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Is Best Buy refusing to honor its own price-matching policy?
Technology Web site HDGuru.com has published a report describing three separate visits to Best Buy locations where salespeople refused to comply with the store's own price-matching policy.
The report goes on to provide advice to customers interested in obtaining a price match themselves. Here's the gist of the HDGuru's exchange:
When asked to match the price, salesmen at all three stores said, " no," giving the same excuse: "The advertised Panasonic was on sale for three days, and Best Buy's price-match policy exempts limited-time sales."
However, there is no "limited time" exemption in Best Buy's price-match policy. Store personnel simply made up a phony excuse or were instructed to do so by higher-ups.
The report also cites an unnamed Best Buy source who claims that the order to refuse price matches, despite going against the company's stated policy, descended from management, with the aim of increasing the chain's profit margins.
HDGuru's advice to shoppers ranges from common sense (don't make a scene) to being mildly deceptive (ask if the store offers extended warranties, even if you don't want one).
I'm not advocating or endorsing said advice, but if you're serious about getting a price match or have been refused, it might come in handy.
The White House won't say it explicitly. Neither will the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Yet there is a whiff in the air that U.S. policy is about to change when it comes to medical marijuana possession and use.
"The message is clear," said UCLA professor Mark Kleiman, a former Justice Department official and an expert on crime and drug policy.
"It is no longer federal policy to beat up on hippies," said Kleiman.
Tell that to the DEA.
In California this past week, agents raided four dispensaries in Los Angeles and seized 225 kilograms of pot.
"It's a little bit surprising, because I think current DEA management didn't get the message," said Kleiman. "The message is, this is no longer drug warrior time. We are not on a cultural crusade against pot-smoking."
California law permits the sale of marijuana for medical purposes, though it is still against U.S. federal law.
Thirteen states have laws permitting medicinal use of marijuana. California is unique among them for the presence of dispensaries, businesses that sell marijuana and even advertise their services.
"Anyone possessing, distributing or cultivating marijuana for any reason is in violation of federal law," Sarah Pullen, a DEA spokeswoman in Los Angeles, said Thursday.
Sure, That may be the law, but it contradicts the medical marijuana position of the new president.
"The president believes that federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws, and as he continues to appoint senior leadership to fill out the ranks of the federal government, he expects them to review their policies with that in mind," said White House spokesman Nick Shapiro, repeating past statements.
So on Friday, DEA officials in Washington declined to comment at all on the subject.
As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama repeatedly promised a change in federal drug policy in situations where state laws allow use of medical marijuana.
"I think the basic concept of using medical marijuana for the same purposes and with the same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors, I think that's entirely appropriate," Obama told the Mail Tribune of Medford, Ore., in March.
A year earlier at a campaign stop in New Hampshire, Obama said: "I would not have the Justice Department prosecuting and raiding medical marijuana users."
At age 47, Obama is part of a generation that had plenty of exposure to pot.
In his memoir, "Dreams from My Father," he described time spent as a youth struggling with questions about his race and identity, and turning to drugs -- including marijuana and cocaine -- to "push questions of who I was out of my mind."
The new president is unlikely to make any official change in policy before he has a new DEA chief and drug czar in place.
Yet experts believe it is already clear the Obama administration will change the strategy, if not the law, on medical marijuana.
Philip Heymann, a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration who is now a Harvard professor, said it's time for the agency to put more effort into fighting drugs more dangerous than marijuana.
"I do expect him to appoint an administrator who takes marijuana less seriously than is traditional for the DEA, as I think most Americans do," said Heymann.
Heymann said he expects the Obama administration will eventually instruct the DEA to emphatically scale back raids on dispensaries, and conduct such raids only in instances where investigators believe a business is abusing the dispensary system as a cover for other criminal behaviour.
So last week's raids in California may be the last of their kind.
"The DEA's not likely to want to confront a new president," said Heymann. "It may simply be that they're behaving as they have traditionally, and they haven't anticipated the change Obama and his spokesman are signaling."
Reports say Canada's ambassador to the United States has bluntly warned American lawmakers their nation's moral authority on global trade issues is being put at risk.
A letter to U.S. Senate leaders from Michael Wilson warns of that prospect should "Buy American" provisions in President Barack Obama's economic rescue package become law.
The reports say the letter is marked by unusually harsh and direct language which reiterates that Canada is the largest single customer and trading partner of the U.S.
Wilson also warns the America-first procurement policy would increase the risk of another worldwide depression.
The letter surfaced as the Harper government faced opposition criticism Monday that it had waited too long to address the protectionist threat to Canada.
Obama's $800 billion-plus economic stimulus package, which could require all steel and manufactured goods used in resulting projects to come from American firms, is before the Senate this week. It could have the president's approval by mid-February.
Wilson said the package now before Congress could undercut the U.S.'s global reputation.
"If Buy America becomes part of the stimulus legislation, the United States will lose the moral authority to pressure others not to introduce protectionist policies," Wilson wrote.
His letter was sent to Senate Majority Leader, Democrat Harry Reid, and the minority leader, Republican Mitch McConnell.
"A rush of protectionist actions could create a downward spiral like the world experienced in the 1930s," the letter added.
It also warned the policy would "decrease North American competitiveness, thereby killing jobs rather than creating them."
In Ottawa, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff warned Monday that thousands of Canadian jobs and billions of dollars in exports are at risk.
"The U.S. legislation was not written overnight," Ignatieff said in the House of Commons.
"How did the government get caught off guard?"
International Trade Minister Stockwell Day replied that the Harper government is in daily contact with American officials on the issue.
"We are warning them of the dangers of protectionist movements. They say that they are concerned about this," Day said.
"They are looking at what they can do to mitigate it."
Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae, however, said the government needs to do more to ward off the protectionist push south of the border.
NDP Leader Jack Layton said Canada's response should be to bring in its own procurement preferences for Canadian companies.
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