Great to have your pictures back dchomak. I love pictures.
I told my wife about the sale refusal and she said I should inform HD Corporate of the matter. She also felt that if an item in on a shelf, you take it to a check out and ask the clerk for price, and you say "I'll take it", that constitutes offer and acceptance. I actually had said this to the clerk at the time. I sent a message and Corporate replied that they should have indeed sold me the bulbs for a penny each. They apologized and said they will be teaming with that HD's management to resolve the problem. They gave me a case number and said they would get back to me by next Thursday. .
I think your wife is absolutely right! PM me, I have way more than enough lights, I can cover you for your loss
Yesterday I had to go the Harbor Freight for some foam rollers, and guess what? There is another HD on the way! I found another 25 LED bulbs, all at a penny. This time they were all MR16 sized lights and none of them were of the 525 lumen type. Found a couple more of the 24 hour digital timers, they too rang up for a penny.
I had a real scare leaving the store though, after going though the self check out and paying cash, as I went to exit the store the “theft deterrent” machines went off! WOW. All I could do is stop and turn around for help. Fortunately one of the cashiers who knows me called me over and waved each of the 3 shopping bags over her demagnetizer, WHEW. Apparently there was an anti-theft tag on one or more of the lights, and there is no de-magnetizer in the self checkouts. That never happened before.
After that, I ran into some traffic and realized that if I did a detour I could probably still get home in time and visit yet another store. That store had a couple of MR16’s at a penny and a whole bunch of Halogena bulbs for a penny. They also had three glass globes that I guessed were also going to ring up at a penny even though they were marked $3.33 on clearance. I first bought the bulbs and went back for the globes as I figured things could get dicey with those. Good thing I did!
I grabbed the the globes and the display tray that they came in and went up to self checkout. I took the globes out of the tray and placed the tray in the bagging area as I intended to scan them and place them back into their tray. I was right, they each rang up for a penny and I was just about to pay when the attendant yelled over to me “HEY, those globes rang up at a penny, they’re supposed to be $12 each”
I calmly said that no, they used to be $3.33 on clearance but now they are further reduced to a penny. Turns out, I was looking at the tag on the front of the tray and he was seeing the tag on the side. THAT tag said was $12.97 now $12.00. I showed him the tag in the front which said $3.33, to which he said so what do you want to pay then? $3.33? I said no, I want to pay a penny, just as they scan. I asked him to scan the bar code on the tray. It was a good thing I saved that tray because that settled it, they once again, scanned at a penny.
He apologized for the confrontation and added that in the year and a half he has been there, he has never seen anything scan for a penny. I told him a funny story about a couple of years ago when I found 2 table lamps marked for a penny apiece, and how I “complained” to the checkout girl after she had scanned them, that I was going to have to break a nickel on the purchase because I only had 1 loose penny.
We both laughed and I left with my globes. They are really quite nice.
Later, after I round up all my penny LED lights, I will do a “group shot”
These penny deals are not marked or advertized. Dchomak has a method to detect when an item maybe on "clearance" for a penny.
I wonder if HD Corporate actually wants the items sold for a penny. Seems cheaper than properly disposing of the electronics. I think it's the individual stores that don't bother marking the items. Other than that one lady, I've never had an associate freak out on the penny prices. I'm hoping that the Case they opened from for me gives some feedback that sheds light on what the process is supposed to be.
Do fill us in if you find out anything, we get clearance sales that are 70-90% off sometimes but never below a dollar unless its a coupon or rebate (neither from HD).
This is the sum total of all the LED bulbs I got for a penny each. Sum total for all in the picture is 71 cents.
I got these over a period of 3 days at 4 different Home Depots, in fact I found 21 of then today October 19, so they are still out there. Many of the clearance items I posted about a couple of weeks ago on the Home Depot Deal alert thread, if still in a store, will ring up for a penny. Not only these LED bulbs, but the cell phone chargers, digital timers, etc. will ring up for a penny IF you can find any.
Remind me again how you knew these were all down to a penny? Do you just "price check" every now and then on clearance items? Watch prices online? Have an inside source?
It has taken me awhile to figure this out. There are exceptions. I was once told that if a clearance item price ends with “.00” then it will not be reduced further, that is a final price until they are gone. There was once an exception to this that had me confused. Remember when the DST was on clearance in the U.S. for $12.00? That WAS supposed to be a final markdown, but at some HD’s those big lights so poorly that even at $12.00 they did not sell. Then for some strange reason it was repriced at $12.06! I now think I know what that was all about.
Another manager once told me, and the other day it was confirmed, that if a clearance item has a price that ends with “.06” then that item will be on the floor at that price for a set amount of time. After that set amount of time, if they do not sell through, they will be marked at an even lower price that ends with “.03” Then the final countdown begins If after that set amount of time, if they do not sell through, they will be set to a penny and removed from the floor, and thrown away. Unlike local store sales, where a manager has the discretion to set a sale price, these .06 and .03 sale prices seems to be done simultaneously across all stores in the U.S. Because the newer prices are set remotely and not at the store, it seems that there are times when a store or stores is caught off guard and do not remove the items in time before someone like me comes along and scoops them up.
That must be why sometimes when we see a clearance item at an “.06” price, it rings up at an “.03” price. That store wasn’t on the ball and failed to update the price tags. But the new, lower price is already in the system, done remotely by corporate. And by the way, it now seems that the price does not have to end in “03” but rather “something 3”. What to keep in mind is that when you see a clearance item with a price that ends in “3”, the end is near. That’s how I caught this deal, I kept checking certain items that I was interested anytime I passed a store. I would run in, get one, and check the price at the self checkout. This time, most of the big lights were removed already, but a lot was left behind.
Also it is useful to look in weird places for forgotten items, like under shelves, behind other merchandise etc. I swear, I find stuff sometimes that has been squirreled away by an employee for harvesting later. A manager told me that if an employee was caught doing that, it would mean an immediate termination.
I almost forgot, maybe the reason why the DST went on clearance from $12.00 back UP to $12.06. I think they originally were confident that they would sell through at the clearance price of $12.00. When they didn’t, they changed their minds and put in into the spiral of death. “.06” -> “.03” to throwing away.
Ok, not sure I'll remember that for future visits. So you do keep checking the stores and not just the shelf price but take it to a self checkout for a price check. I bet you do a LOT of price checking! :) You must have Home Depots around you full of incompetent employees, because I never see the $0.01 deals around here! Guess my store gets them removed pretty darn quick.
On my first trip into the store, I went over to the battery recycle bin to check it out. Right on top I could see a double capacity Ridgid tool pack in a bag. Normally I would just take it and exit the store and bring it out to my truck and come back in. THIS time I was impatient and decided to just bring it into the store, I have done that before because to get it out, all you have to so is show it to a clerk as you check out. Being used all I would say is It’s mine, I brought it into the store. This time however, when I was deep into the store and a took it out of the bag, I noticed that even though it is of the older style pack, it looked brand freaking new! Now I’ve got a problem, HTH am I going to get this out of the store? So I grabbed a Homer bucket and found some lights and took as many as the bucket would hold. Then I went over to the tool section and got help. I asked the guy if this newer style Ridgid pack on the shelf would replace this one I brought in, it looked different. I gave him “mine” and he checked the 2 out and said yes. So I went straight to the self checkout with the 2 batteries and the bucket of LED’s I scanned the LED’s, penny, penny, etc. Then scanned the new battery pack. $69.95, but that’s not a problem because I’ll return that in a couple of days. After I paid I was horrified to think that maybe the battery pack that I just bought would set off the alarm because there is no de-magnetizer in the self checkout lanes. I walked over the the lady attendant and asked what to do. She said sometimes they go off, sometimes not, try it. So I did and there was no problem. So I went out and off loaded the lights and batteries and went back in because there were more LED’s to get. I filled up another bucket and headed over to the self checkout. This time I was the only one checking out, so the same lady recognizes me from minutes before and comes over to me while I’m scanning, penny, penny, penny…… While I’m doing this, she starts asking me questions like, wow what are those, I have never seen those before. I explained they they are 12v lights that need special wiring, meanwhile I am trying to keep her from noticing that everything is scanning at a penny. Then she asks me are they for indoors or outdoors, then I realize she’s hitting on me, all I want to do is get the scanning done and pay and get out of there!
So finally I finish and it’s like 12 cents and I put a dollar bill in, hopping she doesn’t notice that with all that scanning I am paying with just a dollar bill. By the way, every trip I have to pay with a dollar bill, no way am I whipping out a quarter after all that scanning. By now I have a whole pocket of change from all the dollar bills I have used over the last few days.
Anyway, I finish and go to leave and the alarm sounds again like it did yesterday! Every one of those bulbs I just paid for had tags. Of course she was right there and took care of me, WHEW.
I almost forgot, when I got home I checked that “looks like new” Ridgid pack. It had a blown MOSFET which I replaced and it works fine, as good as new. Tomorrow I will return the one I bought and in doing that it will put me right next to the recycle bin again………. :bigsmile:
So I left, went across the street and got my free with coupon, no purchase required, Harbor Freight 25 foot tape measure.
So I went straight to the self checkout with the 2 batteries and the bucket of LED’s I scanned the LED’s, penny, penny, etc. Then scanned the new battery pack. $69.95, but that’s not a problem because I’ll return that in a couple of days. After I paid I was horrified to think that maybe the battery pack that I just bought would set off the alarm because there is no de-magnetizer in the self checkout lanes. I walked over the the lady attendant and asked what to do. She said sometimes they go off, sometimes not, try it. So I did and there was no problem. So I went out and off loaded the lights and batteries and went back in because there were more LED’s to get. I filled up another bucket and headed over to the self checkout. This time I was the only one checking out, so the same lady recognizes me from minutes before and comes over to me while I’m scanning, penny, penny, penny…… While I’m doing this, she starts asking me questions like, wow what are those, I have never seen those before. I explained they they are 12v lights that need special wiring, meanwhile I am trying to keep her from noticing that everything is scanning at a penny. Then she asks me are they for indoors or outdoors, then I realize she’s hitting on me, all I want to do is get the scanning done and pay and get out of there!