Best Buy's dubious intranet site investigated by Connecticut Attorney General
By Thomas Ricker 
posted March 7th 2007 9:26AM
posted March 7th 2007 9:26AM
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posted March 7th 2007 9:26AM
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Bad Deal best buy!
My local Circuit City does the opposite. They've told me the prices are lower on their website and advised me to use their in-store computer to do an in-store pickup from their website while I was shopping in the store.
It's great to see this being investigated.
Wait, I don't get how this works, could someone explain it more clearly?
There's 2 best buy sites:
- the site you can visit by going to bestbuy.com
- the local intranet site found on best buy computers.
I've seen this and done this. Yes, it's a shill that forces people to use the in store computers that don't state the reduced prices of certain products. The idea is that you'll double check at the store and say "Oh, guess I was wrong", and you'll eat the difference.
This happened to me when purchasing my new Westy 1080p TV...
I looked on bestbuy.com and found that the TV was on sale for $1499. When I went to the store to purchase said TV, it was marked at $1799. I asked an employee to check the site to see the price, but on the "site" that he brought up (the intranet site), it showed the price at $1799...no sale.
It had been about an hour since I had seen the TV on the website. I went back home, printed the ad, and they honored the price.
Make sure you print the ads!
Somehow I don't think Best Buy is alone in doing this. I remember going into a certain office supply store looking for a price match, on thier own companies website it matched the stores price, so I looked it up on my Sprint phone and found it at the lower price, which they then matched. I didn't think much of it at the time, but it makes a lot more sense now.
This has happened to me MANY times here in Canada at Best Buy. I thought it was just me. I check in the morning and see a sale, I go in at lunch and there is no sale VIA their computers.
I will ALWAYS print it out from now on before I waste my time going there. Or, I will buy it online and say I will pick it up at the store.
The only reason I can think of for this site to even exist is to screw customers. Otherwise wouldn't it make more sense for all the stores to just use the normal internet site.
My wife and I saw a great deal "in-store only" on a Sony XBR2 LCD. We rushed our local Best Buy (Manhattan, 86th/Lex) to pick it up. We walked downstairs, saw the TV, with the advertised price on display. We decided to think about it for a little while. After we made up our mind, we got in line to sign up for the Best Buy charge card to take advantage of the interest-free financing. By the time we were finished, we had to wait in line to be served by the HDTV specialists. We finally got to the front of the line, then spoke to the rep. He said he didn't know what was going on. He then pulls up this site that looks like their Web site, but with a few differences, mainly with the display of product. It showed the TV priced at the MSRP. We then said that it was even displayed at another price. We all walked over to the display and the ticket/price holder thing was empty. However, above it was a new ticket haphazardly ripped off of a printer and placed on the shelf near the TV. We complained. While doing so, they "called their regional manager" to "see what he could do"... to see if they was any chance to honor the price. "He" told him that it was a mistake, and "no". at this point, it was comical. Other people came in and could be seen staring at the display in disbelief. It confirmed for me two things... one, that we saw what we thought we saw, and two, Best Buy is only useful when comparing prices. Buy at Circuit City.
Buying big electronics in NYC is such a pain in the ass that this extra layer of irritation is unbearable. At least J&R and BH are totally on the up and up with their prices, and sometimes they are almost as low as Best Buy.
This has been happening for years. What you have to do is press CTRL + Alt on the keybord and then exit to another browser like Internet Explorer. Then you can see the real prices. You can only do this on the Sales Associate Terminal. Tell them to use the Internet Explorer Browser and they will do it for you. They know your being jipped, but they will help you out to get the better deal. They are cool like that. By law they have to exit and use Internet Explorer if you inquire it.
There's a law in New York that requires Best Buy employees to use IE at the customer's request? Man I knew you guys love government control and everything (smoking bans, trans fats, etc) but that's a little ridiculous.
I sort of realized there was something going on when I asked an employee to look something up online. He happily pulled up the IE page of bestbuy.com and I said no, I was looking for a machine to go to another website other then theirs (I wanted to check something on my credit card before making a purchase) and they told me to go over to the Clearwire display machine because it was the only one on the Internet. Way to hide it buddy.
It's happened to me when I was visiting parents. I went to buy some memory and DVDs because they were advertised so low. Got to the store, saw their "site" did not have the same price. The salesperson was either lying or ignorant about the advertised site prices. He seemed helpless.
I called my dad, told him to go to the site and buy online for in-store pickup. He took my credit card info, bought it online, and I picked it up about fifteen minutes later, without leaving the store.
Had the same thing happen to me at the San Francisco Best Buy....
Also had to go home and print out the page before they'd honor their own price.
Important thing - they munge the DNS on their internal network so the URL in the browser address area still says www.bestbuy.com, even though you're not on the external, "real"
www.bestbuy.com
Which is why it's got to be more than a mistake.
Actually, its not DNS related, atleast not in the store I bought my TV from. I bought a Samsung 56 rear projection DLP that was advertised on the web site for 1970, but the instore price was 2200 or something along those lines. When the sales rep looked it up, the browser that comes up defaults to the intranet, however its a frameless page, it does not show the url, I told the sales guy to pull up the extranet site, which he did by opening a browser, and then he honored the price, no questions asked. He was a little surprised about the difference. I do not think its intentional (maybe I am being optomistic), I believe there is a disconnect between the systems that deal with the discounts, which are probably linked to the extranet site, but not to the internal. I could of course be totally wrong and its some upper management scheme heh....
Nice, I hope they get busted and stop this dishonest practice. I only shop at Newegg and Amazon anyway, so whatever.. F' Best Buy.
Listen to the latest version of Buzz Out Loud to get some clarifications about this.
I've read of too many serious customer problems with Best Buy to buy anything serious from them.
These guys are sharks, plain and simple. Ask one of their vendors.
I have been tricked by this intranet site in Canada too. I often check prices and sales on the bestbuy.ca website before actually going to the store. If I see a good deal, I check the stock of the item via the public website. At least 3 times in the last year, I have gone to bestbuy with a print of the item showing that there is stock available only to have an employee show me that the stock on their intranet site is actually 0. Then somehow, amazingly, the next day the item returns to stock. I have checked this the last 2 times, after thinking something was fishy the first time. So, basically, I believe bestbuy is taking items that they feel are too good of a deal off the shelves and not selling them until the sale is over. They are using the private intranet site to confirm to the customer that the item is indeed out of stock, and to top it off they refuse to offer rainchecks on items that are onsale. I will shop at newegg.com and import the stuff myself from now on. Paying duty and tax is cheaper than buying stuff in the store in Canada anyway.
i don't get the problem.
1. best buy retail stores and bestbuy.com are considered 2 different things(according to best buy policies) so pricing isnt going to always be the same and it doesn't have to. even though they will most of the time pricematch each other(obviously meaning retail adjusting to .com)
2. the intranet website is so people that are in the store get the correct instore pricing
3. sure it can be misleading and sometimes(if employee is aware) done on purpose by employees but thats your fault for not checking to see if prices are the same in store as well as online before visiting the retail location. and if u get to the store and you see it cheaper on bestbuy.com u can print it out and get the price adjusted in store. easy.
sometimes youl find things cheaper in store than online not all the time but sometimes, and yeah i guess bestbuy should change, at least the layout, of the intranet site for all dummies out there. im gonna write a book called "retail shopping for dummies" lol
I am a former computer salesperson for Best Buy. I can recall at least one instance where a customer came in expecting to find a computer advertised on BestBuy.com for one price, only to find that we were charging more in-store. She asked me to check the website. The website reflected the in-store price. Needless to say, she was a little upset. I wish I had known that we were using an intranet-based BestBuy.com.
NB: Despite the constant pressure management puts on you to rip off customers with service plans and accessories the customer will never use, I really did try to make sure people walked out of the store with the best priced computers that matched their needs.
This is just a symptom of Best Buy's rotten culture, which is a result of its rotten values. I encourage anyone with access to LexisNexis to look up an article in the Wall Street Journal from Nov 8, 2004 by Gary McWilliams. The title is "Minding the Store: Analyzing Customers, Best Buy Decides Not All Are Welcome." This article talks about Best Buy's policy of labeling customers either "angels" or "devils" and their desire to chase the "devils" away. In theory, this practice was supposed to focus Best Buy on catering to its most profitable customers, a good strategy for any business. I contend that Best Buy's botched implementation of this policy resulted in poisoning its entire culture--top to bottom and nationwide--with the notion that it's alright to treat customers badly. In other words, they implemented the stick rather than the carrot. Of course Best Buy's employees believe it's okay to screw their customers. That is a part of its management-endorsed culture.
The sad reality is that most employees don't know that the INTRAnet site is different from the INTERnet site. That causes many customer upsets because if it's on BestBuy.com, it MUST be true and the customer MUST be lying.
i think everybody is making too big of a deal out of this. the website SHOULD be cheaper- they dont have the expense of retail retards or buildings other than warehouses.
be lucky that they choose to honor the online price in the store at all!
as far as employees go- i really dont think that they know anything- i mean come on...its best buy employees we're talking about here! i really dont think that they are smart enough to scam people like this. the instore site shows instore prices, that all thats happening here.
and all of this from a guy who hates best buy! seriously...i cant stand the place... :-p
Maybe the employees honestly DON'T KNOW the difference. Jeez, the in-store kiosks are supposed to help you find what is found in the store at the in-store price. Some people take this stuff too personally.
Like I said before
How many times have you returned something at Best Buy past the policy period?
How many times has Best Buy returned your opened software, cd or DVD considering the fact that you could have easily pirated it?
If you're really worried about getting screwed over, go shop at Sears or Howard's where they still work on commission, because you know... they really do care about you as a customer, not how much they're making off the sale.
I encountered the same price difference at Circuit City. I was told by an employee that the national chain website prices differently than the stores. No, they would not honor the lower price on the website.
I went home and purchased the DVD player online and selected in-store pick-up.
When will they learn to make it easier on the customer?
To defend Best Buy (BBY) I use to work there, in computers. We always told customers that the price on the website was different from the in store price. I for one think its stupid because all you need is a customer to know the price off the besybuy.com, they don't need to look at a intranet computer to see the price is dif. If its that big of a deal then order it off the BBY website at home for shipping or in store pickup.
Some of you are stating this problem is okay because the .com and the store are two different entities. That's not entirely true. The .com often has products listed as "In store only". This was the case with the 37" LCD Westinghouse TV I recently purchased. The .com said the in store price was $899.99, however, the store's Intranet said is was priced at $949.99. I insisted on the $899 price and eventually got it, but there is definitely something fishy going on.
I have worked for best buy for 5 years now I have never seen an employee purposely try to "trick" a customer about our in store bestbuy.com site. It may have been that the associate was not aware that the two may be different, but its really not that big of a deal that they would try to screw you. We aren't paid on commission and we could really care less for the most part. When we log on the employee toolkit we do have a screen that will let us look up bestbuy.com for "kiosk pricing" and "web pricing". We have the two different sites so that if a customer is looking for something in our store it will give them the price they would pay that day, it's that simple. If you are shopping online and see something you want, you should print out the add every time just to make sure, it isn't our fault you came unprepared. :)
Honestly, I hate Best Buy as much as the next person. However, with the exception of maybe store management, I think that what most of you have experienced is just human error. Having worked for Best Buy in the recent past, I can sincerely tell you that most of the employees do not know the difference between the Internet and an intranet and, therefore, could not be purposely trying to cheat you on your purchases. Hell, most Best Buy employees are below average students just trying to make a quick buck with no real passion for technology or customer service. That's not to say that all of them are like that, but the vast majority couldn't hold a candle to Engadget enthusiasts. Best Buy is definitely guilty of some shady practices, as are all big-box retailers, but on an individual basis, I believe that most of you are merely getting scammed by stupidity on the part of the employees who are helping you.
This happened to me while shopping at my local Best Buy here in New Jersey. I went in to buy a new HDTV that I saw advertised on their website for one price and when I got to the store, it was displayed at a higher price. I told the salesman that I saw it on the BestBuy.com website for a different price and he said that he would check it out for me.
He brought me over to the computer at the sales desk and told me that he couldn't access the BestBuy.com website directly but he could check it another way. He had to go to a stock market page and enter the Best Buy symbol which brought up current stock info on the company as well as a link to the company website. He told me that was the only way that he could access the BestBuy.com website from his computer. After that whole workaround the price that I said I had seen was right there on the website and the salesman matched it for me. I remember thinking that it was odd that the salesman had to jump through hoops just to get to the store website. Now I know that I was actually lucky to find an informed employee.
it really just sounds like corporate trying to make it as hard as possible to get the best deal unless you KNOW what is going on.
It's sneaky, but it doesn't involve mis-information at any point, it's just consumers(and sometimes employees) lacking the information, which bestbuy really doesn't need to provide. They will honor the price as long as you have a hard copy of it, so that is usually a good guideline to go by.
Either way, this is not being consumer friendly at all regardless of legality, and I think the BBB should tear them a new one. period.
it just shows that sadly even with a big chain such as Best Buy, caveat emptor still applies.
The problem with this is they need to make people aware in huge bold letters that the price does not reflect the in store price, otherwise it can be seen as fraud in a lot of states. Fine print doesn't carry much weight anymore, you need to have it noticeable so that even a disabled person who might have the worst eyesight in the world can tell the difference.
Best Buy will probably get nail for doing this in the end simply because of their actions of brining up the web site in store and passing it off as their external site. Even if the salespeople are ignorant on the whole difference, Best Buy are still responsible for them not training them on the differences and end up paying for it.
I worked at Best for almost a year and they bend you over as much as they can. I feel bad now because I never knew how bad I was scewing people over when they would come in with a printout of a price they found at Bestbuy.com but I couldn't find that same price for them on the "in store intranet". Also everyone has been asked about those gay mags they sell at the checkout lanes, well they make around 10 bucks a pop for those things and the cashier doesnt get any of it except job security. I am glad I finally got a real job and could quit working at best buy...
Back in '95 when I worked for Best Buy the manager was adamant about always offering the best price. We even scoured the Sunday ads. He said that the name of the store is BEST Buy, not "pretty-good buy". My how times have changed. These days when you want to purchase accessories you need to ask them if Vaseline comes with it.
What is worse is that they honor a lower price (if used in last 30 days) if you go to return something without a receipt. In my case, my wife returned an XFile DVD season 3 collection I received for Xmas (likely at full price) but only got 19.99 back for it. Both the store and store intranet site showed normal price (something like 45.99).
I've worked at Best Buy in sales for over two years. The horrible things I've seen sales associates do is ridiculous. One sales associate from the business program sold a customer a one hour training on a Harmony remote and I saw another sell close to $1000 in services from geek squad to a paraplegic. At each time such acts were greeted with high fives and congrats from managers. Well, the thing is about the intranet site most employees just don't know. I've had maybe a few customers present me with the difference and it's often not that much. Usually $10 off a printer or something. I really don't care about taking someone's money. If they have proof I'll give them the difference at the department register and they wouldn't even have to go to customer service. Many times, I go out of my way and go on Mozilla or IE on one of the Business Pros computers and FIND the deal and PRINT it out for them. A couple times if the customer is nice I'll even go to Froogle and find them a better price and print it out. You have to understand that some customers are straight out bullsh*t and I can't believe anything anyone says. But if corporate is ripping people off that's one thing but leave the sales people out of it unless they are really ripping you off. I only found out about the Intranet thing on Digg when it was first posted a few weeks ago. Most people that shop at Best Buy that know anything about technology usually like to be left alone, like myself, but the ones that do talk to a sales associate, like myself, are usually the biggest assholes. I mean,I don't care that you know more than I do just get your crap and get out of there. If your nice, that's another thing. Otherwise, I have to help the customers that still call the computer a modem and get offended when corrected. And I quote, "That's a modem??? Where does the CD go?" *I put down the cable modem and PCI fax modem realizing their misunderstanding and die inside a little*
Last Sunday, Best Buy reminded me that they're crooks and why the hell am I shopping at Best Buy. I went to pick up a 42" plama tv that I had seen on their website. The website and store price was the same at the time($1609). Bought the tv, but later on I found out that Circuit City had it for $209 cheaper online and at the store than Best Buy. The next day I went back to Best Buy to get a price match but they said I had to bring in the ad. Since this is the 21st. century, I tried showing them the price difference online but they refused, so I demanded a refund, besides, I had not taken the tv from the store yet until I convinced myself that I was not getting ripped off. They told me that Best Buy and Best Buy.com are two different companies that just happen to use the same name (save for the '.com') and they don't price match online store prices. When I paid for the tv they also told to my face that the delivery of the tv to my home was FREE, complements of Best Buy, although the sales receipt lists $150 for Audio/Video setup (delivery) and that the store was paying the delivery fee by directly deducing that charge from the price of the tv, time and again. So, after they failed trying to fight off the price match guarantee, they informed me that they could't price match the tv and then deliver it to my home for free. At that moment it dawned on me that they had indeed included the delivery fee with the Real price of the tv, to arrive at the sticker price of the tv that Best Buy has on their shelves, and then tell you to with a straight face that it has "free" delivery. I took the tv home myself and in the process saved myself from getting ripped by $150+ the Real tv price difference between them and Circuit City + extra tax. So, Circuit City's price was cheaper and then some more than Best Buy's price because they didn't do like Best Buy did and add home delivery charges to all their big screen tv's without even asking the buyer if you needed that service. In conclusion, Best Buy SUCKS! and lie and deceit their customers.
"audio/video"(really tv/video) set up is not delivery, its an install service they have that some guy goes to your house and makes sure the tv is looking good and setup correctly.
Richard Blumenthal fucking rocks!! This guy has been attorney general for Connecicut for some time and has an outstanding reputation for defending consumer rights. I'm proud to say I voted for him.
missed the "t" in Connecticut. kill me
First of all, as a current Best Buy employee, this is all nothing but assumptions and people wanting to complain about stuff. No it wouldn't make sense for all the computers to use the supposed 'internet' Best Buy website because the intranet website is actually more stable and is more realiable then using the Internet website. Yes I will say, there ARE 2 different websites, but what happens is that the Internet website is easier to update and change, and is updated and changed quite frequently. However most of the time the local website is not changed as much and as frequently... something they are working on changing.
2nd of all... some of the internet prices ARE lower... because they WANT you to buy online. AND if you actually read a little bit further into it... most of those low prices are advertised as 'Internet Only' or 'Not available in stores'. Easy.
Then here's the deal...
1) Best Buy should not provide in-store stocking information inline with web pricing from bestbuy.com if the product isn't going to be readily available at that price in-store. You can't have it both ways - either bestbuy.com drives customers to the big box stores, or it's something completely unrelated.
2) Best Buy shouldn't fake the in-store intranet site to appear as if it's www.bestbuy.com, when it's clearly not. That's weasel behavior, pure and simple.
As for me - I don't really get into having an adversarial relationship with companies who want my money. It shouldn't be that hard to get in, get out, and get on with my life having purchased a product at the advertised price.
You - stay at Best Buy - as you're obviously destined for management there.
Ouch Rick... ouch.
Naa... actually I really don't like working at Best Buy. You seem to know what Best Buy should do.. you might want to look into management there.
As for me... I think something like McDonalds is more up my alley eh?
Employees aren't taught anything at all about the website, so it's not quite so clearly a dirty practice as some make it out to be. The intranet site likely is left over from the time when Best Buy in-store and BestBuy.com were considered two separate entities, and we've run into this problem now because of the policy change of Best Buy price matching the website in-store. A lack of training about the distinction in pricing now that the policy has shifted has quite clearly been a problem throughout the company, as most employees have no idea there's a difference and are under the assumption that the customers are wrong. There IS a direct link to the internet site inside of Employee Tool Kit which most people don't know about, so people use the trick of going through the stock prices like they would to browse other sites they shouldn't be at work.
Short version: It's a remnant of past policies that was never updated and hung around to cause confusion. Best Buy isn't stupid enough to blatantly commit fraud like this.
I think every is missing a greater point about this. It's ok to have an intranet site with in store prices, etc. But why does it need to look just like the internet site? That's where the fishy part comes in. I don't care about all the BB supporters who say "You should just buy it online, or order an in store pickup, or print out the price, etc, etc". Best Buy should have either better trained their employees from the start so they are fully (ie:100%) aware about the two websites and how to easily access the two or they should've given the intranet site a different look from the internet one. Perhaps a different color scheme, different layout, or even just gave it a more barebones lo-fi look since it will be used mainly by "trained" employees. This would have prevented a lot of (intended) confusion.
The Hartford Courant recently started a consumer watchdog column. The Feb 9, 2007 column http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1213455061&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId=60372&RQT=309&VName=PQD
is what started this investigation into Best Buy's intranet.
On April 13, 2003 I ordered a plasma TV with a four year extended warranty from the Best Buy Store in North Olmsted, Ohio. I was on a six month travel order with the Department of Defense. I was assured that it would not be a problem when I received the unit as I was planning a renovation when I returned home to San Diego, CA. The clerk told me the dates did not matter. The TV was delivered September 13, 2003 and the Best Buy installers attached it to my wall hiding all the wires on Sept 17.
The TV operated fine until Sept 4, 2007, suddenly the TV went out. Although I thought I still had a few more days left on the warranty, Best Buy informed me that the warranty had started 5 months before I received it. Best Buy prorated the extended warranty refunding me $41.62, which I did not cash.
I found out from Samsung that the TV was manufactured in Korea 17 days after Best Buy said the warranty started. Samsung also showed that their 24 month warranty started from the date I received it, Sept 13, 2003. Samsung also shows Sept 13, 2003 as the date of purchase.
I went to small claims court November 1, 2007. The judge ruled in my favor. The judge ruled that I am entitled to costs of Best Buy repair service visit of $100 and have the TV fixed or replaced. I am now waiting for the court papers.
I can only imagine what Best Buy will do next. I would be happy to help in any way I can for others. There were a number of things they told me that were not true. In one instance I have a witness, my brother a licensed plumber. During my renovation in 2003 their installer told me that I needed to replace my copper plumbing with plastic. Their installer wanted to steal my copper.
I wish to help others in anyway I can because I feel Best Buy misrepresented the facts but got caught on a technicality. I was lucky but they said they can fix the TV four times before replacing it. I do not trust them and expect there will be more problems when I should be getting an apology.