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Deceptive computer kiosks helped retailer overcharge customers, suit alleges

Electronics retailer Best Buy is facing a civil suit brought by Connecticut's attorney general, seeking to punish the company for misleading customers with a phony internal Web site.

Best Buy officials strongly deny the charges leveled by Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who claims that store employees deliberately mislead customers to deny them access to lower prices advertised on the company's Web site. When buyers came to stores seeking the online discounts, they were shown an ersatz Web page running on the store's internal fileserver displaying higher prices, the suit alleges.

Blumenthal told the Associated Press that, "Best Buy gave consumers the worst deal - a bait-and-switch-plus scheme luring consumers into stores with promised online discounts, only to charge higher in-store prices."

Best Buy countered in a statement released by spokeswoman Susan Busch, saying that the retail chain "used the same Web site platform for these in-store kiosks as we did for our national Web site."

The suit seeks customer refunds, civil penalties, and a ban on the practice, among other remedies. Best Buy has until June 13 to respond to the attorney general's complaint before it is filed with the state's Supreme Court.

The civil case follows an investigation conducted by Blumenthal's office in March, pursuing reports that consumers had been deceived and overcharged at Best Buy stores. One such case was documented by a reporter for the Hartford Courant newspaper, alleging that a Connecticut man went to a Best Buy store to buy a laptop PC that was advertised on BestBuy.com for $729.99. A store employee looked up the product on an internal Web site, which showed a price of $879.99 for the item, according to the report.

Best Buy's Busch acknowledged that a small percentage of customers  did not receive the best price for products displayed on the in-store computer kiosks. She added that as soon as the issue was brought to the attention of Best Buy management, it was swiftly remedied. "We provided immediate training for our employees to help ensure that all customers received the best price" Busch said. "We are in the process of making changes to eliminate future confusion."

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i cant stand this company
By sixth on 5/26/2007 1:41:13 PM , Rating: 2
i cant stand this company...its about time someone sues them.




RE: i cant stand this company
By MaK2000 on 5/26/2007 1:44:39 PM , Rating: 2
This is just like the Dell bait and switch allegations. Dell has promo codes that offer $100 off and the price when you go to the link is $100 more. Why are the largest companies always trying to screw people?


RE: i cant stand this company
By CrimsonFrost on 5/26/2007 1:57:33 PM , Rating: 2
Holy crap! This stuff happened to me! I went to buy a Sony Wega TV and the site said one price, then I go to the store and they show me a site with it for a higher price! I had to go back home and order it online and then come pick up the same damn TV to get the lower price. Gawd I hate that company.


RE: i cant stand this company
By GlassHouse69 on 5/26/2007 7:26:27 PM , Rating: 1
you should buy from a private dealer. i bet your tv would have been 10-15% cheaper and you would not be screwed with.


RE: i cant stand this company
By Samus on 5/27/2007 3:34:41 AM , Rating: 2
the same thing happened to me at target last christmas. i was like wtf? had to order it at home, pay shipping, and it was still cheaper than it was in the store.


RE: i cant stand this company
By juice13610 on 6/5/2007 10:54:12 AM , Rating: 2
At Target they will tell you right out that the online store is a completely different animal than the physical store. Their Sunday ad is different, sales are different, everything is different.


RE: i cant stand this company
By JeffDM on 5/27/2007 11:20:42 AM , Rating: 2
you should buy from a private dealer. i bet your tv would have been 10-15% cheaper and you would not be screwed with.

I've never really seen that to be the case, doubly so when it comes to any sale item. Best Buy has economies of scale on their side. The best a small dealer can do is provide better service, but that costs money. That cost of service is part of why Best Buy is often cheaper because they don't provide as much of a service, nor are they as likely to provide as competent of staff.


RE: i cant stand this company
By Proteusza on 5/27/2007 4:02:35 PM , Rating: 2
Having never been to america I cant say for certain, but usually places like Best Buy charge a much higher markup compared to online retailers. They also tend to sell old technology, for the same price as new technology.

They have the advantage that most people who walk into a brick and mortar store dont assume the sales people will either not know enough or blatantly mislead them. They are also guaranteed sales because of where they are and the convenience associated with it. Some people want their digital camera right now, and they want to be able to see it before they buy it. An online retailer knows his customers are more likely to be savvy, so he cant get away with high markup.


RE: i cant stand this company
By Christopher1 on 5/29/2007 2:28:11 PM , Rating: 2
That's actualy true, about Best Buy charging a big markup compared to some other retailers. After my father bought our family a new Toshiba notebook PC, I went online to comparison shop.

From Toshiba, the thing was 100 dollars less than the sale price my father bought it for in Best Buy, even with the shipping included.

Something is wrong here, and I hope that more of these places get their asses stomped by the attorney generals and others.


By TimTheEnchanter25 on 5/28/2007 9:18:36 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
I've never really seen that to be the case, doubly so when it comes to any sale item. Best Buy has economies of scale on their side.


Actually, most electronics companies set a minimum price that store are allowed to advertise on their products. Best buy sells at exactally that price. I buy all my stuff from a local place that also posts that same price, but they will sell a lot of things at a lower price. I bought a 60" Sony TV the first week it was out for about $500 under Best Buy's price.

I really don't understand why these people were coming into the store to get an online discount. Why wouldn't they just buy it online? I order everything for instore pickup, they have stuff cheaper online a lot of the time, plus they will lie and tell you they don't have things instock if they aren't on the shelf.

The only good thing about buying things in BB is that they will pricematch anything. If you find a super low price online of something they sell, just print it out and bring it in. They don't even factor what you would pay for shipping. I saved my dad over $300 on a Garmin GPS doing this.


RE: i cant stand this company
By exanimas on 5/27/2007 10:53:51 PM , Rating: 2
Because, sadly, they have the money to.


RE: i cant stand this company
By MattCoz on 5/28/2007 2:33:36 PM , Rating: 3
They don't screw people because they're big, they're big because they screw people.


I like best buy
By Conman530 on 5/26/2007 2:02:36 PM , Rating: 1
I have yet to have a bad experience with best buy. they are way better than Fry's Electronics, at Fry's 50% of the folks dont even speak english or kno what they are talking about. And they always want to bait-and switch you all the time. Last year I saw an HP Photosmart 2710 Printer, a printer I wanted, advertised there for $199 - a fantastic price. I call them up to see if they have any in stock, they say yes so I drive over 25 miles there only to be told "Im sorry, we dont have any HP Photosmart 2710s in stock, would you like a 2610 instead?" I didnt want a damn retarded 2610, so I left, Frys sux. My friend went to the same Fry's location a couple of months later looking to buy a new graphics card, well the PNY Verto 7900GS at Fry's was like $229.99 at the time, so he drove over to Best Buy (only 1 mile away) and bought one there for $149.99. One time, I even saw a Sears ad for the game Call of Duty 2 that had a lower price than Best Buy, I took the Sears ad into Best Buy, and they not only gave me the Sears price, they knocked 10% off the Sears price, so I wound up saving $15. The people at best buy are always helpful, In my humble opinion, it has always been a pleasure to shop at Best Buy.




RE: I like best buy
By Hare on 5/26/2007 2:44:51 PM , Rating: 5
RE: I like best buy
By Captante on 5/26/2007 3:18:23 PM , Rating: 2
I've never had a problem with Best Buy either ... in fact they've taken good care of me every time I've shopped there, matching prices & accepting returns without any hassle at all, including a Philips HDTV that failed on my 3 months after purchase that they gave me full credit on. They also matched Newegg & beat Circuit Citys sale price by 10% when I bought my Canon SD800IS camera a couple weeks ago.

In fairness however the only thing they do that does aggravate me involves their sale prices advertised online. If you fail to mention that a product is on sale they will charge you full price & it happened again with the Sandisk 2gb memory card I purchased along with the camera... when I complained they adjusted the price immediately, but its not somthing a customer should need to do.


RE: I like best buy
By exanimas on 5/27/2007 11:03:00 PM , Rating: 1
It all depends on which location you go to. I work at a Best Buy and I can honestly say 90% of the employees know their stuff about their departments. The other 10% are either new employees or managers. In contrast to this, I've heard nothing but bad things about other stores in our district, and I have even had a bad experience with one of the locations, so no, not every store is perfect.

On the topic of this whole thing, I think Best Buy should have had things set up the way they do now for employees with the differentiating between Local and National sites. They should also just pay up to reimburse the customer's for the lost money. It's a multi-billion dollar corporation, what they would have to pay would be pocket change.


RE: I like best buy
By Rugar on 5/27/2007 2:20:46 PM , Rating: 2
That's hilarious. Especially since his name is "Conman". True or not, it's a pretty funny post.


RE: I like best buy
By Treckin on 5/26/07, Rating: -1
RE: I like best buy
By Seer on 5/27/2007 12:26:35 AM , Rating: 2
I was just in BestBuy the otherday with my friend, who was buying a 360. He had called earlier about a possible price match of a deal another big store had involving a 360, 2 games, and a certain carrying bag. Since BestBuy didn't carry that specific bag and one of the required games for the bundle, we had 2 employees spend 15-20 minutes bending over backwards in an attempt to get us a comparable deal -- without buying the bag or the specific game! We just kept adding on items we knew he would need so that they could give us a discount on them, including an extra controller and live 12 mo. sub. They aren't allowed to touch the price on the system itself at all without super manager approval, but they did every possible discount on all the other items in order to save us money. ++ to them.


Age-Old Problem
By ScythedBlade on 5/27/2007 8:54:09 AM , Rating: 2
Wow, I can't believe no one has realized the quick patch-up solution yet.

This kind of stuff happens at nearly EVERY STORE, not just Best Buy itself. What I do is that every time I actually go to a retail store, I would print out everything. Once I get there, if they overcharge me, THEN I show them the page, and every time they have no option but to give me the price on the sheet.




RE: Age-Old Problem
By