Best Buy Still Using In-Store “Website” On Customers

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
I could have sworn Best Buy got that whole secret in-store website thing worked out months ago. Well, according to this story, they haven’t. I feel better now, I thought it was just me that this kept happening to.

The Connecticut attorney general's office sued Best Buy in May, charging the electronics heavyweight with using deceptive in-store websites to trick customers into paying higher prices than available on the company's actual site. "We thought Best Buy had addressed this," Connecticut Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal told me the other day. "That's what they said to us. Apparently that's not the case."
Click to expand...
 
This happened to me when I did my Christmas shopping.
None of the stuff that on sale online was marked as on sale in the store and when I had them check, it didn't come up on their website. Whatever system they had was not the internet, so I had them pull up the internet website and pricematch it to their website.
 
I guess that since BB is making money hand over fist, and driving their competitors out of business, they figure that the money spent on lawyers is money well spent. :rolleyes:
 
This actually happens in Alaska a LOT. Went to buy an iPod Touch as a gift for someone, the site said $299.99 for the 8GB. I go to the store it is $319.99. I am like WTF? So I ask dude what the deal was, sure enough....he checks the internal site to confirm the $20 higher price.

I walk into the mall (it's attached to the store), go to my cell phone / internet providers store, pull up the site and buy the iPod online for the real price which was now $284.99 because of a new sale going on. I selected in-store pick up and went back to BB.

After I pick up my iPod Touch, I find the employee....and get this, he is pissed, literallly MAD that I went and got it for the right price. :confused:
 
I've seen this and I just don't buy the product. So they don't earn my money when I see a higher price than what I thought I saw. ;) :p :D
 
I happened to be in a best buy a few weeks ago and seen an employee showing a customer something on the internal site. I so much wanted to walk up to them, ask if the employee informed them that this site he was going to was NOT the same one they get on the internet but is an internal site which may have higher prices then what the real internet site and possible even the shelves have, thus they might get ripped off. However I thought that if I did that they might have the big dudes at the door help me out of the store and introduce my head to the sidewalk outside.
 
If I'm not mistaken, their "fix" for this was putting a tiny disclaimer at the bottom of their internal site saying something to the effect of "This reflects instore prices only, not bestBuy.com" or something to that effect. Since customers browse with sales rep, they won't actually ever show you the disclaimer.

Glad to see their getting sued for this BS practice though.
 
I've done this on my PDA:
1) Walk into BestBuy, with the price I saw on bestbuy.com in mind.
2) Look for product on shelf, note price (usually isn't the one I saw online).
3) go to Kiosk, look up product by product number
4) Note higher price, try to get attention from sales person
4.b) If I can't get one to come to me, I just leave my page up and go find one. If it closes or changes in the meantime, I make sure to waste as much time as possible here.
5) Ask why that price is higher than what I saw online. Usually get some BS here.
6) Pull out PDA and order the product right there, for the cheaper price.
7) Ask same sales associate to give me my new toy, now.
8) Ask them if they liked losing the sale.
9) Walk out :)

I haven't done that in awhile, since I wont buy from them anymore, but it was fun the 2-3 times I did do it.
 
Steve said:
This actually happens in Alaska a LOT. Went to buy an iPod Touch as a gift for someone, the site said $299.99 for the 8GB. I go to the store it is $319.99. I am like WTF? So I ask dude what the deal was, sure enough....he checks the internal site to confirm the $20 higher price.

I walk into the mall (it's attached to the store), go to my cell phone / internet providers store, pull up the site and buy the iPod online for the real price which was now $284.99 because of a new sale going on. I selected in-store pick up and went back to BB.

After I pick up my iPod Touch, I find the employee....and get this, he is pissed, literallly MAD that I went and got it for the right price. :confused:
Click to expand...

More power to you brother, i would have rubbed it in his face though... maybe even gotten his manager.:p
 
Not to say what you guys are saying isn't true, as I can see it happening. But when I bought my laptop from the NLR Best Buy last September, their in store site was actually $40 cheaper than the online ad. I had just enough left over to buy a 2GB RAM kit from Newegg because of that. Maybe it's a store to store thing?
 
In my case, i just print out the website and come into the store. I dont even ask them to check the prices on their online store. If they dispute it whatsoever i just pull it up off the internet on my phone or one of their non-bestbuy internet network computers.
 
Steve said:
This actually happens in Alaska a LOT. Went to buy an iPod Touch as a gift for someone, the site said $299.99 for the 8GB. I go to the store it is $319.99. I am like WTF? So I ask dude what the deal was, sure enough....he checks the internal site to confirm the $20 higher price.

I walk into the mall (it's attached to the store), go to my cell phone / internet providers store, pull up the site and buy the iPod online for the real price which was now $284.99 because of a new sale going on. I selected in-store pick up and went back to BB.

After I pick up my iPod Touch, I find the employee....and get this, he is pissed, literallly MAD that I went and got it for the right price. :confused:
Click to expand...

Very nice...
 
Some items are like that.
My wife bought a rug cleaner that was cheaper in-store than the online price. Just retail weirdness I guess.
 
Is anybody really surprised Best Buy is still pulling this crap?
 
yeah I am, I'm surprised they havent come up with even more deceiptful crap to pull on customers.
 
this is why i tell everyone to not shop at best buy, they are walmarts of the tech industry, except with less illegal immigrant issues
 
Vola said:
Is anybody really surprised Best Buy is still pulling this crap?
Click to expand...
To be honest, yes I am. :( I had hoped the negative publicity, and the actions of the Connecticut AG might put a stop to this. Looks like the only thing that will do so is a massive lawsuit by multiple Attorneys General. :mad:
 
I thought this was well known they were still doing this, but to get around it they just have a disclaimer now on the website (in store that is) so people know that this machine may not match online prices.
 
Doesn't surprise me at all. This is why I use Fry's for all my tech needs - their prices and customer service are top notch (for a B&M store, that is).

Steve said:
After I pick up my iPod Touch, I find the employee....and get this, he is pissed, literallly MAD that I went and got it for the right price. :confused:
Click to expand...

Because he wanted to get the sale from you at a high price.
 
qwertyu said:
yeah I am, I'm surprised they havent come up with even more deceiptful crap to pull on customers.
Click to expand...

They have, we just haven't figured it out yet. :p

I make it a point to buy items from anywhere except BB. I will even pay more somewhere else (unless they price match) just to not buy from Worst Buy.
 
Actually Best Buy has come up with something worse than this website scandal, Geek Squad. My friend works for them, he knows this, but they over charge, charge for anything they touch, and are always getting into trouble. Now not all Geek Squad employees are bad, my friend is a good one, but as a whole the name is tarnished by the bad ones.
 
You would think that the state would simply ask for the heads of anyone who designed this page and their superiors, up to the highest level of knowledge, and throw all their asses into jail (no white collar privileged jail either...throw them in PMITA jail).

That would be the one answer that would make a good example of why one should not do this.
 
ShagnWagn said:
They have, we just haven't figured it out yet. :p

I make it a point to buy items from anywhere except BB. I will even pay more somewhere else (unless they price match) just to not buy from Worst Buy.
Click to expand...

Hehehe, yeah, better be on the lookout for it. :D
I'm wondering, do they have some sort of wifi service available in BB stores, so that you could bring your own laptop, or pda to the store and check for the prices on the real internet site? It'd be interesting to show the BB salesman the screen with the lower price.
 
qwertyu said:
Hehehe, yeah, better be on the lookout for it. :D
I'm wondering, do they have some sort of wifi service available in BB stores, so that you could bring your own laptop, or pda to the store and check for the prices on the real internet site? It'd be interesting to show the BB salesman the screen with the lower price.
Click to expand...

What makes you think they wouldn't redirect to their internal site?
 
I'd like to make a comment about this actually. I work at Best Buy and our "internal" site states that these prices reflect in store pricing. Myself as a sales person always use the national site aka the site everyone uses if they went to BB.com now. If the price is different or a customer asks what the price is online then I check and we always price match the website.

I never mislead anyone in a sale, I mean I'm paid hourly and trust me I'm 100% with you guys on the misleading part.

I'd like to say I'm a bit shocked on how the employee was MAD when you bought the product online then came to pick it up. I think its funny when customers come in thinking they know more then you on the price point wise and say " I'm going across the street to CC and have them sell it to me" When I know very well they won't be helped nearly as well as I tried to help them


Sorry for the little rant.
 
I work at Best Buy and we have these kiosks all over the floor. I never really use the kiosk because when you go up to them, login with my employee info, I get the real best buy websites and I never use the kiosk website to price match. Besides, they have up to January 31st to find a lower price, BBY online or at competitors. However, most of the time when it does not show up as on sale on the kiosk, it rings up on sale about 90% of the time.
 
dlaxman31 said:
I'd like to make a comment about this actually. I work at Best Buy and our "internal" site states that these prices reflect in store pricing. Myself as a sales person always use the national site aka the site everyone uses if they went to BB.com now. If the price is different or a customer asks what the price is online then I check and we always price match the website.

I never mislead anyone in a sale, I mean I'm paid hourly and trust me I'm 100% with you guys on the misleading part.

I'd like to say I'm a bit shocked on how the employee was MAD when you bought the product online then came to pick it up. I think its funny when customers come in thinking they know more then you on the price point wise and say " I'm going across the street to CC and have them sell it to me" When I know very well they won't be helped nearly as well as I tried to help them


Sorry for the little rant.
Click to expand...

I always find it funny how I usually know more than the BB employee about some technical aspect of the pc hardware I'm looking for in the store. :) Yeah i know, I should know better and shop online instead.
 
II really hate seeing this pop back up. I work at BestBuy and 90% of customers and employees approach this correctly:

The customers should have an iota of sense to read the GIANT YELLOW banner across the top of the screen (the article says it's ~1" tall, and the kiosks use a 15" monitor) that states that the prices shown will not be the same as the national website. This is because different places require a different price. Say a national shipping warehouse is in California. It will cost more to ship it to Illinois than to Nevada. Of course the price will differ.
But not reading what's put in front of you is just unforgivable, and these customers ASK to frustrate employees.

Second, the BestBuy employee has been trained (or should be) on the difference between the national and local website access. If a customer wants to order something, they go to the local one. If they want a price match, they go to the national one. I know that's somewhat shady, but it takes into account differing amounts of overhead depending on how the product is purchased.

Finally, i have heard the complaint that BestBuy should offer, nationwide, the same prices. Well, true, to an extent, but maybe BEstBuy is not the company to pick your battle with... Maybe the gas station companies would be a better target.
 
dlaxman31 said:
I'd like to make a comment about this actually. I work at Best Buy and our "internal" site states that these prices reflect in store pricing. Myself as a sales person always use the national site aka the site everyone uses if they went to BB.com now. If the price is different or a customer asks what the price is online then I check and we always price match the website.

I never mislead anyone in a sale, I mean I'm paid hourly and trust me I'm 100% with you guys on the misleading part.
Click to expand...

There's a difference though. What you are doing is what all the employees SHOULD have been doing, and we could have avoided all this mess. The problem was that customers would say "this is cheaper on the website," and employees would pull up the "website" on the store computer so they could tell the customer "no it's not, see?" It was misleading: they were intentionally deceiving customers and telling them that the "website" had the same price as the store's pricing. Apparently they still are doing this, or it wouldn't be front page news. Sure, some of the BBs have now got a disclaimer on the internal website, but let's face it, most of them probably still don't, and most of the employees are probably still employing this tactic to keep their numbers high. ;)
 
The only reason I EVER step foot into BB is either to kill time (window shopping) or to buy something that I absolutely MUST HAVE right now and cannot find anywhere else. BB has some of the highest prices in the industry. In some cases, their prices are 10% higher than the MSRP...
 
Sounds kind of like what happened to my dad. I asked for a Logitech Harmony 550 remote for Christmas, and I found the best price online and sent him the link to Best Buy's website, where it was on sale. Fortunately, my dad is a savvy (albeit non-technical) shopper, and printed the page out before he went to the store, since when he got there, they tried to charge him the full price, and he would have been stuck without the printout.

They honored the price, but it's exactly this kind of situation that makes me avoid Best Buy unless they have a killer sale price.
 
Steve said:
This actually happens in Alaska a LOT. Went to buy an iPod Touch as a gift for someone, the site said $299.99 for the 8GB. I go to the store it is $319.99. I am like WTF? So I ask dude what the deal was, sure enough....he checks the internal site to confirm the $20 higher price.

I walk into the mall (it's attached to the store), go to my cell phone / internet providers store, pull up the site and buy the iPod online for the real price which was now $284.99 because of a new sale going on. I selected in-store pick up and went back to BB.

After I pick up my iPod Touch, I find the employee....and get this, he is pissed, literallly MAD that I went and got it for the right price. :confused:
Click to expand...

Teabag him. See how mad he gets then. :eek:
 
Just goes to show you,old scammers never quit,they just get sneakier.But sooner or later,their day will come.Even Wal-Mart is starting to show chinks in their armor,companies like these get so bloated and overconfident their downfall is inevitable.
 
Modred189 said:
II really hate seeing this pop back up. I work at BestBuy and 90% of customers and employees approach this correctly:

The customers should have an iota of sense to read the GIANT YELLOW banner across the top of the screen (the article says it's ~1" tall, and the kiosks use a 15" monitor) that states that the prices shown will not be the same as the national website. This is because different places require a different price. Say a national shipping warehouse is in California. It will cost more to ship it to Illinois than to Nevada. Of course the price will differ.
But not reading what's put in front of you is just unforgivable, and these customers ASK to frustrate employees.

Second, the BestBuy employee has been trained (or should be) on the difference between the national and local website access. If a customer wants to order something, they go to the local one. If they want a price match, they go to the national one. I know that's somewhat shady, but it takes into account differing amounts of overhead depending on how the product is purchased.

Finally, i have heard the complaint that BestBuy should offer, nationwide, the same prices. Well, true, to an extent, but maybe BEstBuy is not the company to pick your battle with... Maybe the gas station companies would be a better target.
Click to expand...

OK, this is directed at you and other Best Buy employees with similar comments. THIS SHOULD NOT BE AN ISSUE. All of you can get high and mighty about how "prices should different nationwide" or "well I don't do this" or maybe even "customers should learn to read" but the fact remains, if you advertise a price online, you damn well better be prepared to honor it. It should not be the customers job to fight for the price that you advertised. Best Buy has no one to blame but themselves for this mess.

Circuit City has a slightly similar set up. They have in store prices that don't reflect online sales. However when you call them on it, they bring up their real website and honor the price difference. I shouldn't have to ask them to price match their own website, but when I do they don't try and deceive me. Notice a difference?
 
I go to best buy about 10 times a year. About 5 times of those 10, no lie I end up saving an immigrant from spending $500 on a video card to "browse the internet and watch movies". The best buy people in milwaukee a largely assholes on a whole, now thats a big asshole.

Usually the ill-informed are treated like they went to a car repair place for the first time lol, with an extra raping for fun. Seriously what best buy asshole tells people they need to spend over 200$ to view the internet with a video card? that is just retarded.

now, why the hell does this happen to me over 5 times a year in brookfield and milwaukee? it just does not make sense. once a lifetime... sure... but 5 times a year an asshole tries picking on non-english speakers. i then get thanked by the whole family and tell them they were getting ripped off... i like to do that in front of the asshole employee.

what happened to lazy unmotivated teenagers like i was at 16 in retail? i worked at menards... i never helped people, but i didn't lie to them either lol.
 
lol more ranting.. my fiance always laughs or yells at me to shut up at best buy... because i always say "liar" or "don't buy it your getting ripped off go to newegg.com or somewhere else" when the guy is trying to say "this is the fastest computer in town" when its 2 years out of date or doesn't have a video card or its obviously a craputer.

just annoys me... karma gets all thieves even best buy. in buddhism nothing lasts forever, not compusa, not best buy. now remeber how bad compusa sucked? best buy is the bitch that taught compusa how to give it to their customers...
 
jroe52 said:
I go to best buy about 10 times a year. About 5 times of those 10, no lie I end up saving an immigrant from spending $500 on a video card to "browse the internet and watch movies". The best buy people in milwaukee a largely assholes on a whole, now thats a big asshole.

Usually the ill-informed are treated like they went to a car repair place for the first time lol, with an extra raping for fun. Seriously what best buy asshole tells people they need to spend over 200$ to view the internet with a video card? that is just retarded.

now, why the hell does this happen to me over 5 times a year in brookfield and milwaukee? it just does not make sense. once a lifetime... sure... but 5 times a year an asshole tries picking on non-english speakers. i then get thanked by the whole family and tell them they were getting ripped off... i like to do that in front of the asshole employee.

what happened to lazy unmotivated teenagers like i was at 16 in retail? i worked at menards... i never helped people, but i didn't lie to them either lol.
Click to expand...
Hello to a fellow cheesehead! anyways Madison is no better bud. When I saw that they had the 8800GT 512 that at that sale price i wanted to get one and Madison was one of the few that were close to me. I went there and talked to a few employees and it took about 5 minutes before i turned right back around and walked out. They had the video card but I didnt want to support the guys on the floor in that store. Overall just the cockynesss form them just turned me off.
I hate buying online at times cuz of the wait and its so impersonal...but lately its almost better to be impersonal then to put up with the morons at the big box retail stores
 
Yea, I only shop at Best Buy when I need it now and the price is pretty much the same as online. It's rare but it does happen.

I will not buy memory from them for sure though. They are generally 3-4 times higher than online. Most of their prices are MUCH higher.

If I do buy from them, I just buy online and choose "Store pickup".

It's going to take a huge class action lawsuit that involves everyone that has seen a lower price online and then told in the store no it isn't and paid the full price. They will have to pay out so much that it really hurts in order to stop doing this.

Best Buy is just so sleazy in their pricing and ways. Of course, they get away with it and make tons of money and still in business because so many people just either don't know or don't care when they end up paying so much more than other places.
 
i posted a rant here a few months ago... when i was in a rush to buy a sata dvd burner rather then wait for newegg... big mistake. took it home and it wasn't even samsung, it was a generic burner from an old HP computer...

the salesman was nice when i called he felt bad, he said take it to the rep desk... so i did... had to drive 30 min back to the strore... take it there and the girl was rolling her eyes at me the whole time saying "whatever"... and "there are tons on the shelf"... which they werent... so she had me go get one that wasn't there... i asked for her to check the backstock... which she said "no" lol. awesome. then she goes "oh by the way, geeksquad manager says its the right one"... then my fiance was like NUH UHH LOL YOU JUST PICKED A NERD FIGHT lol

so i was like "your manager has little experience in a real IT world, as an it professional with 4 years experience and a degree, he is a moron... "

1st. the drive is made by a different company
-there reply was samsung now makes generic drives

2. the drive was a different color
-its the one on the box (umm no... different color, maybe they were color blind)

3. the front bezel is completely different, from a different brand, different shape etc...


they finally gave me my refund lol. took 2 weeks to undo 2 hours of hell lol
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top