Best Buy is accused of over-charging and deceiving their customers, and as a result, they’re facing a lawsuit.
The lawsuit states that Best Buy used their in-store computers and Intranet system to deceive customers. For example, a customer goes to the Best Buy website from home and notices a product for sale at a particular price. Upon going to the store to purchase the item, they notice that it’s priced higher. After asking a Best Buy associate about the difference in price, the Best Buy employee pulls up a Best Buy website over the stores Intranet that looks exactly like the one the customer saw to prove that the sale didn’t exist.
This is otherwise known as a bait-and-switch scheme to lure the customers in with a great sale price, only to charge them higher in-store prices. Best Buy does have sales that are good on-line only, however this is in regard to those items that are to be priced the same in-store.
The Connecticut Attorney General’s Office who filed the lawsuit states:
“Best Buy used in-store kiosks to conceal lower online prices and renege on its price match guarantee. Consumers seeking bargains were led to believe that lower online prices had expired or never existed. Best Buy treated its customers like suckers, not patrons to be prized.”
Just yesterday on Best Buy’s website, that posted a statement saying that they “adamantly” deny the accusation.Best Buy is being asked to refund their customers along with paying court costs and penalties, and to stop using the practice.
If Best Buy really did use bait-and-switch tactics as the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office outlined, it’s good to see that action is being taken to protect consumers.
Source: Beta News
Interesting…I live in Conn and it has always been made clear to me by store employees that the in-store website was different and that the online and in-store had separate deals…
I also had no problem once getting an online-only deal in-store, just had to clear it with the manager but he was fine with it.
I think this is less a case of Best Buy deception and more of it just being confusing for shoppers and perhaps some salespeople or stores…
This actually came up a while back. I work at Best Buy, but I will say I have never used and was never instructed to use the “bait-and-switch” tactic on a customer. I was aware that the website offers some deals online only, but I was not aware of the fact that other products were priced differently on the Intranet.
A month or so ago, I noticed that the in-store kiosks have a big banner that says “this kiosk reflects in-store pricing” or some such.
I hope it all gets sorted out.
I’m such an idiot. I forgot about this when I posted my first comment–for about a year now, Best Buy has been able to “price match” its own website. It’s very standard, don’t have to clear it with anyone now.
I honestly don’t think this lawsuit will go anywhere. Best Buy is a multi-billion dollar company; I doubt very seriously they’d jeopardize business by purposely baiting-and-switching on customers. I think that the entire issue stems from undertrained or misinformed employees and confused customers.
well it happened with me recently…. i was looking at an online offer for a Western Digital 160 GB passport HDD which was listed at 109 dollars. So, i decided instead of buying it online… save on the shipping and all by picking it up at the store. So, I went to the store next morning, picked up the drive. It was listed at $149 at the shop. So, they asked me to do a price match at the customer services counter. After standing in the line for 20 minutes, when I asked them to match this with the price on their website… they showed me the same 149 dollar price. With nothing else to say, I simply left the store. Came back to check and the price was changed to 149 USD in the site as well. It could be possible that the offer died at midnight, but it was really frustrating.
I dont know how much of the whole bait-and-switch thing is true… but i hope everything is sorted out.
Thanks for chiming in Brandon, its nice to hear the perspective from a Best Buy employee. I don’t think the lawsuit really has any bearing either, but people are always out for some easy money.
I just think that Best Buy’s internal site should be the same as whats online.