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Unsuspecting sellers of electric chains - in the U.S. may also have advantages.

Sunday is shopping day in America. Flutter out of the newspapers, such as a Christmas goose fat, the readers receive dozens of advertising inserts, and particularly the electronics and office-chains vie with special offers. Since applying Best Buy, a Gateway laptop for $ 500 ("Save $ 200 Instantly!"), Are at CompUSA are digital picture frames for $ 60 ("Save $ 40"), and Office Depot promises calculator buyers a FREE neoprene sleeve as a bonus ("a $ 7.99 value").

I needed a memory card for my new digital camera and found it at Circuit City: 2 Gigabyte SanDisk Ultra II for just under $ 30 - "save 33% instantly!" Not a bad deal, especially since the store is located just a few hundred meters away from my apartment. I immediately went over on Sunday morning, for the good deals are often sold on the first day - as is the case is just as loss-leading offers.

It did not look good. Everything possible was hanging on the wall: Compact Flash cards, Sony memory sticks, XD, MicroSD - just not what I was looking for. "May be, that we no longer have the card," said the salesman. "A lot of people order them early in the morning on the Internet to collect the stuff later, and then we need to take them off the shelf." He saw a precaution after the computer and disappeared with the words: "Actually, we should still have two in stock, I look back sometimes."

Time passed, and my gaze wandered back to the wall on which hung the many different memory cards - the most, as it turned out, not necessarily where they belonged. CF cards were labeled as SD card, excellent 1-gigabyte card with 2-gigabyte, and hardly ever a sign to fit the product that allegedly hung there. Middle of the mess I found a SanDisk Extreme III card in their hands - even faster than the ones I tried, but certainly a lot more expensive too. The price tag of $ 24.95 saying. That could not agree. Someone had hung up the goods rather blindly, without bothering about whether the prices matched.

The seller came back, put on a sad look and said, "Sorry, we're all out" - sold out completely. OK, I said, and what about this card? It says here that it will cost 24.95 ...? The seller took the card out of my hand, looked at it, winced and said: "Um, the price is not right ..." I knew it, I thought. "... But there you have it that way on the shelf, we will stick to it."

He arrived quickly at the wrong price tag and pulled it out of the plastic holder to prevent anyone else got a very special book. And I paid $ 24.95 (plus VAT) for a memory card, which would normally cost $ 65. Sometimes you just love them, the anonymous electronic superstores, with their often unsuspecting employees. Anyway, as long as they make mistakes in favor of their clients. And no offense, dear German retail chains - but I doubt that Media Markt & Co. in such a case would have been as accommodating. Or should I deceive myself because ...?