Gravitational Pull

Stay away from Circuit City’s bogus “sale”

Posted on 30 January 2009

Well, I’ve experienced some scammy liquidation “sales” in my time (back when the local CompUSA went under, for example) but the buzzards running the current Circuit City “sale” really take the cake. So take my advice and STAY FAR AWAY FROM CIRCUIT CITY, at least until the posted “discounts” get to more than 50% off.

I stopped in at the Circuit City in Natick this week, where posters on the store window advertised “10% to 40% off.” Yeah right. The list price of every single item I checked had been jacked up, so the “discount” was no bargain. The most egregious example appeared to be this 1GB 1TB external hard drive made by SimpleTech (see picture). You can find it online for about $150 without even trying. At the Natick Circuit City branch, under a sign offering 20% all hard drives, the Simpletech drive was listed for $279!! After the “discount,” that’s still $223. Insane.

I’m trying to be less outraged by this outrage since it’s the long-running game plan of the folks who take over closing retailers to run the liquidation events. Jack up the prices, start with minimal discounts, see how many customers you can rip-off and then slowly increase the discounts. A few years ago at the CompUSA sale, I managed to pick up multiple copies of Windows Vista at 70% to 90% in the final few days of the liquidation. But it took weeks before the discounts got that steep.

So please, don’t even bother wasting your time at Circuit City until the discounts on that big poster in the window hit about 50% minimum!