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Holiday Turkeys: Pricing Disputes, Kitchen Conflagrations

Early birds don't always get the worm, shoppers find

By Truman Lewis
ConsumerAffairs.com

November 30, 2008
Shoppers desperately seeking bargains turned many Wal-Mart stores into combat zones on Black Friday, trampling a store worker to death at a Long Island Wal-Mart. Disturbances and scuffles were reported at other stores around the country but in most cases, it was the consumers rather than store workers who were feeling victimized.

Amber, hoping to beat the Black Friday rush, went to the Wal-Mart in Palmdale, Calif., a few days early, planning to buy two Nintendo Wiis as Christmas presents. She found none on the shelves so she asked a clerk to check.

"Marie in Electronics went to check and came back and said she could not sell them to me, they were for the blitz the day after Thanksgiving," she said. "I went to customer service and complained they would not sell me one, he got the electronics manager on the phone and he said she never should have told me they had them but they were for the day after Thanksgiving ad and he said they were not logged into the computer so he would not sell me one."

"I ended up going to Best Buy and spending over $600. They had no problem taking my money," she said.

Jerry of Cleburne, Texas, said he had seen television ads trumpeting Wal-Mart's promise to match any price on any item on Black Friday. He took a Kmart ad showing a Sony Blu-ray player for $179.00 and talked with an assistant manager.

"She refused my request," he said. "I told her, well, I'd try to call Wal-Mart. She laughed and said 'go right ahead' so I left."

Meanwhile, in Otisville, N.Y., Joseph was also longing for a Sony Blu-ray. He got up early and made his way to the local Kmart, only to find he should have stayed in bed: "When I finally reached Electronics was told player had sold out at sale price at 12pm on Thanksgiving Day! Sale in flier said Friday and Saturday only!"

Toys Rn't Us?

Jennifer, a Chicago school teacher, had her eye on the Loving Family Dollhouse at Toys R Us, advertised online for $54.99, a big markdown from $149.

"I get there at 4am and there is no sign saying it's on sale," she told ConsumerAffairs.com. "I spoke with the manager and he knew nothing of it. I called the 800 number, they knew nothing of it. They said that the online advertisement has nothing to do with Toys R Us and there is nothing that they can do."

A Toys 'R Us spokeswoman said Jennifer had confused the $149.99 Loving Family dollhouse that was marked down to $124.99 for Black Friday with a similar but cheaper Fisher Price dollhouse that was marked down in the Big Book, a sale brochure published by Toys 'R Us each fall.

Travis of Zebulon, N.C., learned that not all prices go down on Black Friday: "My son wants a Thomas the Train table. We found at Toys R Us a train set called Imaginarium Classic Train Table with Roundhouse Wooden Train Set for 129.99. We waited till Black Friday hoping it would be on sale."

"Guess what, didn't go on sale," Travis complainted. "They jacked the price to 149.99."

Can't stand the heat?

Cooks who bravely venture into their kitchens to prepare the family holiday feast have a lot to look out for, as today's modern appliances prove just as treacherous as the cook stoves and campfires of earlier times.

In Sun City, Ariz., Philip got up early to preheat his Frigidaire range. He set the thermostat to 325 degrees, dressed down a 16-pound turkey and popped it in the oven to cover for 4 1/2 hours. Everything went find until the last half hour.

"The stove started beeping and displaying F10 on the digital display. By this time, the glass door to the oven was clouded," he reported. Philip open the oven door and smoke poured out amidst intense heat. He turned the oven off but he said the heating elements stayed on.

"Then I took a Fluke optical IR thermometer, opened the oven door and measured the internal temperature. IT WAS 720 DEGREES F!!! No wonder there was smoke!" Philip told us. "I immediately went to the circuit breaker box and turned off the power to the stove. Then we had a (somewhat charred) Thanksgiving dinner.

After dinner, Philip turned the circuit back on and the oven's heating elements once again began glowing red even though all the controls were in the "off" position. That, says Philip, marks the end of the Frigidaire era in his kitchen.

Nice hot shards

Then there's Pyrex. Not a day goes by that we don't hear of Pyrex dishes sending hot bits of glass flying through the kitchen, but the reports -- and the consequences -- always seem to spike around the holidays.

On Thanksgiving morning, Mary of Phoenixville, Pa., was making a baked corn dish, using the Pyrex baking dish she received for a wedding present in 1960. She preheated the dish at 350 degrees, following the instructions in the recipe, she said.

"After preheating the baking dish, I removed it from the oven and placed it on the top surface of my stove, with the intention of pouring the mixed ingredients (which had been sitting on my counter for at least a half hour) into the baking dish and then replacing it in the oven for the required baking time. Just as I poured the mixture of ingredients into the now warm baking dish, the dish cracked, into about 12 different sizes of pieces. I had a mess to clean up," Mary said.

But Mary should count herself fortunate. Her 12 easy pieces were nothing compared to what Nancy of Bakersfield, Calif., was left with.

"I placed a room temperature 13x9 Pyrex baking dish filled with candied sweet potatoes in the oven to heat. After a few minutes we heard a loud pop and hiss and when I opened the oven door I found the dish had shattered in a million pieces and the oven was filled with sticky juice yams and glass shards. It was all over the door, the bottom of the oven and ran out into the floor," she said.

Sweet potatoes were also the Waterloo for the 13x9-inch Pyrex dish Peggy put into her oven in Vestavia Hills, Ala.

"I was about to put a sweet potato casserole into the oven and had put the 13x9 inch Pyrex dish with the casserole down on my stove. The stove had been turned off from a recent level of low. The dish was on the stove for about 3 minutes when it exploded," she said. "We found shards of glass 3-4 feet away from the dish. I just thank goodness that my children didn't receive any injuries from the flying glass."

And then there's the disgruntled reader in Spring, Texas, who signed herself "Ruined."

"My 9x11 Pyrex dish just exploded in the oven immediately after I moved it from the refrigerator to the oven. The oven was NOT even preheated yet. I had just turned on the oven and it was warm at best and I heard a pop and the dish had exploded all over the other food as well. The oven was so cool still that I could get the dish out without wearing gloves or mits so that tells you how luke warm it was when it exploded," she said.

"Ruined our Thanksgiving dinner and created a huge mess to deal with." she concluded.

Say it with ...

Reading these and the hundreds of other complaints we receive each day, we sometimes feel we'd like to send a little something to our angry and disappointed correspondents. Flowers, maybe? Or then again, maybe not.

Linda of Silver Spring, Md., ordered a flower arrangement for her sister from 1800flowers.com. She ordered early, on Nov. 15, for delivery on Thanksgiving Day, to let her sister know she was thinking of her even though they could not be together.

It was a nice thought but, unfortunately, nothing bloomed.

"They were not delivered, and the local florist could not be reached," Linda said. "While they offered delivery the day after Thanksgiving plus a 20% discount, that's not the point."

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