I had a similiar experience last week. We decided to get a new 37" HDTV for the bedroom. A local surplus store had one that was very highly rated but when I went back the next day it was already gone. So I did the next best thing - Ebay. Got the same set delivered for only $20 more and it came with the warranty which the one at the surplus store did not have. Another advantage was that I was able to get rid of a bunch of money I had sitting in the Paypal account. I got my $799 MSRP set for $463.