Black Friday Starts the Largest Consumer Rip-Off Season

‘Tis the season for giving and for being thankful. And every store in the country is being thankful for the tricks they have learned to use to rip us off. We’re simply going to list some examples.

1. The most popular independent grocery store in the community is noted for its fresh produce, fish, and meat. Four days before Thanksgiving, knowing that customers anticipate their relatively stable and moderate prices and outstanding quality, they raise prices and put out “Sale” tags through the store.
a) Iceberg lettuce had been selling for 89 cents to $1.29 – today’s special was $1.99
b) Romaine was also 89 cents last week. This week it’s $2.99.
c) The most they sold broccoli crowns for during the last year was $1.39 a pound. For this week’s special it’s “on Sale” at $1.69.
There were more than 200 similar examples throughout the store.

2. “Discount” outlet malls bring out the big guns, listing mark-downs of over 50%. Look carefully – all the price tags are new. The brand-name handbag that was selling for $50 for the last three months now has an “Originally sold at $199” or “Compare at $249” and has been marked down to only $89.

3. Sticking with outlet malls…. Many of the products sold there are manufactured specifically for the outlets. They may have the same brand names and styles, but may also be poorly made, seconds, or worse. Yet the prices are, in many cases, the same or just slightly lower than what you would pay for the high-quality merchandise at a department store.

4. You’ll even see signs for “Up to 90% off.” That means items can be anywhere from no discount to 90% and you can bet that most of the stuff is priced for profit. Going through a major department store’s Black Friday ad, we compared the prices with their weekly ads for the last month: not one item was lower and most was at normal retail or slightly higher.

5. Stores tend to spend the week before Thanksgiving repricing their products upwards from 10 to 50%. Then, when they discount them 30 to 50% you may be paying even more than before they went on sale. Weekly sales during the year are almost always better buys than the prices between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

We have spent the last 40 weeks discussing tricks merchants use to trick people. Just to summarize:

1. Shop around. Even when items are marked with such terms as on sale, at the lowest price of the year, or deep discount, you probably can get it for less elsewhere. Compare store ads with the prices at Amazon.com. (And Amazon usually ships for free.)

2. When you see signs that offer great deals, do not be fooled. ‘Tis the season to be skeptical.

3. Avoid gift cards. Read back through past blogs on this site for an explanation as to why. They are almost always money losers.

4. Read the return and refund policies. Some stores give only 3 or 5 days and demand a receipt be included even for exchanges. On occasion items marked as “discounted,” even if they really are not, may not be returned or exchanged.

Some advanced thinking now can save you from the post-holiday credit card bill blues.