A 14-year-old girl was given a new iPod by her parents, but once she opened the box she only found rocks.  No, it wasn't meant to be a joke; The parents bought the "iPod" at Target and tried to return the item.

It turns out that this iPod was replaced with rocks somewhere before the sale. Like any consumer would, the family went to the Target store where the "iPod" was purchased in order to replace the non-music-playing rocks. Apparently, Target's return policy for customers using their Target cards is to issue store credit only—despite the family asking for their money back, it was rocks or store credit, period. Unfortunately, the store in Fort Worth had no other iPods. The employees did, however, call around to other area Target stores and found one that had the product in Grand Prairie, 20 miles away.

The Grand Prairie store's employees, perhaps unforgivingly after hearing the sob story, insisted that the new iPod had to be purchased before opening it. The family finally agreed, purchased the iPod, and opened in in front of Target employees. Again, the box that should have contained an iPod contained rocks. The woman once again asked for her money back, but again was denied. She then, according to the article, had her daughter pick out other items in order to use the store credit.

So far, Target hasn't been apologetic—its employees were following store policy and the company is "looking" into the matter. It seems likely that both stores get their merchandise from the same distribution warehouse, and that is most likely where the problem lies.

Jason wrote up an interesting article about hacking sale prices. Based on an article in The Consumerist, several retailers such as Sears and Target use a price coding scheme to indicate different discount classes. What about stores that do not use a price coding scheme?  Jason takes a look at other stores to see if there are any patterns in their pricing. 

Check it out.  It may be a good reference for those of you who love finding good deals.