How Fry's tried to screw me, and how it backfired

I’ve had and am getting a projector this week. This one.

Basically, after doing all my research and looking at all my options, I decided that this Sharp projector was the right combination of features, price, and size. It’s actually pretty hard to find a low-end projector that does decent high-end stuff (go figure).

If you’ll notice, the link I provided is from Fry’s Electroncs Outpost.com - so it says in the upper lefthand corner. I decided that I’d like a chance to try the projector out in a retail spot before I went ahead and bought anything that expensive - so I drove down to Fry’s with a friend or two to check it out.

The projector is sweet. I’ll probably end up writing some sort of review for it eventually. I decided to buy it.

However, the same projector was $200 more in the store. Nevermind that the web site didn’t list it as a web-only price.

The thing that really got me, though, was that Fry’s claimed they weren’t bound to the price because the store is unaffiliated with the web site. That’s right. Fry’s Electronics is not affiliated with Fry’s Electronics online. Don’t ask me, I don’t know.

The problem with buying it from the web site is that there was basically no return policy. So I decided to do what any good customer would do: I bought the projector in the store, took it home, ripped it open, and tested it out. Then I hopped online, bought the same projector…and returned the first one to the store.