How The Internet Failed Me On Black Friday
That's right, last Friday I put my faith in the internet and it let me down. Find out how after the jump.
Like many people, Ashley & I spent my Thursday night/Friday morning out and about trying to score some good deals on some Christmas presents. For those of you who say we should have been at home with my family, I'll have you know that my parents were out shopping with us too. We didn't have a gigantic list of stuff to get, but we had a few deals that we were aiming to get.
For the first few weeks of November, I had been keeping an eye on my favorite Black Friday deals site - http://bfads.net. Every year I check their site looking to see what great deals there are - mainly on video games. Last year, they introduced an iPhone app as well, and updated it for this year as well. Just like last year, I downloaded the app and used it to try and plan out my Black Friday. The app is great, because I can just search for an item that I was trying to buy, and the app will bring up all the stores with that item on sale.
I wont say all of what I was trying to get, in case those persons end up reading this blog, but one of the things I was looking forward to getting for myself was a 1600 Microsoft points card, which is normally $20, for only $10! Chloe recently brought home a very good report card, which means that I have to buy her a video game (its a deal I worked out with her awhile ago). Since she's really into Minecraft, I figured that I would buy her Minecraft on the Xbox 360, what with the split screen multiplayer and all.
So when all the Black Friday ads came with the Thanksgiving newspapers, I searched through them with my parents and Ashley looking for any new deals or other deals that I may have missed. I didn't bother double-checking the Target ad for the Microsoft Points card because it was a tertiary item that I was buying for myself. So that night I waited in line and got into Target and managed to get all the other items I was looking for in addition to the Microsoft Points card.
When I got up to the register, I swiped my card without thinking and grabbed my stuff and got my butt out of the store as soon as I could manage. However, on the way to the car, I got the notion that the amount was higher than it should have been. Upon reaching the car, I inspected my receipt to find out that the Microsoft Points card was NOT discounted like it should have been. I was confused because the target ad did not have the listing, but the BFads app showed it as being on sale. It wasn't until I clicked on the listing that I saw that Target changed the sale from being the 1600 Microsoft Points card to the 3 month Xbox Live card (also for $10).
Ugh! I was mildly annoyed, but I needed to get the card anyways, so I wasn't completely heartbroken. So maybe in the end it wasn't so much that the internet let me down, but that I should have double checked the sales ads to make sure that all the deals I had planned for were still there. I'll say this at least - I won't make that mistake again next year!
What about you? Did you get anything awesome/geeky/nerdy/etc on Black Friday?