At what point were the CDs advertised to you at the lower price?
As mentioned above - in most jurisdictions - as is the case in most provinces in Canada - consumer protection laws require a store owner to honor the sticker price. Some stores (Walmart and Safeway come to mind) have posted policy if sticker price and scanner price do not agree, the price will be the lesser of the two.
IIRC, the usual consumer protection allows for honest errors (You also see occasional “correction to our recent flyer” ads in newspapers). However, a pattern of deceptive or regular mislabelling, or “bait and switch” tactics in advertising, will get the merchant charged with deceptive advertising or fraud. Frequently nowadays in “too good to be true” sales, the flyer will include how many items are available at that price in each store.
But as others pointed out - that’s to protect the consumer from deciding to purchase at one price, only to be hit with a higher price. A price tag that you did not see (could not see) until well after the purchase and payment had been processed would in no way qualify as deceptive pricing practice, IMHO.
I would shudder to think what someone like the OP would do if they bought a comic off eBay for $100 only to find that 10 cents was printed on it.
This is no different than the “we’ll include xyz worth over $n at no extra cost” gimmick you see on so many shopping channels and direct-order info/commercials. Some car dealerships label their cars with the price they paid for it, and you negotiate a price based on that. So, this scenario isn’t unique or even that uncommon.
Here’s how “the law” would most likely interpret the scenario: [ul]
[li] You purchased items that were advertised, at purchase time, as $12 and $15. [/li][li] You made your purchase decision based on those prices[/li][li] You made use of a coupon, further strengthening your acceptance of that price[/li][li] You’ve shown no evidence* that those price tags were an intended statement of price by the seller your transaction was with[/li][/ul]
Finally, try contacting them and asking about it politely. It could be a mixup in their pricing/labelling system (i.e. the price tag or the website has the wrong price), or that could just be their cost (as others have suggested). You can go from polite to angry and get the same benefits as starting angry. However, if you start angry, you lose the credibility of appearing reasonable.
A common reason for a price difference is “free postage”.
Well you know, even if you are paying the actual fee, there are fees, charges, handling , tax and risk costs/issues.
Like, the $6 sticker is if you go into the store and pay cash.
$11 is fine if he’s gone to the trouble of listing it on ebay, accepted a pay pal payment, which can be fake, getting the item parceled up and addressed, postage paid, etc ,etc its time and effort…
Besides, he can always say the low price in the shop is to due the localised oversupply, ie due to the low numbers of people perusing his shop, and the tiny volume of actual purchases… he has a localised oversupply issue.
meanwhile on ebay, he can say that there is an undersupply, buyers just don’t pay more than $15 so he lets them go around there.