Have you argued with BestBuy over on-line vs. in-store pricing lately?
Ft. Myers, FL - One of my favorite columnists and bloggers, Andrew Kantor, passed along information on a scam BestBuy ran on it's customers. It appears they discovered a new variation on bait and switch pricing.
You find an item you want on the BestBuy web page. You go to the store and discover the offer on the item you want is not as good as you thought you saw on the BestBuy web page. You complain about the difference, so the sales associate goes to the nearest in store terminal and pulls up the web page.
Son of a gun, the store price is right after all. How can this be? Did you get a cached web page? Did the price go up in the twenty minutes it took you to drive to the store?
Nope. The computers in the BestBuy stores are surfing a private Intranet connection. What you got was the Internet pricing. What the associate showed you in the store is a different page only available in the stores. Check this out:State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal ordered the investigation into Best Buy's practices on Feb. 9 after my column disclosed the website and showed how employees at two Connecticut stores used it to deny customers a $150 discount on a computer advertised on BestBuy.com.
Blumenthal said Wednesday that Best Buy has also confirmed to his office the existence of the intranet site, but has so far failed to give clear answers about its purpose and use.
"Their responses seem to raise as many questions as they answer," Blumenthal said in an interview. "Their answers are less than crystal clear."
The Hartford Courant - George Gombossy: Consumer Watchdog, Best Buy Confirms It Has Secret Website
You have got to click the link and read all of that column. Way to go George Gombossy. You are one of my new heroes.
If you do read the entire article, be sure to take your blood pressure medicine first. You will need it by the time you are finished.
I bring this up here because BestBuy pulled that very same trick on me just before last Christmas. I went into the store in Tallahassee expecting the internet price. Instead I found a price $40 higher.
I complained. A helpful associate showed me what I believed was the very same web page I read at home. Behold, the price listed matched the price at the store. I wrote it off to a senior moment, paid the higher price and took my purchase home.
It never occurred to me to take another look at the web site once I got home... Until I read Andrew's web page.
Of course you know, this means war!
- Bugs Bunny
You find an item you want on the BestBuy web page. You go to the store and discover the offer on the item you want is not as good as you thought you saw on the BestBuy web page. You complain about the difference, so the sales associate goes to the nearest in store terminal and pulls up the web page.
Son of a gun, the store price is right after all. How can this be? Did you get a cached web page? Did the price go up in the twenty minutes it took you to drive to the store?
Nope. The computers in the BestBuy stores are surfing a private Intranet connection. What you got was the Internet pricing. What the associate showed you in the store is a different page only available in the stores. Check this out:State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal ordered the investigation into Best Buy's practices on Feb. 9 after my column disclosed the website and showed how employees at two Connecticut stores used it to deny customers a $150 discount on a computer advertised on BestBuy.com.
Blumenthal said Wednesday that Best Buy has also confirmed to his office the existence of the intranet site, but has so far failed to give clear answers about its purpose and use.
"Their responses seem to raise as many questions as they answer," Blumenthal said in an interview. "Their answers are less than crystal clear."
The Hartford Courant - George Gombossy: Consumer Watchdog, Best Buy Confirms It Has Secret Website
You have got to click the link and read all of that column. Way to go George Gombossy. You are one of my new heroes.
If you do read the entire article, be sure to take your blood pressure medicine first. You will need it by the time you are finished.
I bring this up here because BestBuy pulled that very same trick on me just before last Christmas. I went into the store in Tallahassee expecting the internet price. Instead I found a price $40 higher.
I complained. A helpful associate showed me what I believed was the very same web page I read at home. Behold, the price listed matched the price at the store. I wrote it off to a senior moment, paid the higher price and took my purchase home.
It never occurred to me to take another look at the web site once I got home... Until I read Andrew's web page.
Of course you know, this means war!
- Bugs Bunny