Best Buy sued over shady intranet site

Tsk, tsk. Looks like Best Buy will indeed be paying up for the misdeeds involving that dodgy intranet we saw a few months back. Connecticut's attorney general announced a lawsuit against the big box retailer and accused it of "deceiving customers with in-store computer kiosks and overcharging them." Attorney General Richard Blumenthal was quoted as saying that the store "gave consumers the worst deal with a bait-and-switch-plus scheme luring consumers into stores with promised online discounts, only to charge higher in-store prices." The suit seeks "refunds for consumers, civil penalties, court costs, a ban on the practice, and other remedies," and while Best Buy spokespersons are vigorously denying the allegations, Connecticut's consumer protection commissioner even said that there was "certainly an element of deception here." Reportedly, the in-store kiosks were somehow an "alternate way to get information about products," but when that information ends up costing your customers more than they should be paying, we doubt the judge will look kindly upon it.

[Rob @ May 25th 2007 2:25PM]

Way to stick it to them, Connecticut! If Best Buy was doing that intentionally, then that is totally dispicable.

[John B @ May 25th 2007 2:27PM]

Back in 2004 before my family went to Europe, I found a really nice camera that BB had for $349 online. I printed the web page and drove over to the nearest BB only to find that the marked price was $399 -- and they wouldn't honor the on-line price! So, I went home, ordered it on-line for pickup at the lower price at the same store, then went and got it.

Yeah, I probably should have told them to go f**k themselves and bought it at a different store, but their major competitors still had it for $399 (even on-line). >:(

So, I took that extra $50 and bought a 2 GB SD card at a competitor. :)

[Yan @ May 25th 2007 2:28PM]

Hopefully, the result of this lawsuit will amount to more than just a discount voucher for DVDs or some silly crap like that.

[Dan @ May 25th 2007 2:31PM]

I work at Best Buy and this is blown way out of proportion. Theres nothing wrong with having an intranet with different prices and changes have already been made for the few employees who didnt know the difference between the two sites. Its nothing intentional or way to try and scam customers, best buy has always made it a priority to match its own website prices with instore prices so they arent trying to scam anyone. Sure you may hate on big box stores but as far as they go best buy is not amongst the worst of them.

[Big @ May 25th 2007 3:32PM]

I worked at BBY store 483 in Rego PArk, Queens.

I know first hand all the shady sh!t BBY does to fool customers.

Things that should be $19.99 are $21.99.
Warranties are worthless most of the time or dishonored later down the road after purchase.
Things sold over the internet are nearly impossible for the employees to put their hands on usualy resulting in customers leaving dissapointed.

There is only ONE SOLUTION for us to countermand BBY. STOP PATRONIZING THEM. Go to CIRCUIT CITY or WALMART. SHOP ONLINE !

[resource @ May 25th 2007 2:32PM]

These stores always try to make you feel like the online price is some shit you pulled out of the sky.

I know how to use the internet.
I hope they get destroyed in court.

[Mr.Playstation3 @ May 25th 2007 2:32PM]

Man it is about time... BestBuy is so shady, I hope they get exactly what they got coming because they suck..

How can you do that to consumers after all they have done for you to make your store so big. Man I hope they stick it to best buy...

[g76monte @ May 25th 2007 2:33PM]

best buy is a dirtbag big-box retailer, everything they do revolves around screwing their customers. it's about time someone stuck it to them.

[randy @ May 25th 2007 2:35PM]

I hate Best Buy. I walked in to the one in Scottsdale two weeks ago for the first time since Christmas to buy a simple 6' DVI cable.

They wanted $59.95!!!

I laughed and left.

[DonYorke @ May 25th 2007 2:58PM]

Best Buy is so bullshit. In Canada they bought out the competition Futureshop some years back and every since they have been screwing us.

I remember trying to do a price match at Best Buy with a PSP on sale at futureshop. They ended up telling me that since the Futureshop flyer marked the item at limited quantities, they did not have to honor the price match. Man, I hate them bastards at Best Buy

I hoped they get burned in court, and I hope Circut City comes to Canada and put an end to their monopoly.

[StrangeBum @ May 25th 2007 3:26PM]

I myself used to work at a BestBuy and I honestly hated that job. As far as this whole intranet site stuff goes, at least at my store, we always matched what customers saw online, I used to cut deals to people all the time too, employees have quite a bit of freedom with price matching.

Other than that though, the way BestBuy practiced business itself is not so shady, but completely screwed up. Especially since right before I quit, the new RewardZone MasterCard came out and the way they want the employees to push it is horrible. As a customer I hate having to hear that shit and I know my customers did too. There's more about working there that really just pissed me off, but that's for another time I suppose.

[[e-mail] @ May 25th 2007 3:32PM]

"They ended up telling me that since the Futureshop flyer marked the item at limited quantities, they did not have to honor the price match."

That's standard business practice. Sometimes stores will put something on sale and sell it at a loss because they only have a couple and the amount of extra people the ad brings in justifies it. If others stores matched the price they would only lose money from the incident.

I will admit though that the fake competition between Best Buy and Future Shop have always pissed me off. There always trying to make it look like they are having a sale to compete with the other store when in reality they're just cleaning out old stock.

[DonYorke @ May 25th 2007 4:27PM]

@ [e-mail]

Thats my point. Best Buy owns Futureshop, so what they do is mark a sale item as limited quanity at one location so they dont have to honor the price match at the other, when in fact they are the same entity.

Their tactics deceives the customer plain and simple. It has customers arriving at Futureshop to buy a product that is out stock, who then race to Best Buy only to learn their price match is not honored.

But since you cant get the product you came for, "why dont you buy these [overpriced] Monster cables"

F@ck BB

[Dave @ May 25th 2007 3:45PM]

"Bust Buy" is a much better pun on their name.

[Jon @ May 25th 2007 3:51PM]

Best Buy pulled this on my brother. He had noticed a Slingbox on their site on sale for $50 discount, went to the store they wouldn't honour it. They said it was an online discount. So my brother pulled out his laptop pulled up the site and asked them to point out where it stated online discount only. They couldn't find it but then told him they wouldn't honour the price as they don't have to. He went home called their head office and they claimed they had no sale on the product, even though it was still on their site. The next day the discount was removed and it was back at the regular price. Just this week the same thing. This time he ordered it online to pickup, when he went in they told him he would have to pay extra for it. He would have walked away but someone gave him a gift certificate for best buy and he just wanted to get rid of it. This time he noticed that they had the price match guarantee sign up so he pulled up another stores website on his laptop which was selling the Slingbox for $60 cheaper, regular price. So he got the $60 plus 10% off. Maybe they should have just given him their discount in the first place.

Bad business Best Buy

[CaptSaltyJack @ May 25th 2007 4:07PM]

I'm boycotting Best Buy. I will not set foot in their stores ever again.

[Aaron @ May 25th 2007 4:21PM]

Ooh, good to see this practice is going to be stopped. I'll bet Circuit City is going to stop it in a hurry.

To be fair though, Circuit City has been really cool to me about that. I went in there a few months back to buy a HDTV. The price on the website was lower than in the store (the site even said the deal was "online only", heh...) but I went in there and feigned ignorance and asked about the price on the website. The computers in the store listed the higher price, but the guy went to the other side of the store to check another machine (presumably one with internet access), and he came back and gave me the lower price. Part of it was their price matching guarantee, but he said they would do it for sure since it was their own site in the first place. I was very satisfied. Not to mention their TV selection blew Best Buy's out of the water.

Case in point: shop Circuit City instead of Best Buy. The folks over at CC are nicer (from my experience, at least) and they were actually knowledgable about their products, as opposed to the blank stares you get from the kids working at BB...

[James @ May 25th 2007 4:26PM]

There's nothing wrong with best buy, they aren't trying to scam you, you just have too much fucking time on your hands (this lawsuit proves it). I'll be glad to hear that this case is dropped due to an EXTREME lack of evidence, seeing as BB.com and the instore intranet site are two completely different things. You know, one reflects the price online, the other reflects In-store pricing. Have fun with your frivolous lawsuit.

[AirStrike X2 @ May 25th 2007 4:42PM]

Finally someone cared to do something about this bait-n-switch scheme of Best Buy's. Recently I've boughtt a Sony digital camera from Best Buy. I checked on the internet for the price of my camera and it said $309.99. When I walked in there, picked my camera, checked it out, I was charged $379 and when I told 'em to check their website, it also said $379. I asked 'em if they could exit their software and open up Internet Explorer... The lady was nice enough to do that, she went to bestbuy.com and the price was 309. I had the lady print the paper out for me to show at the checkout or they were going to charge me 379.

Best Buy is a total rip off!! I prefer Circuit City & CompUSA. I love CC's customer service, they are very quick and responsive (and caring)

[Nacho @ May 25th 2007 5:11PM]

Basically, it doesnt matter what they charge, since their products are shit anyway. Then theres the service. One of my mom's friends had a computer that wouldnt turn on, so she took it in to the geek squad. They charged her roughly $250 and could not solve the problem, although she did get all her data backed up nicely on DVD. I went and took a look at her computer. $45 for a new PSU and about 20 minutes later, it was running again. But since BB/GS had told her that it was dead, she already bought a new computer from them. Frankly, I think Best Buy is great. If you enjoy getting raped up the ass repeatedly with a broom handle. Please, tell all the people you know who are not quite computer savvy that they should not shop at BB, and suggest that they look somewhere else or to their local computer shop or professional. Spread this story and others beyond the internet, take it to the people who aren't informed enough to avoid the blue and yellow hellhole.

[Cam @ May 25th 2007 5:58PM]

How do I get involved? I want to be part of the civil suit!

[Devi8or @ May 25th 2007 6:01PM]

I've seen hte different prices in the internal system versus online. It's not an issue in our store as the managers are all about making the customers happy. We match competitors prices, as well as online prices at our store. The whole bait and switch thing is not something we practice in our store I know for sure. I guess what it all comes down to is whether the manager on duty feels like he should match prices with competiors and such.

I've always been told that we can match prices on the same product as long as the advertised one they bring in isn't on mail-in-rebates.

I actually saw an instance of the prices being different yesterday. The internal site had a Vid card a few bucks higher then the internet. We even went as far as pulling up the product on newegg, and the customer actually payed less then the website advertised as well. Needless to say, he left spending less then he had previously seen.

Not all Best Buys are out there to screw the customers, if there is anyone to blame, blame the managers of the particular stores. They are the ones responsible for allowing price matches and such, and I know our guys will almost always match competitors, because they actually value their customers. I can't say that for all Best Buys, but I know ours is a tight run ship

[Eric @ May 25th 2007 6:08PM]

One time I looked for prices for a Sandisk Cruzer Micro 1 GB flash drive. The best price was Staples, for $42. We went to our local store and the price tag said it was $68. We told them it was their price online a few hours ago, so the manager and the employee we talked to went to a computer and looked up this issue. They sold it for $42, like we got on the Internet, because there wasn't any writing on the Web page for the flash drive that this was a special online price. So I think that Staples handled this situation very well. I hate to think about what it would be like if we were dealing with Best (not) Buy.

[mark @ May 25th 2007 6:58PM]

"Nice to see Best Buy finally getting punished for this. I was wondering what would happen after this was leaked a few months ago! :)"

Considering they did nothing wrong... the intranet site was set up to reflect the costs in-store, seeing as how you are....... in-store. Most people use those kiosks to find the movie / CD / whatever they are looking for, not to order things with it. It wasn't meant to deceive people into paying more than they had to, it was there for reference. The employee website was the same thing as well, and they weren't trying to 'deceive' their employees too. Before everyone jumps on the "BB sucks because..." bandwagon, try and look at it from the other side of things...

[Majicebe @ May 25th 2007 7:48PM]

I just recently quit a Best Buy, and honestly I've got to say these accusations are pretty ridiculous. Yes, there was an internal site, but it wasn't for any customers to see. No one at our Best Buy ever used it for anything to do with price matching; it was more for inventory and other internal projects and such and the pricing was always off (sometimes more, sometimes less) for products.

Now, this isn't to say Best Buy doesn't deserve some animosity over certain things (as a former Geeksquad agent, I've seen a lot of stuff you could deem 'shady'), but this isn't one of them -- at least I never saw it at our Best Buy and it was definitely something corporate wouldn't have approved of.

If Best Buy did something wrong here, it's not training those employees wherever this happened enough about SOP -- which I can safely say is VERY important to the managers I always had.

[jaredwork @ May 25th 2007 7:48PM]

Ok, you can accuse a big company of trying all they can to make money, you can dislike them because they buy up local competition, you can dislike them because some of their employees aren't taught how to do their jobs well enough, but to perpetuate this idea that it's a corporate-wide decision to intentionally show customers a fake website to con them out of some price-match is to say it nicely, foolish.

If it was a corporate-wide decision, I would've known about it or had it taught to me -- I was not. So at best you're talking about a single store, and I highly doubt that was something the managers instructed their sales people to do.

What's most likely? An employee logged onto the corporate intranet (like we do when checking stock of an item, punching the time-clock, sending an e-mail, checking shipments, looking at benefits, etc.) and didn't realize there was a difference between the internal bby website (which is usually out-of-date) and the one on display at bestbuy.com. So s/he's a dumb employee and either didn't listen at their orientation, or didn't take the online learning course on the intranet's use, or for some personal reason decided to lie to the customer -- that's it. Hell, when I worked there (I left less than a month ago), we went out of our way to pricematch. In fact they just revamped their "care plus" theme (I always thought it was retarded anyways), which basically goes out of the way to help the best we can. They went years with things being based around the almighty dollar, but in the last few months they've done some new initiative which from what I've seen basically means the squeaky wheel gets the grease, meaning the more you complain while still being pleasant, the more you're gonna get out of them.

It's not a conspiracy, it's not something 'the corporate evil' concocted to screw over yet another customer; it was a foolish employee or at most a foolish manager. Hell, for all we know, it could've been a brand new employee who hadn't even gone through his training yet and more stumbled on the intranet with his login credentials than anything.

It's not that I love Best Buy or anything, the place wasn't a bad place to work at, but there were definitely reasons I wanted the hell out of there, but I just get sick of all these armchair lawyers talking about how Best Buy's always out to screw someone, because compared to the competition that I've seen, Best Buy is way waaaaay more willing to give on stuff that effects the bottom line than the smaller guys, mainly because they've got more of a cash buffer.

[Best Bob @ May 25th 2007 10:02PM]

The thing with all this is... I don't hear anybody coming on here complimenting on how Best Buy gave them a great deal when they didn't even have to! The opinions on here are nowhere near the true feelings of even 5% of Best Buy's customer base.

I work at Best Buy, we make exception exchanges all the time because the person denied our service plan, but it broke and now he whines to customer service. The Price Match policy states as follows: Good for current sales that are in-stock and verifiable at a retail location. We're not supposed to match newegg.com because they don't pay employees to answer questions for customers all day.. but yet we still match it to make the customer happy. It's funny how Best Buy has all these metrics of measuring customer retention and they print out all the comment from the store surveys for all the employees to read. If you truly hate Best Buy, then fill out that little survey at the bottom of your receipt.

Oh and guess what? All the instore kiosks now say in bold highlighted writing "This Kiosk Reflects In-Store Pricing" for all you naysayers out there.

I mean cmon, I've personally seen our customer service return a Playstation Portable box filled with sand because "that's what came in the box when he got it" and because the customer whined. If you're telling me Best Buy doesn't care about you as a customer, you probably don't deserve to have that kind of service.

To the guy whining about the price of a DVI cable... hmm lets see... Best Buy doesn't make money off the product so what will they make money off of??? Hmmmm... accessories... service plans... and services. If you're honestly posting on this blog, why in gods name would you ever think about going to a retailer to buy any accessory? I guess you just had to have something to whine about.

[Drew @ May 26th 2007 12:42AM]

I recently went into a Best Buy to purchase a portable DVD player that I saw listed on their website for $89. In the store, it was listed at $112, so I took it to the customer service desk and told them I had seen it online within the hour at the lower price. A manager pulled it up "online" and showed me the price ... $112. I didn't buy it.... but went home, and to prove to myself that I wasn't losing my mind... found it for $89.

Now everything is clear... and clearly scummy. I won't step into Best Buy again!

[Hazar_Jast @ May 26th 2007 1:04AM]

I live in Michigan and this happened to me about a year or so ago when I bought a DVD box set. The price online was clearly $10 or so cheaper than what it rang up for. I told the sales person that and the 'looked it up' on (what I'm assuming was) their intranet site and said I was wrong. Sure enough I got home and checked the website and I was right. So yes, Best Buy is screwing people and I for one am glad someone is doing something about it.

[nottakingitpersonally @ May 26th 2007 2:15AM]

You're all idiots. Its not a 'perfect-world' where you get to pay what you want at a store manned by mindless perfect automatons.
Fine, go shop at the competition. Do it quick, though, because all of their competitors are dying.

Not everyone in the country is an internet troll like most of the people who frequent this site and can navigate the web with the freedom you all do.

Some place has to take care of normal folks with jobs and families who arent 30 and living in their mom's basement. You guys here may have the know-how to find a DVI cable for 99 cents that costs 50 bucks when carried by a normal store.

Idiots.

[Pinkerton @ May 29th 2007 11:26AM]

"Normal folks" are the last ones who can afford a 600+ percent markup. If one cannot spend 10 minutes to save $50, they deserve it. Yes, it is a free market.

[tweak @ May 26th 2007 6:28AM]

Hate it or love it, this is capitalism. Let's not forget Best Buy is a business just like any other place that sells goods and services to its customers. It's one thing to intentionally deceive the customer, but it's another for an employee to be ignorant to the fact. From what I remember, most of the employees of the store I worked at were aware that you could easily circumvent the intranet site to see what the prices on the real bby.com are. I'm going to agree 100% with a previous post that the handlings of these things are all dependent on the managers there. Some are purely looking to push the Net Operating Profit (NOP) through the roof so they get even bigger bonuses at the end of the fiscal year.

All in all, Best Buy isn't a place for people who read this site, generally they're more knowledgeable about the various products on the market and have no need to go to Best Buy and "learn" about the products before they buy them. In my opinion Best Buy is for people who know little to nothing about a certain product and want a knowledgable sales person who isn't on commission to help them make a decision. At least that's the goal of the store, obviously it varies quite a bit from location to location. It's too bad because I think there are some genuinely well run stores who want to provide the best possible service for the customers.

[Ken @ May 26th 2007 10:27AM]

What about circuit city, they have this "ready in 24minutes, or 24buk gift card!". i ordered on the website, and got a email comfirmation that my order is ready to pickup. when i went to store to pick it up, they told me it' out of stock! so i demanded them to give me 24$ gift card since my order is not ready in 24minutes! they make all kind of B.S to avoid giving me 24$ gift card. "we found out later we out of stock, we tried to call you". called my ass!, i always use/enter my cellphone #. i never received any calls, or any missed call on my cellphone, and i checked my voicemail, there' no voicemail!
The corp office finally sent me a 24$ gift card after i called the 800# to complain!

[corey @ May 27th 2007 4:29AM]

internal site or not if the employees pull up the prices for you online when you complain that its cheaper on the site. They won't tell you it's an internal site and just try to decieve you and make you think your wrong.

[Steve @ May 26th 2007 2:11PM]

First hand experience: Right before Christmas we found a nice price on a Sony DVD player. Went to the store to find a higher price on the shelf. Told the sales person that on line this item is $30 cheaper. He took us over to his computer and pulled the item up and showed us, saying we must have been mistaken. I pulled out my PPC6700 and pulled up their website right in front of him. When I had the item at the cheaper price on my screen he didnt know what to say, he was absolutely speechless. Just kept looking at my phone as if it was an alien object. We of course got the better price after we asked for a manager. But this will show you that the different site wasn't a "reference" but was used specifically to say that I was "mistaken".

[krizoitz @ May 26th 2007 3:29PM]

"Theres nothing wrong with having an intranet with different prices "

Umm, yes, yes there is. What possible reason would you have for a second site, that looks identical to what a customer woudl see, except for the prices, other than to decieve customers. If the information on the internal site is innacurate then it is useless to the actual employees. Nice try though...

[sunkist @ May 28th 2007 2:45AM]

"Best Buy is notorious for this kind of thing. They should be shut down."

I work at Best Buy, first let me state that the 2 web sites the national web site, bestbuy.com and the intranet site, is not designed to scam customers. Bestbuy.com lists the prices that everyone see's nation wide. In store prices fluctuate based on the local market they are in. So sometimes in-store prices are cheaper than whats on bestbuy.com and vice versa. For roughly the past 3 years best buy has had the policy of matching bestbuy.com prices unless the site states "online special only". What occured in this case was the employees having a lack of training, which doesnt make it ok. At any rate, I try to treat customers as I would expect to be treated if I was shopping somewhere, for I am a consumer as well.

[Adrian @ May 28th 2007 10:56AM]

i hate best buy

[Adam New @ May 28th 2007 1:15PM]

Best Buy is notorious for this kind of thing. They should be shut down.

[iori @ May 29th 2007 11:14AM]

I was trying to buy a HD TV so I went on bestbuy.com and found an Sony 55' HD for 3,099 which was $100 cheaper compared to Circuit city so I printed it out(was not a web only special) took it to my local best buy BLOOMINGTON IL and asked them if they had it in stock they had it but it was priced at 3,199 so I showed them the printed page and the sales rep showed me their web site it showed 3,199 so I asked to talk to a manager and had to wait almost 30 minute before he came and basically said that I can either buy it 3,199 or not since their web site says its 3,199. So I ended up going to CC and they matched the price in a sec and I got the same HDTV for 3,099. So please don't say that intranet site has different price for internal use, If it is for internal use why quote prices from it to consumers its shameful and lets you know what a business thinks of you and by the way since then I have never gone to best buy closed my reward zone account and am very happy they are getting sued for it.

[snowglyder @ May 31st 2007 7:28PM]

Yay, we'll all be getting 2 10% off coupons per month now!

[chaochou2 @ Jul 12th 2007 1:35PM]

After 2 months at the Geekpuke Squad, I am finally getting my HP computer back today. When I dropped it off, I had come from an IT shop that had run diagnostics on it and had found the C drive was bad; I told the Geekiot that I wanted that hard drive back and he said confidently, "No problem. We always give your hard drive back." I re-iterated that there was private data on it and I wanted it back, not recovered. "Understood. No problem".

Next week I got a Geek-call telling me that both my hard drives were bad (actually, I had to TELL THEM the machine had 2 drives, not one) and they would NOT return my hard drives. But he was happy to ask (extort) for "$250 and up" for them to "attempt" to recover my data.

So after fighting Best Buy for 2 months, supposedly the famed Geekiots (who never seemed to know what the other Geekiots or corporate said or had done) had replaced the both hard drives once, the motherboard twice, and attempted uncounted numbers of OS re-installs...

I get to see if my computer even works AT ALL! I'm not taking any bets....