Monday, November 10, 2008

Circuit City Bankruptcy

UPDATE: 1/16/09 I have written another post about the announcement that Circuit City is closing and including information for people with extended warranties.

I read today that Circuit City is filing for bankruptcy protection. I am not a big fan, nor even small fan of Circuit City. The only good shopping experience I ever had there was when I lived in Aeia, Hawaii. I lived about a five minute walk from the Circuit City near Pearlridge. I was able to order a new computer online and go to pick it up.

When I picked it up, a salesman tried to con me into buying an extended warranty. I told him I was not interested. He told me that I was making a big mistake, blah, blah, blah... I cut him off and asked if the store was selling me a piece of crap that was going to break down, because I wouldn't want to buy it if that was the case. He continued to go on about how I should get an extended warranty. I told him to shut up or I wouldn't buy the computer. He shut up.

I hate these guys trying to sell you these extended warranties. Circuit City has built a business built more on extended warranties than on their sales. I always considered an extended warranty through Circuit City to be a waste of money. Now that everyone is facing tighter times, I bet more people consider it a waste of money. Add that on top of overall sales slowing down, it is no surprise that Circuit City is in trouble.

Something else for a consumer to consider is whether or not Circuit City will even be in business a few months down the road. If they won't be, then a longer warranty is certainly a waste of money.

I really don't like Circuit City, if you haven't noticed by now. The last straw for me was watching management openly screw their workers.
The electronics retailer, facing larger competitors and falling sales, said Wednesday that it would lay off about 3,400 store workers — immediately — and replace them with lower-paid new hires as soon as possible.

The laid-off workers, about 8 percent of the company’s total work force, would get a severance package and a chance to reapply for their former jobs, at lower pay, after a 10-week delay, the company said.

Read the March 2007 story here


Of course, with the plummeting stock prices at the time, I guess that the Company Executives had to screw over thousands of ordinary people so that they could somehow justify huge paychecks for themselves. Like a lot of executives for major companies and corporations, these executives have shown themselves to be Morally Bankrupt. Now, Circuit City, under their leadership, is Financially Bankrupt.

3 comments:

blunoz said...

I never did like Circuit City. After a major purchase at a CC in CA in 1999, I swore we'd never go back. Then early this year, I decided to give them a shot and went to the Aiea store. They pissed me off again. Good riddance. But my condolences to the employees who lost their jobs this close to the holidays.

Oh, and Consumer Reports did a study on extended warranties to see if they were worth it, and the bottom line takeaway from the article was NO, they're a waste of money and just a sales gimmick. Don't do it!

beebs said...

The word I got was that you had to say you didn't want an extended service contract three times before the sales clerk to quit badgering you.

I about walked out of the store while purchasing a telephone. The phone cost 33 bucks and the proposed service contract was 29 bucks for three years.

reddog said...

I would buy returned items cheap at CC. You could even bargain with them, naming a lower price. They would run to see if the manager would OK it and often he would. It was always little stuff. Phone. Car stereo. Alarm clock.

Mostly I buy last years model for 1/3 to 1/2 the new price, on Craig's List. If you live in the Megapolis, you can find exactly what you want used.