A lot of stores offer price guarantees. If the price drops within 30 days, they will credit you the difference. The trick is that you have to request the credit. It’s a little easier now, if that vendor is Amazon.com, thanks to RefundPlease.com. Register your purchases with them and they will monitor Amazon for price fluctuations and notify you if there is a change in your favor (they will even include the direct link to requesting a credit).

I think it sucks that someone had to build a system to automatically watch for money due to the consumer when businesses themselves should be doing it. I think it makes good business sense for more businesses to be proactive about putting money back into the consumer’s pocket instead of playing lip service and playing the odds to increase their margin (only a third of shoppers actually send in rebate forms, I would guess much fewer are applying for price protection credit) .

Kudos to RefundPlease for coming up with a great service.