another money saving scheme foiled

The people at Best Buy saw a lot of me this week. By returning one of my Christmas gifts for store credit and using some Reward Zone dollars, I had enough to get a new DVD player for my son. I chose a Philips model that retails for $60. To save money, I bought some component video cables that had been returned and were marked "open item."

When my son and I used the cables to connect the DVD player to the TV, it was apparent that something was wrong. The picture was similar to an old black and white movie except that it was blue and white instead. We tried a few different discs to make sure it wasn't a fluke. Naturally, I assumed that the "open item" cables were bad. Best Buy let me exchange them for a brand new set. The new set didn't work either, which made me wonder if maybe the problem wasn't with the cables. We took the Philips DVD player upstairs, unplugged my Sony DVD player and used its cables to test the new machine. Same problem. It was clear that the red output on the Philips DVD player didn't work.

Best Buy let me exchange it for an identical model. We got the replacement machine home and connected it to the TV. Again, the picture was blue and white. Two separate Philips DVD players had non-working component outputs. Did they think nobody would notice? We went back to Best Buy. This time we exchanged the Philips DVD player for a Sony and paid the $20 price difference. It works just fine but I still feel like somebody owes me $20. Plus gas money.