that they ever sold one tire at. They were convicted and had to pay a huge fine.

[mm]

No, it's 3 items at the full price. Total price 300% of the cost of one. 4th one "free", freee for someone who bought 3.

So 4 for 300% of the cost of one. The average price for each one

300%/4 - 75%.

[Joseph Meehan]

Here in Ohio (south of Canada) I worked at Lazarus department store back in the good days when a Lazarus family member ran the show. On day over 30 years ago the word came down that the law had changed and regular price had to be a price at which a real sale had taken place. Anyone responsible for allowing an add to run or sign displayed that violated this rule would be an ex-employee. There were a few close calls, but we played it clean. We may have recommended a product that we would not have normally as it might not have been a good buy at the regular price, but we knew that it was going on sale the following week and we would call to let the customer know they could have a refund of the difference.

However the case in point, Lowes was correct.

[HeyBub]

Yeah, I bought more electrical stuff than I needed. Took the overage back to Lowes.

They gave me $11.30 for $8.20 worth of stuff.

When I called it to their attention, they carefully examined the original receipt and the return voucher. They concluded that the price of the stuff I was returning went UP in the intervening week. "Keep the change," they said.

[hallerb]

raising prices right before a % off sale has been going on forever:(

[Mark Lloyd]

And if you do buy 3, it would be nice if they reminded you that you could get 4 without paying any more.

[Monty]

They still got you. Forget percentage. Buy 3, get 1 free was the ad. Price per advertised "marked" roll was $32 per, times you bought 12 rolls, you get 4 free = $384.00

They charged you $25 per roll times 16= $400.00

You over paid $16.00

[lwasserm]

By my arithmetic, "buy 3, get one free" is 25% off. Even so, 25% of $32 should still have been $8 off.

[lwasserm]

Well, really, if the sale was described as the OP said, the first 3 were at their regular price, and the 4th was free. If you bought 5 or

6 rolls, the 5th & 6th would still be at regular price, right?

[TakenEvent]

The 25 bucks includes sales tax. He didn't overpay.

[TakenEvent]

As it was.

[Monty]

"TakenEvent" wrote

Actually, I missed the OP's other post where he said

"I was buying 16 rolls. with a 4 for 3 deal I should have been paying for 12 rolls. I multiplied 12 times the sticker price(+tax), and decided that is what I should have paid. The "percent off" was irrelevant at that point."

Which is the same I was implying.