I'm posting this as a bit of a 'buyer beware' type story... apologies for the length of the post in advance :)

Saturday morning we head out to buy a new lawnmower. Went to Placemakers first, they had a good deal on a Morrison 350ST (usually $499, reduced to $399). I decided to check over the road at Bunnings before purchasing. Bunnings had the same model for $425. Now, Bunnings heavily advertise their 'price promise', where they will beat a competitor's price by 15% on the same stocked item, even if the competitor has it on sale. Great, I thought, I can get this for $399 - 15% = $339. Compared with the RRP of $499, that's a hefty discount.

We told the Bunnings store guy about the cheaper Placemakers deal, he was surprised but said "sure, we just need to check the Placemakers price". He called Placemakers, waited on hold for 5 minutes, and as soon as he said he was calling from Bunnings for a price check, he got hung up on. He got his supervisor to call, and she was told "no, the price on the 350ST is $499, it is not on sale". We were a bit miffed, as we had seen the large sign outside Placemakers clearly advertising it for $399. So, with Bunnings (understandably) unable to help us, we went back across to Placemakers.

The sign was still out front, clearly the 350ST, clearly for $399. Once inside, we spoke with someone who appeared to be managerial:

Us - "Hi, you have a sign outside for the Morrison 350ST mower, what's the price on that?"
Her - "That's on special for $399"
Us - "OK, how come when Bunnings called 5 minutes ago to check the price you told them $499?"
Her (with a straight face) - "Oh, Bunnings like to play games with us, so we play games with them. They started this."
Us (in disbelief) - "So, you are telling us that you have this mower on sale for $399, that is your advertised price, yet you refuse to tell Bunnings that when they call and ask to check?"
Her - "Yes. We realise it's petty."

So, we asked her to write the advertised price down on a piece of paper. She was hesitant, then wrote a little note on a yellow post-it (which was obviously worthless). We asked her to write it again on a piece of Placemakers paper, and she told us there was "none about" (translation: "No, I refuse to do that"). So, we were surprised, annoyed, and a bit stuck.

After five minutes of stewing, we drove home, got the digital camera, drove back to Placemakers, took a photo of the large chalk board outside the store, and headed back to Bunnings. When we told them the story of our visit to Placemakers and showed the photo, they said that sort of thing didn't surprise them at all, telling us they regularly get hung up on when calling Placemakers to check prices. They sympathised with us, and agreed (as they are obliged to) to give us the mower for $339.

The ironic thing is that I'm almost certain Bunnings would have lost money on the sale (we heard the sales guy saying "if such and such complains about this, I'll tell him the story, we have to sell it at this price..."). While I realise that the lady at Placemakers was trying to keep a sale and not give it to Bunnings, the end result is Placemakers have left us with a bad taste in the mouth.

So, at the end of the day, we got a great price on a lawnmower, but the moral of the story is sometimes you need to persevere to get a good deal!