Boaters World is going out of business and they are liquidating their inventory. Went to my local store (Columbia, SC) Friday and bought a two person towable. The sign claims they are offering 20 - 50% off of the ORIGINAL PRICE. The price sticker, dated 3/15/2009, said $209.99 and they knocked 20% off for a selling price of $167.92. After getting it home, I found a different price sticker on the other side of the box. This one, dated 7/31/2008 said the price was $179.99. So they had clearly been selling this item for $179.99 for the last 7 months and they jacked the price up 17% before offering the discount of 20%.

Now I realize liquidation companies buy all the inventory and sell it in cases like this. And I realize they jack prices up before offering their discounts. But in this case, I had proof the item was selling at the lower price before the liquidation.

So I went back there to argue the ORIGINAL PRICE was $179.99 and they should have taken 20% off of that for a selling price of $143.92. The kids in the store kind of laughed it off and said all sales were final. I insisted on talking to a manager so they rang up their manager, Billie Sue Moore, who was not in the store. I politely stated my case, but Ms. Moore did not take too kindly to being called while she was away from the store. She became more and more irate as the conversation progressed and was yelling and swearing at me by the time the call ended.

So caveat emptor at Boaters World. I used to like that store and was sorry to hear they were going under. Maybe it was because of managers like Billie Sue Moore.

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