To my luck, I went into my Local Staples with:
1) my receipt from 11/24/00 stating that I bought the Maxtor HD at $179.99 + Free ZIP Drive
2) a printout of a picture off the website from Office Depot before they changed the price back to $200+ (not sure how much it is now) with Today's date 12/04/00 (fooled all of them into thinking it was still valid)
3) a hard copy of the advertisement strategically cutting out the VALID Dates 11/26 - 12/2
Here's how it went... The first lady was fairly slow, and didn't understand what "Instant Rebate" meant....she said that Staples could not price match anything that wasn't the instore price, she was arguinign that if they rang up the product then it would show up as $169.99, rather than $119.99. I told her that Instant rebate meant INSTANT rebate, NOT mail in rebate. She didn't comprehend so she decides to call Office Depot which is just across the street. I was sh*tting bricks for a second there because I knew they were out of stock and they already raised the prices... So, she called, and luckiliy they told her that "they were out of stock", and OD never quoted a price.
She then continued to argue that since it is out of stock, they can't pricematch it.. so i challenged her by saying, Can't you call another OD to see if they have it in stock? So, she was getting irritated, so she called the first manager in charge... he comes along, and makes a statement saying that Staples store only pricematches within 7 miles of the location. I said "that's a bunch of crap, because I have your POLICY that Staples sent out to you to uphold about Pricematching, and nowhere in that statement does it say, 7 MILES!" and he was surprised and said "You have the policy?" and I said that I would go home and print it out if it made him feel any better. SO this guy is trying the same approach as the lady by saying that INSTANT rebate does NOT mean it's INSTANT... so we argued about that point for awhile.. so they finally call the head chief, she's a nice lady... She looks at it, and she agreed for the pricematch without further hassle. THe only stipulation she had was IF the hard copy of the advertisement I had was a "Coupon", then she couldn't pricematch, but since it was an Instant Rebate that everyone received, she gave me the go-ahead.
Having both the hard copy of the advertisement as well as the printout of the website of Office Depot helped. The printout did the job because it only solidified the fact that it was offfered to the general public, but Staples will not pricematch online stores. So basically, this is what my receipt finally shows...
EXCHANGE (return) 179.95
PM at OD -119.99
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-59.96 Price Guarantee
x 8.25% Std. Tax -4.95
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$ -64.91 credit to my credit card
so, basically 179.95 - 64.91 = $115.04 for the HD + Zip drive + Ultra ATA 100/PCI card + $20 extra in my POCKET...
not too shabby....