{price matching fail ~ a rant}

If you’ve been a couponer or frugalista for any decent amount of time, you’ve probably encountered a problem (at least once) while trying to shop at your local “big box superstore”.  When that happens, it’s sometimes difficult to know how to handle the situation.

There is one particular superstore, we’ll call it Bally World for the sake of anonymity, that uses its price matching guarantee as a way to entice frugal shoppers to keep spending money at their store.  However, things are not always as they would seem.

On one particular, very recent, shopping experience my mother went into said superstore with the intention of purchasing one specific item.  The online price for this item was roughly $26 and was listed as being in stock.  However, the shelf tag had the item priced at around $40.  Although it was something of a shock to see such a drastic price difference, my mother figured she would simply show the cashier the online price and it would be no big deal.

Oh, how wrong she was.

See, the cashier told my mother that they do not honor the online price.  Not even the online price from their own website!!  My mother thought surely the cashier was mistaken and asked to speak with a floor supervisor.  But, the floor supervisor confirmed what the cashier had stated.

The really sad part of this story is that my mother was there to purchase this very specific item for my daughter’s birthday party and I am the one who looked up the online price and informed her that the item was in stock and available to pick up at this particular store.

Ironically, had I purchased the item online and arranged for in-store pickup, the item would have cost only the $26.  But because we didn’t do that, they charged my mother $40.

Is anyone else seeing a problem here???

So….what do you do when the big box superstore “wins”?

You write a letter of complaint to the corporate office complete with copies of purchase receipt and a copy of the online price printed out.  You don’t have to be disrespectful about the matter.  Just simply inform them of what happened.

In America, there are a lot of little towns that have no other options for shopping than Bally World.  That makes it very easy for the consumer to get the raw end of the deal.  Quite frankly, this topic enrages me more than any other when it comes to couponing and savvy shopping (in case that wasn’t clear from this post).  They claim to be budget-friendly and all about saving shoppers the most money.  But that is not always the case.

For this very reason, I swore off shopping there a couple of years ago.  Except in rare cases where I have absolutely no other option, I won’t spend my money there.  And let me tell anyone who isn’t already aware, I live approximately 40 minutes from any other grocery stores.  Luckily, there are also sites like Amazon and Vitacost where I can order nearly anything I could possibly need and have it shipped right to my front door.

It may take a little extra work, but that suits me just fine.