Recently, my wife and I moved back from abroad to Canada. We bought a new house and are happily settling into our Canadian life.

We needed a new bed for the home we purchased, and wanted to buy something both quality and Canadian made. After shopping around, we were interested in a bed frame and several other products to match at World Wide Furniture in Bayers Lake, for a total bill of roughly $6,000. Naturally, we wanted to make a rational decision and inquired about any deals that could be provided. We were told no, but we still asked for a quote. One was written up on scrap paper, with a pen, and offered free delivery by a salesperson in Bayers Lake.

While looking around Halifax, we went to the Atrium in Dartmouth, which also houses a World Wide. We found the same bed but at a different price. Understandably, different franchises hold different inventory and perhaps might have different prices but I was told by the salesperson in Dartmouth that all prices are standardized. After speaking to him, he drew up a new quote that came from the computer that suddenly saved almost $500. When I inquired why this happened, the Dartmouth salesperson sort of laughed and said he had no idea. The prices are meant to come from the system. We said we wanted to investigate this a little more because it appeared to be some pernicious sales tactics.

A couple days later, we spoke to the manager at the Bayers Lake location, who appears to also control the Dartmouth location. He accused us of playing the stores off each other to get the lowest price. He said that due to this that we'd be paying the higher price that was quoted and we would no longer get free delivery. When we explained that we were spending a significant amount of money and just wanted to spend our money effectively.

I find these practices both curious, alarming, and just a reminder of how bad some businesses operate.