Due to ever shrinking margins and of course the good old, guilt trip standby...theft, it's now becoming a practice among retailers to charge a restocking fee on among other things, DVD players and camcorders. If one should decide for some reason to return these type items and if you foolishly broke the shrink wrap first, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise of a service charge.
In addition, when you set staring at the newspaper with those jaw dropping low prices for laptops, make sure you read the fine print, as more often than not, the crazy Eddie sales prices are only realized once you complete and mail in the dreaded rebate form. Check out what "Consumer Specialist" John Matarese has to tell us in this report from NewsNet5 up in Ohio.
Being a bit hard headed and having been stung a couple times, I made the decision to avoid purchasing anything with a rebate. The plan being, that my lack of participation would somehow be the final straw that drove such wretched marketing tools into the inescapable gravitational pull of the same black hole that has so far captured 80% of all rebate forms...never to return! I am sick and tired of being lured into such deals only to have to wait months (if I'm lucky) to ever get the darn cash back. Just charge me a fair price to begin with for crying out loud.
Nowadays, I do my best to research a good deal online. I check for and maybe can get free shipping or probably even wiggle out of sales tax! That feels good too, I usually get a big kick out of that. Then, if I don't have to drive my gas guzzling SUV across town to retrieve the goods from the stores - there's even some additional savings to be had that way. But, at least now, we can also be aware that if we do decide to purchase something from the old brick and mortar stores, make sure to check their return policy first.
Source: NewsNet5
