How to get online prices even if you are an impulse buyer!!!

MarkC0165

Recently had to buy a DVD recorder as old DVD broke.
Went into a high street retailer, and bought it in store having only looked in the a couple of stores which was very silly. Paid £130 for it and went home quite happy with my purchase.

Couple of days later looked on the website for the retailer and found it was £20 cheaper buying it from their site. Then it dawned on me to find best web price with Kelkoo, which I did and it was £40 cheaper!!! So bought second machine from online store and then returned the second one to the retailer, and hence saved £40. Only difficult bit was that the online store did not package the box seperately so I had to carefully remove two packaging labels.

Moral of the story - look online first and buy from there.
Best bit? Even if you dont buy online, if you are good, you can get around them
Mark:j

Jimbo333_2

I've heard of this technique before.

It's called "blatent fraud" isn't it?

kittykate_2

Jimbo333 wrote:

I've heard of this technique before.

It's called "blatent fraud" isn't it?

Was just about to say something similar. That's disgusting! I can not believe the OP is promoting fraud like that!

northern_munky

Why is it fraud? He took an unopened, exact same, DVD back to the shop, no one is out of pocket, its not like he's been using it and the shop can sell it again cos its still brand new.

alanobrien

northern_munky wrote:

Why is it fraud? He took an unopened, exact same, DVD back to the shop, no one is out of pocket, its not like he's been using it and the shop can sell it again cos its still brand new.

Sometimes a retailer will have details of the serial numbers of all the models they purchase and sell on. Clearly that one could not be identified as one of theirs if some poor sod bought it and returned it for repair later....although they would have a reciept.

Its probably more like gaining money through deception than fraud, at the very least its morally dubious.

Sometimes its better to keep thoughts in your head than actually write them down

zorber

I agree that the retailer is trying to defraud the customer by offering the same product for sale higher in their shop than the web site.:D

Lets be serious now how can this be fraud the buyer has returned the exact same unit unopened to the retailer within a reasonable amount of time for a refund. This would never stick in court.

Though i feel the this has only been made possible by the goodwill of the store in taking it back as they had no legal obligation to do so. Though since the only thing they have lost is a sale not sure any legal action could be taken. They would have to prove the serial number should not have been one of their machines and in fact sent to another store but again this is not a water tight proof.

I hope that the OP hasnt learnt two leasons from this.
1 shop around
2 dont brag about it.
Though i am sure they are just trying to help others from being ripped off.

venkata

Other things to consider is some items maybe "grey market" items from certain online stores. The store would then recieve the "unopened" box who will in turn re-sell this to some poor person, who has paid over the odds for the product.

If you want to do it "legally" then some cards / accounts like the HSBC Plus Accounts (£12 / month with other benefits) refund you the difference on most items if you find it cheaper.

tryingtosave_3

I thought this was going to be a post about some clever new online price comparison site that you could access via your mobile phone

Whilst a little fiddly (depending on your phone), this is an option for the impulse buyers out there - many phones give you GPRS access to sites like froogle.co.uk or kelkoo plus I'm sure there is an SMS based service out there (yes I know these options cost something!).

A quick google offered up this:
http://uk.mobile.yahoo.com/info/wap/shopping.html

zincoxide

It's not fraud - it is however deception which in itself is a criminal offence.

martinmarv

One way to get Online prices when impulse-buying is to impulse-buy on the internet. Works for me