HUGE YMMV "Hometown Sears" Toshiba 50” LED BF price now

I almost hate to share this because of the huge YMMV of this deal, but perhaps someone else can get in on it. This may be the revenge of the small town folks who have to endure all the juicy Fry’s deals.

I am certain this will only work at the small “Hometown Sears” stores that are in small towns. So, please don’t try this at a big, normal Sears and if you call Sears and ask about this you will be consigned to Fatwallet hell upon death. And BTW, I adopted a new FW identity for this post; I have posted (and read) here for years.

Sears has a Toshiba 50” LED 1080p HDTV. You can see the ad below. It is $299.99. Four per store. Good TV, but amazing for this price.

I wandered into my “Howntown Sears” to see if they had any in stock, scheming how to get one without getting up before 4am and fighting crazy people. I took in a copy of the FW scan.
FW BF Scan

They had two in stock. They did not have it in their BF ad, but found that the Sears computer system had put a “stop sell” on this unit. After a little digging, they found it was done to preserve stock for BF and confirmed the $299.99 price.

So they wrote up a hand sales slip, ran my debit card through an old fashioned credit card impresser, and then set it aside to run on Friday morning while the sale is on. Then they let me take the TV home (see picture). Yes, this is a small town.

If you are in a small town with one of these stores, give it a try. I know these people to some small degree and was very friendly and not demanding. I changed my FW identity to protect them from getting in trouble with Sears for doing this. And, no, I will not tell you where I did this, so don’t bother to ask. Good luck!

EDIT:
As noted in a post below, this TV actually goes on sale at 8pm Thursday, not 4am BF. Thanks for catching my mistake.

I did stop by the store I bought it at with a copy of the Thursday ad and they already knew about it. In fact, they mentioned that they had alreday sold the other TV in stock (probably to an employee or friend) under the same terms. They will simply run the sale through the system Thrusday night.

Thats awesome! Per their newspaper ad this falls under the 8PM doorbuster. I'll try my luck tomm at the neighbourhood Sears. This one is inside a mall, but it never hurts to try.

Pretty good deal... $500 at TigerDirect today

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details...

Kaadamson said:   Yep, pretty good deal in deed. The 10 reviews on Amazon.com are good. http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-50L2200U-50-Inch-60Hz-LED-LCD/dp/B...

Plus, check out that for this t.v., Amazon states "this item qualifies for the TV Low Price Guarantee, Free Shipping, and Enhanced Delivery.t Hmmm, I wonder it that applies to "BF limited to stock on hand items?"

Great idea but:

Time-limited sales events (such as Black Friday, "early bird" or "door buster" offers ), offers advertised as limited in time or quantity, clearance, liquidation and going-out-of business sales, and loyalty program offers are also ineligible for the Guarantee

wonder if citi price rewind etc. would work??

Every black friday site that I look at has this listed at 499 for this television? I can't seem to find the ad with the 299 price.

Can anyone link the entire ad?

I went to my local store. Unless the checkout people are like family to you, there's really no way to get this work for more than one reason. At my local store, the price was still in the process of being marked down and was only at the $500 level. When the TV dept. person checked the price at the register, there was a large "DO NOT SELL" notification and the system wouldn't let him process the sale even if he wanted to.

TempName2 said:   ach1199 said:   I suppose you know the staff there well because I'd never let anyone have all 16 digits of my DEBIT cards and the exp date as they did for you on the old fashioned imprinter.

To be fair, how often do you give a waiter or waitress your card and have then disappear with it for 3-4 minutes? You think these people can't just write the info down or snap a cell phone picture?

I don't. Use credit card for that. p.s. I work for a financial inst so know all the fraud involved.

ach1199 said:   TempName2 said:   ach1199 said:   I suppose you know the staff there well because I'd never let anyone have all 16 digits of my DEBIT cards and the exp date as they did for you on the old fashioned imprinter.

To be fair, how often do you give a waiter or waitress your card and have then disappear with it for 3-4 minutes? You think these people can't just write the info down or snap a cell phone picture?

I don't. Use credit card for that. p.s. I work for a financial inst so know all the fraud involved.

No, you do NOT know all fraud.

ach1199 said:   TempName2 said:   ach1199 said:   I suppose you know the staff there well because I'd never let anyone have all 16 digits of my DEBIT cards and the exp date as they did for you on the old fashioned imprinter.

To be fair, how often do you give a waiter or waitress your card and have then disappear with it for 3-4 minutes? You think these people can't just write the info down or snap a cell phone picture?

I don't. Use credit card for that. p.s. I work for a financial inst so know all the fraud involved.

No, you do NOT know all the fraud. You're kidding your self if you believe that. But, hopefully Sears will sell me this TV!

My hometown Sears was going to sell this and the 32" ($97) TV but there is a big sign now (and owner confirmed) that ALL hometown Sears stores cannot sell this tv for less than $499....AND they cannot sell the 32" tv for $97. The owner was working by herself and I just talked to her tonight. I was glad I stopped in because I was going to wait all day tomorrow. She said that this is the first year they haven't been able to sell everything that the bigger Sears have.

Just got home from out "hometown" Sears and it was closed. Had a sign in the window stating that they would not be selling that TV. Basically saying they couldn't afford it. Wasted trip.

Our Hometown also had a sign a couple days ago when I stopped saying they would not have a couple of those TV deals, though they have many of the Craftsman tool deals and other appliances.

southpaw, I think you're confused... Sears Hometown are not Sears stores... they are locally owned/operated small appliance dealers. These TVs were NOT in the Sears Hometown ads, so I'm not sure why your confusion means they are jerks.

I showed up to my Hometown Sears 2.5 hours early along with an elderly lady in a motorized scooter. We were the only two there at the time, and an employee came out to tell us they weren't opening till 8. I asked if they had the Toshiba 50" TV for $299, and he said no, we have it for $499. We talked for awhile and he went and got this stores ad for us to look at. We both left disappointed. The sales man said he was going to put a sign on the door saying they weren't going to honor the $299 that Corporate stores were offering.

I did end up getting a pretty good deal on a 46" LCD TV from Amazon for $349.

Our hometown store here in cabot ar sold us this tv for 499 at 5:30 this morning. We brought them the ad that said 299 and they refused to honor it. My husband has been on the phone all morning to the owner and customer service. The owner said that corproate said they could not honor the deal because it was a hometown store. Their website says they ad match and also match Sears branded sores. Customer service said they would work on it. Sounds like you have a good hometown store. I guess they are selling below cost. The ad does not say anything about not honoring hometown stores. They has a 2 page flimsy ad at the store that they let us look at the price of the tv. The national ad they refuse to honor...

keiferkat said:   Our hometown store here in cabot ar sold us this tv for 499 at 5:30 this morning. We brought them the ad that said 299 and they refused to honor it. My husband has been on the phone all morning to the owner and customer service. The owner said that corproate said they could not honor the deal because it was a hometown store. Their website says they ad match and also match Sears branded sores. Customer service said they would work on it. Sounds like you have a good hometown store. I guess they are selling below cost. The ad does not say anything about not honoring hometown stores. They has a 2 page flimsy ad at the store that they let us look at the price of the tv. The national ad they refuse to honor...

So Sears lied to you. "Hometown" what a crock!