We thought the scam mentioned in the racketeering lawsuit sounded familiar—it was. A Best Buy employee emailed us on April 4, 2007 to confess to the type of behavior mentioned in the lawsuit. He claims that techniques for tricking customer into signing up for subscriptions (such as MSN) were taught to him by a manager and encouraged by Best Buy. M. writes:
I’m almost ashamed to admit this, but it did happen for the longest time. Ever get signed for something at Best Buy, but you swear that you never signed up for anything. Here is the trick that is used, and that I was taught from a Best Buy manager. When a customer would refuse either AOL, MSN, NetZero, magazine offers, or whatever other D-SUB we had, we’d sign you up anyway.
Read M.’s confession inside.
Being as I worked at Best Buy for over 3 years, and worked my way up for your normal part time employee to a manager, I thought I’d provide your readers with a little insight to protect themselves in the future.
To understand why Best Buy scams people into digital subscriptions, here is a little breakdown. Each retail store has thousands of numbers that they are measured by. The majority of them mean nothing, in terms of “which store is the best in the company” ranking. The big two are revenue and margin numbers. Each store has a daily budget assigned by corporate Best Buy. You might be asking, “What the hell does this have to do with being bugged to sign up for something every time I buy something at Best Buy.” Ok, I’ll tell you.
Best Buy makes a killing if you sign up for a digital subscription (or in Best Buy lingo, they are called D-SUBS) because these these are all margin. Managers obviously knew this and expected us (as employees, or as a manager, the general manager excepted) to exploit the hell out of customers to get these attached to the sale. When you buy something at Best Buy, lets say a computer, all the accessories that you’re talked into are called a basket. On a laptop, employees are expected to attach $300 worth of accessories on top of the laptop to hit the basket goal, and $150 on a desktop. This can be very challenging to do, especially with a customer who refuses to get anything additional, but when you are trained and expected to lie to customers, it becomes a little easier.
It was really easy when a customer would buy that cheap eMachine that was in the ad for the week. eMachine computers always had the “Included Inside: AOL Dialup Service” stickers on the side of the boxes. So, when you came in to buy the cheap eMachine that we were losing money even selling you, we’d lie and say we have to sign you up for AOL’s dialup service because it comes with the computer, and then point to the sticker on the box. So we’d go through the motions of scanning the welcome CD, selecting your address, convincing you to swipe through a credit card, and signing your name. Of course, if you didn’t go through the huge hassle of calling up AOL and canceling, you’d be charged. But who cares, we just made over $60 on your regardless if you went home that day and canceled. Margin went up, and the basket went up.
I’m almost ashamed to admit this, but it did happen for the longest time. Ever get signed for something at Best Buy, but you swear that you never signed up for anything. Here is the trick that is used, and that I was taught from a Best Buy manager. When a customer would refuse either AOL, MSN, NetZero, magazine offers, or whatever other D-SUB we had, we’d sign you up anyway. You know those Best Buy gift cards that are all over the store? Well those are just American Express cards, with a Best Buy face. So, we’d go through the motions of selecting your address but when it asked for your credit card, we’d swipe through a gift card. Since it was an American Express card in reality, the system took it and you were signed up. The customer had to deal with the late fees because they couldn’t charge the credit card the provided. Not our problem.
Along with the goal based on if it was a laptop or desktop, we had a 3 D-SUB goal. We had in-store contests, and Best Buy even had company wide contests where the store who brought in the most revenue for selling digital subscriptions would get free prizes (leather coat, luggage, Coach purses, golf clubs, etc). One of the saddest points was when scammed a family and said AOL came with the Linksys wireless router they purchased. Signed them up for AOL when they already had broadband at home.
Every single department in Best Buy has some sort of digital subscription, so be careful. The computer department has the most, and that is where most people are scammed. Good luck at Best Buy.
Yikes. —MEGHANN MARCO
(Photo:USB)
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Yelling at the manager about the employee doing his or her job is not likely to get the employee fired. In fact it would probably result in a kudos to the employee and a laugh between the two about the wacky customer.
People are lazy, that’s why they are not savvy enough to know what they want. They are too lazy to do the research. They want the employee or their friends to tell them what to get. I see it ALL the time, every day.
Stores trying to upsell you and get you to buy extra stuff is just a fact of life and a byproduct of all the competition that the internet brings.
Since places like Best Buy and Circuit City have to drop their prices so low, often to the point of making little or no profit off the merchandise they are left with being much more creative in finding ways to make money. The result is service plans, Geek Squad services, Internet service and selling magazine subscriptions. It’s the environment we have all created by insisting on absolutely the lowest price possible.
I also am still a firm believer that it is not the culture of the company to defraud these customers. I believe it could be a district or even regional policy but it is certainly not company wide.
Like I stated earlier, I had never heard of most of those things happening in my 2 years with the company.
@Indecision: t’s been a while since I worked there, but roughly, there is a signature box at the bottom, two big buttons labeled “OK” and “Cancel”, and text to the effect of “By signing below I agree to sign up for a 30 day free trial of AOL. After the first 30 days, my account will be charged at the normal rate.” There is nothing else on the screen.
I’ve been shopping at Best Buy for a long time and I’ve never seen anything even resembling this. I’ve been asked if I want to sign up for such and such, and I say no and they ring me up and I sign the pad so long the total matches what the teller says.
Did that which you’re describing only occur for certain purchases?
I was in a Finish Line sneaker store a little over a year ago. I was asked if I wanted a magazine subscription free for a year. I thought to myself, “why is a sneaker store selling magazines”, so I told the salesperson that I wasn’t interested.
About 2 months later I start receiving People magazine in the mail. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I don’t read magazines so I just trashed them.
After about a year, my card (bank account) was charged 58.62. I was furious. The charge was reversed immediately by my bank, but it took almost a month to track down how I got subscribed.
Of course People’s subscription people insisted I signed up for it, but couldn’t provide a signature or subscription card. They didn’t want to reverse the charges.
I turned my bank loose on them and never heard another word about it.
I use a local bank and they are viscious when it comes to protecting their customers, which is one of the reasons I’ve stayed with them so long (6 years and counting).
@The Walking Eye: “Did that which you’re describing only occur for certain purchases?”
Yeah, the message only shows up once they scan one of the free trial discs. If you say no to the trial, and the employee you’re talking to is honest (and let’s be realistic here — most of them are), then you’ll never see that screen.
I’m sorry but as a salesman or saleswoman, your job in the field is to NOT piss off the customer. Because when customers get pissed off, they go to a competitor. Welcome to the free market. Adapt or die. Sink or swim. Do or fail. Eat or get eaten.
Maybe it’s time for Best Buy to die just like every other store that came before it. Best Buy doesn’t have a right to exist as a business, especially if it’s dishonest. It’s job as a retailer is to CONNECT THE CONSUMER WHO IS INTERESTED IN BUYING SOMETHING WITH THE PRODUCT(S) THEY ARE INTERESTED IN.
That’s it. Best Buy won’t be getting my business anytime soon if they don’t fix their policies, and until their useless execs have heard of something called CUSTOMER SERVICE.
And as an enlightened consumer, I REFUSE to be hassled by people trying to peddle stuff I don’t want or need for giving them my business. I’d rather go somewhere where the employees are actually HELPFUL. And as for those Best Buy employees that are going to lose their jobs when Best Buy goes out of business, well tough cookies. THEY ruined the company, not the consumer.
Actually it’s those fat overpaid execs, but either way they brought it upon themselves.
A…VAIO running Ubuntu? WTF?
@Bon Jour, Pee Wee: While I’m not sure how other stores handled things, store 0332 here in Columbia SC is full of crooks. I worked there for quite a while in 2004 and 2005 for the electronics department. While we did not have a quota for digital media or magazine subscriptions, the management would often do shady practices such as signing up individuals for the Work Life Rewards program without their consent or knowledge, lying about stock quantities (especially with items in our circular), and even going as far as to exert racial prejudice against customers.
For instance, there were a family of Indians who ran a computer repair business not all too far away from my store, and would frequently scope out loss-leaders, clearance items, and items with mismatched price labels. My boss at the time, Thomas Fazzio, would flip into a catatonic rage when he saw those customers, even going so far as to chewing them out in-person and holding an impromptu “staff meeting” regarding how he felt best to deal with them. He’d advise us to not check the computer stock system if anyone with an Indian accent called to request a quantity on hand, and would also advise us to simply tell him “Oh, we don’t have (X) even though the system says we have (Y), it’s a computer error.”
I hope never to have to work at retail position like this ever again in my lifetime. The amount of pressure put on salesmen forced to make market basket sales is sickening, and the lengths that some of my fellow associates would go to (harassing customers in the store, being rude, even pleading with them near the end of the month if their numbers were low) bring out the absolute worst in people. I feel bad for people who work in big box retailers, as I know that the under-management associates are pushing for these products and attachments for the sake of keeping their jobs.
It’s a sad state of retail affairs.
@The Walking Eye:
What indecision is describing is what happens when you’re being signed up for a subscription of some type like AOL, Netzero, or the magazines.
So if you have never been signed up for one of those you would not have seen that screen.
It’s alright, I’m sure they passed all that revenue back down to the consumer in the form of SAVINGS!!!
Well, PRIMATE and INDECISION have made it clear that shopping at Best Buy means you either 1) get savvy or 2) c’est la vie, tough luck. This is not the way I want to shop. You’re not making enough money cause of competition from the internet? C’est la vie. Tough luck.
I haven’t stepped into a Best Buy in 6 years and I will help other consumers know what they are getting into with Best Buy.
i believe the culture exists. i worked at a particular retailer that had the habit of saturday morning conference calls. these calls were normally handled by the district manager, but also occasionally by the regional manager. managers were given specific instructions on how to increase the sales of certain revenue-drivers. sometimes these instructions violated certain laws. the response to an objection was always “do it until we get caught”.
also, keep in mind that stores with the best numbers are almost always the stores that are using fraudulent methods to obtain them. & it is the leaders of these stores that will be assigned promotions within the company. that’s how the fraud becomes a foundation for a company. that’s when they stop helping the customer & start selling magazine subscriptions.
seriously folks. magazine subscriptions. in an electronics store. what’s wrong with this picture?
First of all, I want to thank Consumerist for providing a forum for these kinds of communications and discussions. The fraud that goes on at Best Buy, in which probably thousands of employees have been pressured into committing, and in which probably millions of people have been ripped off, in one way or another, is a serious scandal.
It’s been a couple years since I even set foot in a Best Buy. I got fed up with the scam-the-consumer-cum-customer-no-service mentality that seeped out of every noisy, blue-carpeted corner. I had made three or four comparatively small purchases there and every time I was asked at the cash register if I wanted an extended warranty or extended service plan. Those plans are, of course, pure fat margins, and the unfortunate cashiers are apparently pressured/forced into attempting to sell them. That practice, alone, is sickening. Any other upselling is, to me, sickening: The seller is playing games with you. The seller should be concerned only what creates customer satisfaction. My wallet is not your mine. My wallet is not your entitlement. And if want me to trust you, price things honestly.
Loss leader pricing with consequent upselling are, to put it simply, tricks. Dishonesty apparently turns Best Buy’s world.
PS – Thank you to Lacclolith, jermscentral and others for coming forward. I am sorry you had to go through that soul-crushing stuff. What a nightmare. I had a job at one point where I was pressured into engaging in unethical practices, or be fired. It was no fun.
I’d like to see Best Buy employees, any with a shred of conscience, leave in droves. Along with customers. (Probably, as we heard about AOL call centers, new employees at Best Buy are given a lot of rah-rah propaganda that leaves out a great deal of information about the very shady things employees are soon asked to do, every hour of every day.)
I feel very little sadness when people use loss leaders or other gimmicks, and then customers capitalize upon the gimmick. If you play games, you are inviting games back. Don’t play games, and treat customers with respect, and you will get fewer games and more respect in return.
@Shadgenki:
all those employees you all seem to love to hate. In order to make enough to pay for all this and reduce the prices on the merchandise they need to find profit somewhere. Best Buy finds it in cables, ink, paper, surge protectors/battery backups, Geek Squad services, and subscriptions.
Of course they didn’t but the fact is people still want to be able to walk in and look at things like TVs and such and to avoid being a place where everyone just looks and then buys online they have to price competitively. The downside of that is they are paying all this overhead on things like lights for a big building, heating and so on, and oh yeah I almost forgot
@mac-phisto:
I’m not denying that it happens in Best Buy, I’m sure it does. I’m just saying in my district I have never heard on any conference call instructions explicit or implied to defraud the customer. I can tell you we are trained in many ways to overcome objections but we are never told to do anything without the customers knowledge/approval in my district.
It may happen in some stores in my district at a store level but I am telling you in the two stores I have worked at it doesn’t happen and is not a culture.
@mac-phisto:
Oh, I almost forgot, while selling subscriptions can be a pain for the customer I would say it is no more unusual for an electronics retailer to offer them than it is for Papa John’s pizza and I’ve been offered it there.
@ThinkAboutItPlease:
While you may think honest employess leaving in droves might be a valid solution who is going to find all those people new jobs.
I would gladly leave if I could find something better. Unfortunately I can’t get anything better in my area without a government security clearance and I cannot get one of those without having a job working for a company that will sponsor me.
employess are told, you have to make a % of attachement or you get fired…if you need a job for your lively hood, what would you do? I’ve never done it, but whats the diffrence between that and selling a PSP saying “it covers anything that happens to it” when we all know now that it doesn’t…
@agent2600:
I guess I must be lucky. I have never been told I had to sell a certain percentage of anything or get fired.
I’m not saying they don’t ever come around with the numbers and ask what is going on but all my leadership understands it is not up to us to buy the stuff they just want us to offer it.
When I worked at Best Buy, this girl I knew that everyone hated did that gift card thing to set people up for Magazines. At least I believe she did. Some people even saw her take people’s credit cards to do a purchase, then actually swiped the card when prompted to do so with the address and stuff if she had them sign up for Reward Zone already. Cause it would save their address information. Then when it was time for them to sign she’d draw a line through the pad.
She’d say oh its free.. then when it was time to sign she’d be like dont worry about that and drew the line through. Then she’d get like 13 mags that way and get praised and awarded by our managers. We would tell people what happened, but they didnt give a damn
I’ve worked at a couple of national big box retailers, but never Best Buy. Upselling at the register is a losing game, one only worth playing if you’re poorly-trained in sales, or completely inundated with customers. I’d do it a little on black friday, but even then, I’d barely bother. The success rate is so poor with register upsells, it’s not worth the time and effort. On black friday, more income can be found by just moving the bodies through the line as fast as possible. I mean, if a big-ticket item passes through, you spend a minute or less on it, and move on.
The key to upselling is planting seeds early on. Say things like “sure, this item will do a great job for you, with its solid build backed up by our world-class service and support.” Or, “not only does this item work well now, I can guarantee it will work exactly as well in five years, or we’ll replace it for free.”
When I sold televisions and home audio, I had the cable-fu. I ignored the crappy “best, better, good” progression my employer taught. If you did that, you’d be pimping $90 cables to buyers of $150 televisions, losing all credibility. If you had a big tv, I’d sell you the bad-ass cables. If you had a little tv, I sold you the budget cables. If you had a digital source, I sold you the cheap cables (the bottom and midrange optical cables from Monster were effectively only different in their durability). When I was finished, I’d open all the packages, label both ends of every wire, turn around the display of every product you’d bought, and show you where everything went.
Today, I’m out of this game, but in the market for a TV. I shop locally because you need to see a television before you buy it. I’m amazed at what has happened to the quality of salespeople at these stores. I’m not getting helped, I’m having to teach salespeople about connection technologies, I’m having to look at crap input signals. I know when I’m given a “yes” that really means, “I have no idea, so please, let this be what you want to hear so you’ll buy the item.”
If someone in my area could sell the public on a premium shopping experience while still providing good prices, I think they’d have a business.
I think most of these comments are hilarious. First off, I bet if any one of you went to the store and had the employee try and use an unactivated gift card as a means to sign up for one of these things, it wouldn’t work.
Secondly, I can very easily see how someone could accidentally sign up for something or say yes to something without reading the fine print. “do you want a free subscription to a magazine?” “Yes I do”. Is it best buys fault that you didn’t read the part where it says you will be charged after a couple months? They present you with the information both before you sign up and afterwards in the form of a receipt.
Anyone who has worked in a retail environment can tell you that at least 50% of your customers should have been left in the gene pool. These are the same customers that come to sites like consumerist and complain that they got ‘Skrewed over’ and got charged money for something that they either didn’t understand or don’t remember doing.
Ohh yeah, and that reward zone thing is free so I don’t know how people are getting ‘skrewed’ into signing up. You are getting something for nothing, no matter how you slice it.
Um, nice try.
As a Best Buy employee with nearly two years under my belt, I would just like to say that the above story is not true.
As an employee of Best Buy’s Operation’s Team (i.e. cashiers, customer service), and having worked with the wrath of not selling enough DSUBs and not meeting the quotas set by corporate, I know there is absolutely no way you can sign a customer up for a magazine with a gift card! It is literally impossible.
If we could sign customers up with gift cards Best Buy stores all over the country would see their magazine numbers going through the roof — which they are not. The numbers are so horrible there are rumors of Corporate pulling the plug on all magazine DSUBs.
It wasn’t even until recently that we were even able to sign customers up using their Best Buy Credit Card (we couldn’t before because of the lack of Mastercard, Visa, Amex, Discover logos.)
When you go into the screen that actually signs the customer up for the magazine, the customer has to swipe a credit card. There are then fields that are automatically filled out once the card has been swiped (i.e. the card’s expiration date, the name the card is registered under) and correct me if I’m wrong, but Best Buy gift cards are A) Not register to anyone and B) Have no expiration dates.
Also, I would to know how a computer “manager” (There are no computer managers, only Supervisors and Seniors [as dictated by CORPORATE]) would know anything about selling magazines. That is purely an operations task. It does not involve the whole store.
The story has some truths. I know the sales floor has a lot of goals to meet, which probably puts some weak team members under a lot of pressure to perform and ultimately, leads to some of those weak team members using shady tactics to acquire their numbers.
But, for the most part, that “confession” was probably just a result of a scorned employee seeking revenge on a past employer for whatever personal gratification they feel they need.
You may have heard recently about the racketeering case against Microsoft and Best Buy, where Best Buy would sign up customers for an MSN subscription without letting the subscriber know. A former Best Buy employee has explained how the whole scam worked.
I hate it when there are some “bad apple” employees that ruin the whole thing for all of us. There are some people like this in every organization. So don’t judge an entire COMPANY on one or two douche bags. I have been a Best Buy employee for five years, and I am part of several district, territory and even on a corporate council based on CUSTOMER CENTRICITY!!!
The whole point of this movement is to BETTER HELP AND SUPPORT OUR CUSTOMERS!! There is no scamming. The service plans are more than worth their metal (hence me having about 30 active PSPs and 15 more PRPs). And we DO NOT SIGN A CUSTOMER UP FOR ANYTHING THEY DO NOT WANT OR NEED! To do so is a COMPLETE dereliction from Best Buys company values. One of which is… “Show respect, integrity and humility.”
Those people who do this, I will immediately find and take care of. Just as ANY business owner would. Would you own a retail shop, and then LET your employees lie to customers?
Now as stated on prior comments, there is money to be made. But I ask another question… If you were a business, are you out to NOT make money? Is the whole point of your business to break even and not grow? If that’s your frame of mind, then you DESERVE to be put out of business.
Sounds to me like he was just a shady sales person. Most of the employees aren’t like that since it doesn’t benefit us if you buy more. We don’t see an extra dime as an employee sales person. And all gift cards at any store are branded. Visa American Express, Mastercard, whatever all of them are branded somehow.
Seems I’ve just been scammed by Best Buy and Time Warner – Time Magazine. Opened my credit card bill and noticed the $34.95 charge and wondered what it was. Called, seething with rage, and they took the charge off my bill. Then I called Best Buy to tell them they’re unethical, cheesy and they need to make sure this doesn’t happen again. They claim I signed up for the Time Mag subscription when I signed the pinpad for my purchase. Here’s what I was actually told,..”sign up for Reward Zone, get points, yada yada, and you’ll also get an absolutely free subscription.” You can’t even read those pin pad things when you sign – I look at the dollar amount on the register screen and then sign. I NEVER knowingly agreed to these charges and I suspect most people are never informed. Some may say let the buyer beware, but I say that companies like Best Buy should be following some kind of ethical behavioral guidelines or they will and should be censored by society. What surprises me is that once the free trial expired, it is now being auto-billed to my credit card – I never received a bill in the mail (gee, I wonder why?) After paying some other bills tonight, I looked back and discovered that this was not the first charge. I’d been jammed out of $24.95 in December, $29.95 in Feb, and the most recent $34.95. WHAT the @#%^?? I don’t even like Time Mag, it’s biased and inane, and obviously it’s a miserable pub or why would they have to resort to sneaky tactics (along with Best Buy) to get subscribers, and also increase their rates each quarter. Who in their right mind would knowingly pay $90+ for a subscription to Time magazine? It’s insane and I’m incensed at such sleezy, unethical tactics. I will call to have these charges rebated and if they don’t cooperate I’ll report to the state AG office, the FTC, and my credit card company. I won’t be shopping at Best Buy again and I’ll be very vocal nasty Word of Mouth. They’ll go down eventually because they’re sleazy. I’m all for capitalism – but this is flat out wrong wrong wrong.
Way back in 2003, we wrote about accusations that Microsoft and Best Buy were scamming customers into signing up for Microsoft’s ISP MSN. The accusation was that Best Buy employees would scan the “free trial” MSN CD-ROMs that were at the store when customers would make a purchase.
I used to work @ best buy in the computer department we pretty much did the same thing. We didn’t go as far as covering up credit cards and stuff like that, but we had assholes who would sign people up for 2 different dial-up services, sign for customers, and push all the buttons, on top of all that they’d sign them up for broadband. The worst was the magazine subscriptions computers didn’t really deal with that much but the front lanes were racking it up.. They taught them to mislead people.. One of our managers actually ran around the store and said if you’re not cheating you’re not leading, and this was one of the higher level managers
@ThinkAboutItPlease: I am not sure why you would bother going home to yell at the manager seeing as you are not a customer since you opted not to buy anything. You give the manager little incentive to do anything to make your situation better. How has that worked out for you?
I never get the subscription. I just tell them I have them already (which is true half the time).
I’ve also had them try to pull a fast one on me. Buying a laptop, they said it came with AOL for free for 60 days and I asked them if I had to sign up for it and they said yes. I simply told them not to do sign me up as I had broadband. I simply told them if I had to sign up, I’m not buying the computer. They told me they would “work it out”. Yeah they did, but by then I decided not to buy from them already.
I haven’t been working at the Best Buy in Spokane long, but while they do push us to sell more service plans or Geek Squad services, they have never told us to lie. We are told to get our information right, and to upsell, of course. We are not told to add on subscriptions and tell the customer nothing. Our strategy is to explain why everything we suggest is beneficial. As to “Do we have to sign up for AOL?” The answer is yes, if you want AOL. Not necessarily yes, to get the laptop. The question is a tad vague.
Most of the employees in the computer department don’t try to sell the consumer stuff they don’t need. We suggest services that they might be able to use–we don’t hold a gun to their heads and say sign up for Geek Squad or else. The Geek Squad forms require their signature, as well as waiting for Geek Squad to finish with their computer, which takes half an hour minimum.
And don’t tell me that Best Buy is the only–or even the most persistent–store that offers crap at the register. At Target, they ask if you want to sign up for their credit card and save two dollars and forty cents. At safeway, I was told I would have saved eighty cents if I had signed up to be a club member. Its required that we ask these things, as well as warranties, service plans, and subscriptions. When you sign up for reward zone, its free–you don’t put your signature on anything, you verify that your name, address, and phone number are correct. They ask for your phone number because most people don’t bring their cards with them, and that is the quickest way to locate them in the database. I am sorry if BB employees seem pushy; some are. They often sell less than they think they do. We are required to make sure that you know what you are saying no to. This means that we assume that the first no is automatic–which it is–and the second no, following an explanation of the offer, involves objections which we need to attempt to overcome. After that, we should stop. Now, you will find that some people won’t stop. They are too concerned with numbers. Either that, or unable to see how they are frustrating their customers. Bail on them, and go find someone else to talk to. They will often narrow down the choices, or give you other options which might save you some money. For instance, instead of the $100 data transfer by geek squad, what about getting an external hard drive? Frankly, you should have one anyway to back up your information. etc etc. Most of us would like you to buy something, but are more than willing to either get you something that you will need, or drop it.
And, news flash, but there are corrupt employees and employers everywhere, from fast food to retail to tech support to government to repair. That’s life.
what amaizes me is that whenever one of these articles comes out it is always best buy scams this or at&t scams that etc. the truth is that the scam was done by a crooked employee who wanted to win a cheap prize not best buy.
I purchased a 52″ Sony bravia V series LCD from manny’s tv store for $1699 plus an instant $300 Sony rebate. In reality I got the Sony LCD for $1399 plus tax. Here is where best buy comes into play, because of the $300 rebate people were jumping on the deal. My LCD was to come in about two weeks due to back orders. My wife and I decided to see if best buy would match manny’s price so that I didn’t have to wait. When we got to the store the scaming began, first of all best buy wouldn’t match the $1399 price of LCD, the manger stated that he would give me a better deal. Me and my wife listen keep in mind that I explained to the manager at best buy that I owned a ps3 and didn’t need a blue ray. Best buy was selling the Sony 52″ V series for $1699 on sale. The manager made his pitch $1499 for the LCD $200 for a Sony blue ray that was selling for $299, $69.99 for monster cables and $150 for geek squad services to calibrate the LCD. That’s a total of $2118.99 what happened to me having a ps3 or looking for a price match. In the end I laughed and looked at my wife and said that’s why we shop around so we don’t get screwed (as I pointed to the manager) by these people. The manager looked at me perplex as I explained to him that why would I spend over $2000 when I just paid $1399. In the end best buy wouldn’t price match manny’s tv and tried getting me to spend over $2000 grand. I won’t ever spend big bucks at best buy…did I mention how the manager tried to sell me a samsung and a pioneer plasma…WTF happened to customer service in this country…anyways that’s another story…my advice shop around and buy hdmi cables on line and stay out of best buy when it comes to large purchases. Best buy my a$$!!!
Possible Best Buy scam.
Back on Sept 7, 2009, I tried to purchase a refrigerator on-line but the order, for some unknown reason, would not go through. (It was not a credit card issue.)
This was a Labor Day Only special on Samsung refrierator (RFG299AARS SKU:8971525) that included free shipping and a free TV. (I think the TV was 19″ Tosheba)
The link on the computer gave a phone number to call which I did and the person agreed to help. I explained I was trying to order on-line but was having problems but wanted to take advantage of the offer which included a discounted price, free shipping, and a free TV. The person agreed to help and we completed the order (order number-BBY01-300 8207 457).
Later I discovered I was charged $100 shipping and when the refrigerator was delivered, there was no TV.
I contacted Best Buy and talked to Sonya. She listened to my complaint and agreed to send my request to the department “Promotions”. I asked her to transfer me to a supervisor. She did this by computer and the supervisor (Stewart)was too busy to talk to a customer. I asked her to leave him a message to call me. I also asked for a way to get back in touch with her in case of problems and she gave me a case ID#66 86 68.
Later when I hadn’t heard from the promotions dept I called again and talked to a Charles. He was nice but could not help me so I asked to talk to a supervisor. Charles contacted supervisor (Stewart) again and again he was too busy to talk to me. At this time I am thinking for some unknown reason he doesn’t want to talk to me. So we end the conversation. I wait a few more days and on Thanksgiving day I get a message on my phone saying I didn’t earn a TV. The person ends the conversation without a direct number to her of even a number to the promotions department in case I had any questions. At this time I am still out the reimbursement for the $100 in shipping they charged my credit card and getting the TV they promised. When you take into account the lack of communication with the supervisor I am thinking…they know exactly what they are doing…this appears to be very similar to a “bait and switch” scam!
Beware of doing business with BEST BUY! I feel it is very obvious…they are not willing to make good on their promises!