It began with a message from me to tigerdirect.ca, submitted via their website. I had been checking out the Lenovo Yoga 10.1 tablet – including on tigerdirect.ca.
For days afterward, ads from tigerdirect.ca for the Lenovo tablet (among others) followed me around the web. These two-frame GIFs flickered between the implied regular price with a slash through it and the implied sale price.
But the regular price the ads gave for the tablet was inflated by 20% above Lenovo's list price. And the implied sale price was ... the list price.
Even Lenovo was discounting it below list at the time (the 2013 Christmas holiday season).
I wanted Tiger Direct to know.
Instead I would become an unwitting straight man in a comedy routine that would involve some 11 emails.
(NOTE: I've removed redundant text from the email transcript below in order to minimize discomfort and maximize amusement.)
