The clearance prices were reset to the prices that they were originally, and then the clearance was taken off of that. And once the liquidators took over, we weren't Linens 'n Things anymore, so we couldn't accept the coupons.

After all the crap we (the employees) went through, I have absolutely no respect for the penny pinching, rude, animalistic trash that came through the doors at the end.

There aren't really very many things you're going to actually need to buy from there. Either it's something you need so you've already had it, or it's something you don't need and should find the best deal for it, usually online, or you shouldn't care and just buy it wherever you feel like it. Personally I tend to just buy from Walmart whenever I do need something.

I'm an attorney so I understand full well how liquidation works. I don't think most attorneys shop much, since we are usually working anyway. Men in general don't shop nearly as much as women, in general (many exceptions, as I said I find female attorneys are generally no nonsense either). I think these sales are more preying on the female psyche. Most women I know love to shop and are victims to these scams.

This happens at every "going out of business" sale. Generally, by the time consumers find out about it, all the real deals are likely already gone.

Now we're all kinds of confused in here.

Almost every state has their laws posted online these days; look up the definition of fraud.

What's going on is nothing new; society has recognized these problems and written laws to deal with them. I'm not surprised that some choose to break the law to obtain a little more profit - but I am quite surprised by those who jump up to defend these illegal activities.

Is this the company's way of getting back at consumers for not having shopped there before they caught teh bankrupts?

I don't mind taxes on stupidity. It would amuse me, however, to see the companies that do this finally admit to it. A big sign next to the "discounted" item with the following:

Original Price: $100
Liquidation Discount: $20%!!!
Liquidation Price: $80 (You save $20)
(Oh, and by the way, Sucker, last week we sold this piece of crap at $50, and it wasn't even on sale!)

@IngridBabcha: I like grape, or cherry how about you?

We looked around a bit and found the prices weren't very enticing for anything. Retailers that are not going out of business are offering better deals these days. Even without any of the deception described in this article, the 25% discounts that were being offered do not seem like anything special in this environment.

Sorry, I can't hear the word "expose" without thinking about this crazy bitch.

I was so mad at myself for getting ripped off that way. :P

If the liquidator were to base their top-line price ABOVE MSRP, I think that state regulators would be able to take an interest. But otherwise, it's as BrianDaBrain says: The liquidation company is a new entity selling the merchandise, and they can set their retail price to anything they want. Although I have to wonder what would happen during a state of emergency like a blizzard or hurricane. The laws against price-gouging in those conditions are often more strict than the regular price-gouging/false advertising regulations.

I Didn't think about it at the time, but I'm guessing this was an item they forgot to put the higher price on!

I was working for LNT when the liquidation first started so I can provide some insight here. As the picture shows, the tags were clearance prices. Once LNT was bought by the liquidators, those clearance prices were no longer valid, since they had been marked down by LNT standards. Linens N Things technically doesn't exist any more, so if anyone is being "underhanded" it's the liquidators. However, every sign in the closing stores will tell you that the discount is off the original price of the item. And yes, it is a terrible deal, yes, you should wait until it's a better deal, and yes, people should not be swarming the stores as soon as they see a going-out-of-business sign. The masses need to learn to read and not go into hysterics blaming everyone but themselves when this sort of thing gets "discovered". I got so disgusted with the vultures every day that I had to leave (not to mention I was losing my job anyway [not that any of the customers cared]). You really see the true nature of some people when a closing sale starts. It's repulsive.

One of the worst Black Friday deals this year is at JCP, who is offering a Jumbo Remote controller by Sharper Image. They claim the regular price is 39.99, but it's not, their in store regular price is 19.99. The super-fantastic Black Friday price is 18.88! Wow. It gets better. You can find the same remote in other stores for 9.99 everyday.

The only way to get a good deal at liquidations is when there's less than a month left.

A local news station did this same investigation a couple of weeks ago, and it resulted in legal action by the state of Connecticut. Submitted it as soon as I saw it on their site. Did it get posted? Nooooooooo. Here's the segment: [www.nbcconnecticut.com]

@Dansc29625: It may not be the liquidators. In a situation like this, more than likely the liquidators have kept on the existing store staff and management. Why should they bother to do things right? The store is closing, they'll be out of a job soon, and as long as they don't do anything illegal the worst that can happen is they'll be fired. Oh, no! Don't fire me from the job i'm going to be laid off from in 4 weeks anyway! I wouldn't bother to remove the old tickets either. In fact, i might mention the old tickets to customers...the longer it takes to empty out the store, the longer you're collecting a paycheck.

This is why I no longer waste my time at these so-called 'liquidation' sales. No real bargains to be had, crappy picked over merchandise and lots of people looking for 'bargains.' Total waste of time.

Most of the time you can do better on-line these days without the hassle of leaving your house.

I'm greatful LnT was still accepting American Express cards up here. Wife and I spotted a stainless roasting pan with lid, 50% off. Got it home and unpacked, had been dropped so hard the dents in the lid and pan wouldn't let the lid seat correctly. Called AmEx and invoked Purchase Protection, got 100% of my money back!

@Killians1978: Yay logic!!!

They seem to be claiming legitimacy on the grounds that they're not bound by the LnT prices because it's not LnT selling the stuff. But is the liquidator's name placed over the store's? Displayed prominently inside with all LnT notation removed, present on the receipts instead of the store's, so that it's clear to shoppers they're not buying from LnT?

Liquidation simply means that WE are the ones getting milked.

I think the higher prices in bankruptcy store liquidation gambit is standard operating procedure. A few years back, when Service Merchandise folded and liquidated its store near me, I went in expecting to find bargains. Not so much. If anything, I thought they had raised prices. At that time, I was working for bankruptcy lawyers whose clients were mostly creditors in big business bankruptcies, and I realized the raised prices made perfect sense. Bankrupt businesses are under considerable legal pressure not to sell anything for less than its true value, and as much money is possible is needed to pay creditors. It stands to reason that any prices the liquidator deems too low will be raised. And to make the higher-priced stuff move, they of course have to make the consumers think they're getting a deal. Hence, the fake markdowns that are really markups. Caveat emptor.

The sticker, however, was not covered up, just had a sharpie over the price before the liquidation and was 3.99...

@CountryJustice: I agree. I'll take it a step further by saying that they aren't really rasing the price in the first place (at least in these cases) so there is even less to get bent out of shape over.

Why would you expect them to honor a clearance price now? The whole store is on clearance. The crap you were trying to get rid of when you were a solvent retailer is now no different then all the other crap in the store.

Lets continue with your yard sale parallel. Say I've got a book I'm selling that got wet. All the other books are in fine shape so I'm going to charge $3 less for the wet book then the dry books. Then it rains during my yard sale and all the books get wet so I mark them all down $3. I'm not going to mark the one that was wet before down another $3 I'm just going to bring the rest of the wet books to the same price of the first wet book. The first book isn't more wet. Its the same here. I don't really need to move the stuff that was originally on clearance any more or any less then the other stuff so when the price of everything else gets lowered its just going to bring it in line with the clearance that it was at in the first place.

The point I'm making though is that a little bit of research would reveal that competitors will probably have the same or comparable item at a better price. If you pay too much simply because you don't do a little price shopping, you can't very well get mad at the person that sold the item to you.

The FIRST step in liquidation is to REDUCE LOSS. This means you put prices BACK to their list price - a level they're rarely at during normal operation, THEN start to do discounts.

It does a liquidation company no good to start at an already discounted price and discount that further. It's just not smart business when the idea is to completely eliminate stock while attempting to finish above the cost of the total inventory. I don't know what everyone expects - to just watch these companies die and then swoop in and be allowed to pick at the bones until there's nothing left - salaries need to be paid, employee wages need to be covered, and most importantly, the cost of inventory needs to be at least broken even so the country as a whole does not suck up EVEN MORE DEBT.

@zentex: Most of *here*...GMA reaches many more people, so it's a good thing

Bastards.

They had to make money to pay for all the human sign-spinners they employed to stand at intersections all over town.

Circut city is out. They "sell" the whole shebang to the liquidation company, take the cash, and wave goodbye.

The liquidation company then raises the prices (which is perfectly legal- they just assumed ownership and can price as they see fit) and then offer their "sale".

At my local LnT I swear they've even brought in some new mechaandise thT i'd never seen this retailer sell before. Like Pink Floyd-branded shot glasses (classy). I swear the liquidator is bringing in additional non LnT merchandise to try to make even more $$ from this liquidation.

I noticed something similar (though not *quite* as shady) at K-Mart recently. They have a whole ton of earrings, rings, necklaces, and other accessories with red tags that say something like "Special! $4.99". You THINK it's some type of a discount, but then you turn the package over and you see the retail price, and it's the exact same price as it is on the "Special!" tag.

Can someone point to me where the definition of "liquidation," as it relates to the retail world, includes any mention of a dramatic price decrease? The point is for the new owners of all the crap L-n-T or CC used to own/sell to turn said crap into cash. If they feel justified in raising the price, so be it.

I could buy a toaster today, keep the original packaging and mfr warranty intact, and try to sell it at a yard sale this weekend at a 10% mark-up. And I could hang a sign on it that advertises the store I got it from. And if someone buys it, then great. If they don't, then shitty for me.

I dunno. I'm bored of people relying on anyone else to do their price shopping for them. Either pay for the instant gratification, or do a little work to get a good deal. Remember the maxim: If it's too good to be true...

This company can't go out of business quick enough.

In the case of Circuit City, much of their lost sales are due to customers knowledgable enough to shop online for their electronics. The people who will fall for this sort of ploy are those who don't do research in the first place (the existing CC customers). So they are just unloading product on the same people who had been shopping there in the first place.

Not that it is justified, but if they are customers who fall for 500% mark up on AV cables at CC, they are the same to fall for this type of "sale". Luckly, there isn't as many of these types of customers as there used to be (thus why CC is closing stores).

I saw this the first time I went to the LnT liquidation sale.

There was an older iPod dock that I wanted that was on "clearance" at one point for $69.99 but for the closeout price it went back to $99.99 with 30% off that brought it back to 'bout the same price.

Guess I didn't think much of it. Made sense to me actually. You put something on clearance because you want to clear it out of inventory. Here they want to clear everything out of inventory, why wouldn't they go back to the original price.

On a related note, I am a terrible person because I dumped them both soon after I got their cards.

@craptastico: The liquidators are doing quite well actually. I imagine they'll have more and more buisness as time goes on.

I wrote Consumerist about this over the weekend. Guess my email wasn't confirmation enough :/

I actually appreciate it when these morning shows have practical information. I turn them on largely for the noise, but I get sick of the filler segments/human interest stories that have nothing to do with anything.

it's shocking that they're going out of business

Question, though. Isn't it illegal to raise prices right before a sale only to take the discount off those new, higher prices?

As for the deals in Circuit City, they are just as bad. I thought I found a really sweet deal on a Nikon D70, but after some reading realized it was for the display model that everyone and their kid had manhandled and jerked around.

wait! That company will start taking the tags off before putting the new ones on and then there will be no evidence.

Is this the same company that is doing CC and did CompUSA?