Mongrel, dont feel bad about your purchase. You got a great camera. In order for me to get that price, I had to do a little scamming and be assertive past the normal customer level. What I did was to sort of take advantage of Sear's price matching policy. Sears has a written policy that states that they will match any price from an established internet retailer. What constitutes an "established" internet retailer, is where the problem enters.
What I did was to surf the internet a little and print up a few price quotes from some lowball sites. These lowball(possibly bait and switch ripoff) sites were listing prices of more than $200 less than Sears was selling the camera for. Sears requires that you print up the final page of the price quote that lists all applicable shipping costs too. Even still, the price came to about $180 less than Sear's price.
I showed up with my handy dandy printouts and was immediately told that "Oh no, Sears will not honor that price. It has to be an internet site that also has a brick and mortar store". Excuse me? Where does it say that in your written policy? The salesman tried to ignore me, and hope that I was going away. Not on your life.
I stood my ground and made him call the toll free line that verifies these internet sites. Sure enough, the answer was no. These sites do not meet the qualifications, I was told. Again, the salesman tried to avoid me and hoped that I was going away. Not today. I looked at him and said again, that nowhere in Sear's written policy, does it state the internet site must have a brick and mortar storefront or meet certain qualifications. Only that it must be an established internet retailer. Pretty vague.
The salesman finally said that "there is nothing more I can do, sorry". I said, bring the manager over and let me talk to him. He gets the manager on the phone and the manager said that although they cannot match that price, he will split the difference with me, and knock $80 off the price. That was good enough for me, since the lowball price from the internet was probably a ripoff grey market(foreign market, with no US warrante) camera anyway. That knocked the price down to $558 after taxes. I get home, and my wife gives me another Sears coupon for $30 off. I go back up and get the adjustment,and the final price ended up $526. That took some bickering that a lot of people wouldnt have gone through, but sure was better than the regular price of $600 plus 7.5% sales tax.
