but you guys forget something....if CC is going out of business, why would they try to salvage their name? This is about paying off creditors and getting out ASAP-

My husband went into our CC recently to look for any good deals. He found an Acer 22" flat screen monitor which was identical to the one we had just bought for my computer at Best Buy 2 months ago for $159.99. There was no pricetag on the monitor, so he took it up to a clerk to find out how much they wanted for it. They wanted....*drum roll* $206.00!! Needless to say my husband promptly put it right back and walked out of the store. CC may be trying to liquidate their assets, but they don't seem to be desperate enough yet to even price their merchandise competitively.

I find it particularly funny how people get irate with them trying to make money, pointing out markup on things like cables and surge protectors as if it's a social injustice. Heaven forbid a company try to pull a profit...

Whether or not you get a good deal at the Circuit City liquidations really depends on what you buy. The most popular items (like PCs, TVs, video games) are horrible deals, but a lot of the peripherals (not including memory cards) are okay, later in the sale.

I picked up a Kensington laptop power adapter for about $30, when the lowest prices on amazon are $50 used or $80 new. I got a piano keyboard bench for $20 that goes for $28 new on amazon (and more than that, for used, but only because of shipping). A laptop cable lock ran me $15 at the sale, compared to the $27 lowest price new or used on amazon.

My point is, the liquidation sale is just like anything else: research first. You can't just categorically say it's all bad.

But walking around made me snicker...the GPS units seemed to be the biggest rip-off of all.

quest1962 is 100% right.

Consumers need to understand this is NOT CC anymore. It is a liquidation company who has bought the inventory and is operating out of the CC location.

Why consumers STILL think these are "everything must go at any price" sales escapes me.

I don't care about people wandering into a CC looking to see if there is a bargain to be had. Heck, I have walked in to liquidation sales just for fun (and always left empty handed). It's the fools who are waiting in line to buy or walking out with bags of merchandise they THINK they got a deal on that is nuts.

I guess after all the media coverage of this if someone walks into a CC stores and is ripped off, they deserve it.

The liquidation company is trying to maximize their return on a poor investment. No more, no less. They ARE counting on people to not recognize the fallacy of the sale, which is true.

But just because the sign still says CC, your past (well deserved)ire at them is now misplaced. This happened last year when COMPUSA went under, too.

Complain to, and about, the liquidators!

actually...they can close with all the merchandise. They'll just RTV it, and the companies might make a little money back on the deal. Not as much as actually selling it, mind you, but something is better than nothing.

@Gstein:

No they are not any good at all!

We stopped in last night shopping for a desktop for my daughters birthday. They were crazy busy, shelves were getting empty but no deals at all. 30% off of rocky horror picture show if that interests you was about the best I saw.

We stopped at abc warehouse too. Walked in to find no less than ten employees standing around watching tv, playing football in the aisle and the pretty cashier girl drinking pepsi and chatting away on her cell phone. Nice.

Which company is doing the shipping? Even a ground shipment to your next door neighbor is going to cost you around $35 - $40 assuming you have an account with reasonably high volume and a daily pickup.

For as many years as liquidation sales have been going on, you would think a shopper would at least figure out that the stuff they are buying isn't necessarily a good deal. You don't even have to be an ultra-savvy shopper to figure that one out, and I admit that I didn't know every trick of the liquidators several years ago but I always recognized when a product at a liquidation sale was not a good deal, even before reading Consumerist. As far as I know its been done the same way for a long time.

It really isn't that hard to understand.

What is wrong with them trying to get as much money as they can? Why does everyone expect to get something at a bargain? You want it? You want to pay the price marked? If yes, buy it. If no, don't. They can mark everything in there up. If some fool goes and buys something and finds out he paid more than at store #2, that is his problem for not looking around.@humphrmi:

I am not tired of hearing these stories. I am shaking my head at the IDIOTS who are still walking into Circuit City during this liquidation expecting to find deals after all the reports on TV and elsewhere. Forget that it is well documented that these sales are run by companies in the business of making big profits. How many does it take (Linens N Things, Mervyn's, etc.) before the public realizes it needs to avoid these. Geez!

It's a bunch of scam artists, and there must be new, strict laws that prevent them from raising the prices above what the actual store was actually selling them for. I.E. If a prodcut was $700 at Circuit City before liquidation, they must base their sale prices off of that price, not the MSRP.

Just ran the dimensions for a 32" TV box through our mail room. $24 to ship. That's certainly less than taking 30 mins out of my day (you quoted 20 mins round-trip to the store, I'm assuming it'll take ~10 mins to get out of the car, exchange TV, get TV back in car).

and yes, tax. None of that if you're buying from the right places online. I really resent that 1% of the sales tax in this county goes to the NFL team and their stadium. Nothing like corporate welfare. So tax here's 7%. As long as that TV's more than $342 ($342*.07=$24), I'm still ahead of the game even with a return.

I'm happy to pay more to get service or to get something immediately. For instance, go to Nordstrom or to an Apple store and you'll get great service. But you're not going to get much help from Circuit City staff during their liquidation. At least that's what I saw.

I asked the receipt checker on the way out when they were closing the store for good-she said around March.

This is one slow death.

It seems that this liquidation is so outrageous it's in danger of becoming the botch job that ruins liquidations for years to come. Once the public becomes educated and has a more realistic perception of these phony liquidation sales, the liquidators will have no choice but to change their strategy.

I just recently returned an LCD TV at Radioshack, of all places. Few questions asked, and after a brief check of the box's contents, I had my refund. Tax & all. I even bought an upconverting DVD player while I was there.

The cost to ship that 32" TV, with insurance, would have been much greater than the gas I used driving a few blocks, and the value of my "time".

When a small item like a cell phone costs $8 to ship, AND I have to worry about it reaching its destination, AND when gas is so cheap, you're damn right I'm going to drive to a store.

Unless it's a refrigerator or similar item that you'd have to ship by freight instead of by traditional shipper, it's much cheaper for me to just fill out the RMA online, slap a FedEx sticker / postage meter label on the box and call it done. How much is your time really worth?

A tax on being stupid.

It's why when I buy a large item, I'll go to BB, just in case. I've purchased 5 TVs in the past 5 years. Only one was from an online retailer, and luckily I've had no problems. And the ones I bought at B&M? Open box with a full warrenty, and cheaper than online. Most of the open box stuff was more or less new, as well.

Seeing as how it is a laptop, I'm not particularly faulting them, although now I'll extend the warranty straight with the manufacturer.

@supercereal: It's all evidence leading to the conclusion that the "sale" is a sham and should be avoided. "These are ALL the different places where you can get a better price etc etc"

You're right, it's not really fair to compare the prices of an online retailer to a brick and mortar retailer.

However, you really should be able to compare the prices of a brick and mortar retailer which is being liquidated and who offers no warranties to the prices of an online retailer.

There is simply no reason to buy from the higher priced liquidated retailer. And advantages of buying locally are simply eliminated by the liquidation.

Anyone who makes a purchase without doing their own homework deserves to pay more. Had they shopped around before maybe Circuit City wouldn't be in the situation it is in and 35000 people would still be working.

Newegg can have ridiculous return policies on certain items. Case in point I just bought an LCD monitor from them. Unknown to me at the time, the item was quickly discontinued and slapped with a bullshit return policy of "no refunds". Go figure: the monitor has a dead pixel on it. Newegg won't process a return without anything less than EIGHT dead pixels. What is this? 1995?

What many people also don't realize is Newegg will NEVER comp return shipping for an item. Never. They'll pay to ship a replacement back to you, but everything leaving your possession is on your dime. There is no reason for this, other than to cut costs. If they're trying to combat buyer's remorse, they already do as such by implementing restocking fees, even on returned, defective items!

This is the reason for brick & mortar stores, people. I have had enough of dealing with Newegg and playing Russian Roulette each time I click that "Place Order" button. In the last six months, I have had a DOA motherboard and defective monitor. Both I have lost money on. If I had bought these at a B&M store (as I did for both of their replacements), I would have only been out the cost of gas for a 20 min round-trip.

Newegg, and every other online retailer, has to make large strides in their return policies in order for me to consider paying over $20 for anything electronic online in the near future.

Now this probably isn't true in all (or even most) cases, but it is here. Math is your friend!

Oh yeah, first.