Once again a reader contacts us to complain about Best Buy misleading their customers with an in-store only website that looks identical to the “real” website—except for the prices.
From kevinq2000′s livejournal:
I had read that this happens (Consumerist.com has been following this for a while) but I had never had it happen to me. I had gift certificates, and my eye had recently been drawn to a certain single-serve coffee maker, so I decided to buy one.
I looked up the price online, and sure enough, it was on sale. (About $7.50 cheaper. Not a fortune, but about the cost of extra coffee, so why not.) Knowing that Best Buy pulls these shenanigans, I printed off the page from their website showing the price:
See: $142.49.
I went to Best Buy, looked around for the coffee maker, and couldn’t find it. So, I looked it up in their kiosk. Lo and behold:
Back up to the $149.99.Those sons-of-bitches. So, prepared for battle, I eventually found the one I wanted, stacked near a wall, grabbed one, grabbed the accessories I wanted, and headed to the register.
Sure enough, guy rings me up, the coffee maker comes up at the higher price. I say, “That’s on your website at a lower price,” he says, “Do you have the website?” I pulled out the printout I had made at home showing the lower price. After scanning the printout and the item’s box (trying to find a loophole?), he knocks $7.50 off the price, I pay and go home, happy to have my coffee maker, but slightly upset that they tried to rip me off.
So, lesson for the day: If you are going to buy something from Best Buy, check their website for prices, and print out the item you are looking for, showing the price. Keep that with you, and when they ring out out, watch their scanning, and show them the printout if they try to rip you off, too.
It’s a deceptive practice, and they said they were going to stop it, but they haven’t. Protect yourself – be an informed consumer.
K
Kevin goes on to say that there was “no indication to the consumer that the web pages are different.” Despite the fact that some readers have reported notices informing customers that the kiosks display “in-store” prices, here at least we see a screen shot of a Best Buy kiosk in which the warning is not visible.
Has Richard Blumenthal, the Attorney General of Connecticut who first sued Best Buy over this deceptive practice finally met his match?
Best Buy Lies – Evidence
(Photos:kevinq2000)
PREVIOUSLY: Best Buy Still Embracing Deceptive In-Store Kiosks
More From Consumerist
-
Have Best Buy Staff Changes Led To Increase In Shoplifting?
-
Couple Arrested Following Physical Confrontation With Best Buy Receipt-Checker
-
Best Buy Needs Your Personal Info To Sell An XM Radio Receiver, Can’t Tell You Why
-
Best Buy Can’t Actually Find Your Reward Zone Certificates For You
-
Dear Best Buy: This Is Why You Are Failing Online
I always feel dirty after dealing with Best Buy. Don’t know why, I just do.
@blkhrt1: Be that as it may, I have come to expect that a brick and mortar store and its website both represent the same store. This is because this is how every other website and store combo works. If the corporation wishes for BestBuy.com and the local Best Buy retail store to be seen differently, perhaps they should consider starting a new store by a different name and leaving the BestBuy.com website to represent the Best Buy retail store like normal corporations do. Like they already have with Future Shop in Canada.
Man that sucks. BTW that is a kickass coffee maker, especially for me since I need a cup of coffee to make a cup of coffee. Way better than my old pod setup.
I just happened to get the same one this year, however it’s only $129.99 at Costco with 108 bonus K-cups.
Wow, does anybody else get the feeling we made one of BB’s employee sites?
@RAREBREED: Yes, he was a jerk for putting it that way, but he likely needed the printout. Just before Xmas, I got Staples to use their “price-match + 10%” policy against FutureShop (Canuck version of BestBuy) for a wireless router. Saved $22 – SWEET
I’d brought a hard copy of the web page and he was very appreciative as he had to staple (no pun intended) a copy of the cash receipt to my printout and leave it in the till. That way it wouldn’t look like he’d overridden the price because I was his bud.
Still though, the asshat you were talking to could have been a little more helpful.
Funny, the other day when there was a similar story on Consumerist, the postings were greatly in favor of the customer. Suddenly, with this story about Best Buy, we see many posters defending B.B.
Um, Consumerist folks, could you possibly take a look at the posters on this thread and see how many of them just registered in the past two or three days? I suspect we have an influx of B.B. trolls here.
BEST BUY SUCKETH
@KevinQ: There is no reason that their in-store kiosk has to look (exactly) like bestbuy.com. See, for example, Border’s Books and Music, which has very different kiosks and website. It’s purposefully misleading.
Sure there is… why should Best Buy pay to have a completely different interface created to perform the exact same function? If you had cash, just charge the coffee maker and put the cash in the bank to pay the charge.
@crankymediaguy: Why dpn’t YOU check rather than just take pot shots from the peanut gallery.
@ObtuseGoose: The item they want to purchase IS NOT ON SALE at the store. That’s the entire point here.
Finally, everyone look at DJDynasty’s comment. This would be the EXACT reason as a company I would not just accept a printout of a website as proof of anything. It’s easy enough to modify the page.
@GEli: You hit the nail on the head. I worked at BB when they launched their site. There was a TON of branding going on and a HUGE push to equate both site and B & M as one entity. They KNOW that consumers view them in that respect.
I just order online.
Or get in-store pick-up.
I don’t expect Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc to have the same prices as they do online. especially since they have multiple online sales constantly.
::shrug::
A little perspective may be in order….
It’s $5.
Unless you make something close to minimum, you spent more time on it than it’s worth.
…and if you do make something close to minimum, then why are you buying a $150 coffee maker when there are $30 coffee makers?
Now, I don’t disagree that this behaviour on BB’s part is bad and wrong, and that they need to get spanked, but for an amount of money that is less than the sales tax, you may want to consider where else to put your energy.
not only do they mislead you with prices: they mislead you with their so called “warranty” and “abuse”. They won’t honor most warranty claims and they get out of covering your claim by saying normal wear and tear is “abuse”.
Isn’t Best Buy also the store that sold the poor kid a phone book inside an XBOX box?
@jwissick:
Obviously it’s the principle of the matter he cares about, duh! Plus he said “it’s not a fortune” anyway, so it’s not like he’s being a cheapskate. And if it was me, I’d be pissed, seven bucks is a lot of money to me! It’s still money!
Best Buy also does not put out sale signs for items that are on a post Christmas sale!
I was shopping for a computer at BB a few days after Christmas a year or two ago. Liked the price but wanted to sit on it after a day. Came back to BB the next day and the price went up, it had been on a post Christmas sale but no sale sign or end date! Luckily I had a Circuit City print out with the old price so they matched it.
Yesterday I was looking at a camera at BB. I asked a blue shirt if it was on a post Christmas sale as there was no sale sign. She looked it up and said yes. I peered over her shoulder and noticed the sale for the item ending on the 29th.
I know sales are listed in the flyer but I am sure they don’t mention everything that is on sale. I’m glad Dad always told me to ask if it’s on sale or if there is a discount no matter what. The worse someone can say is “no”… or “get the fuck out of my store” but they don’t really do that in chains.
I know where that Best Buy is thanks to the address shown in the pictures. I would have thought that stuff was supposed to be blacked out in these pictures Consumerist.
@RAREBREED: Don’t they have bluetooth printers? Find a demo one and have it recognize your phone.
@Those who think BB is in the clear because online/store is different:
The problem is when they provide the computers to check “online” and use that as proof that the price is the higher one.
This is the brick store pretending to be the online store to avoid a price match.
I agree if you are trying to price match a different store chain then you should have proof aka a print out.
hello people this isn’t peoples court. this is the consumerist. where the ‘consumers bite back’. if you don’t believe that store need to quit using deceptive practices, then what are you doing on here? go to aol message boards with all the rest of the negative a-holes.
@BlinkyGuy:
There seems to be a misconception here about corporate sales (the term corp. is used loosely) and where they do business.
The idea that there is a difference between online sales and in-store sales I would buy if the corporation did not actually do business in the state or made an effort to disentangle their online business with their brick and mortar business through a separate trademark or trade dress and a distinction in their logistics. This has to do with the legal term of “doing business”.
It is somewhat hard to argue that if a store has a physical presence in a state it isn’t doing business in the state irrespective of the means which it does business by. In this case even though a consumer may order a product and expect it to come interstate, it really comes intrastate. What this means is not only the business defrauding the consumer as to why there is a difference in price (greater efficiency by internet sales, or a lower price in one region and therefore taking advantage of the price differential), but also defrauding the consumer as to what the “market” is.
To be clear a market is usually defined by the consumer – where do the majority of consumers who are interested in products shop? In this case a corporation is misleading the consumer to whom its competition is and perhaps more importantly that the customer can legitimately shop for a better price by expanding their search within the market but outside of the region that the corporation has decided to fix the price within. Simply put the corporations are trying to stop people from enjoying the ability to take advantage of the capitalist system by going outside what the corporation is trying to fix the market as.
This applies here b/c while price matching is a privilege, it is first and foremost a privilege for corporations not the consumers b/c it allows the corporations to be competitive without the consumers instantly denying them the opportunity to sell the consumers (perhaps b/c of things other than price). Without price matching, there is no reason to go to some stores either online or in brick and mortar. The fraud here occurs in the stores misrepresentation of the market. It is one thing to say yes we will match an online store with our own online delivery system and you can come to our brick and mortar to price match (and the stores would benefit by drawing ppl in like the business model for gas stations), it is quite another that you deny that you are the same corporation when you deliver in the store, and when there is little difference technically to paying with a credit card online (which ironically you could do at some stores) and paying in the store via an Amex or Visa machine.
But wait there is one difference – taxation. Ironically here there is a bit of sketchiness too, but it is not my argument but state government’s gripe. That “Courts have ruled that if a business has a physical presence in a state, states can require them to collect taxes for remote purchases made from people in that state.” This highlights the fraud of the fiction of two separate businesses and I suggest that people take a look at it: [www.sj-r.com] .
@XianZomby: I try my hardest to not shop at best buy after they refused to honor my purchase using a credit being an authorized signer but not having my name on the card. They acted like I had stolen the card even though it was even my fathers with the same last name! Needless to say best buy has lost $100s if not $1000s of business from me as I always choose to shop at circuit city if i shop brick and mortar.
The only rare times Bestbuy ever gets money out of me is when they have some elaborate rebate that gets me an item for less than cost of buying OEM from the internet or have 50 DVD+Rs for $5.
But on the Comcast part I’ve had them for half a decade now and they’ve never once let me down. I feel so bad for people that don’t have such great service i do. My only complaint is long hold times for support when my cable went out, but even now the last time i called i think i only waited 10-20 minutes, not the 45-90 minutes i waited after originally getting comcast many years ago.
Best Buy (store) Store Price Guarantee
Look at the last 3 paragraphs.
[www.bestbuy.com]
a place called best buy, purposely tries to not give you the best price? ironic.
Bought a video game from bb this month. 40 online, 50 in store. When I asked about price match they asked me how much it was on-line…
@GEli: Well you may think that, but Wal-Mart, Circuit City, Bob’s Hardware, Jim’s Glass Shop, Ronnie’s Book Store…it doesn’t MATTER what store it is. The simple truth is that every store has a website to REPRESENT that store, not substitute for it. Hell yeah prices online can be cheaper because local tax, state tax, and other various fees can’t be charged to a warehouse item. I find it hilarious that they price matched the item, but the customer still complained. Find something else to complain about. Best Buy is here and isn’t going anywhere and will still be better than anyone reading this.
@guevera: you were given the price match? *GASP* What a shocker!!!
…moron.
whats the old expression, retail is for suckers? well retail stores are for suckers too, circuit city and bestbuy are great for looking at a product, then goto amazon and buy it there, its 100% worth the few extra days you might wait to get whatever you want….
Those kiosks aren’t made for price-matching lookups – they’re made for customers to order out-of-stock store items. That is why the prices are changed to the local store’s prices. Unfortunately a lot of under-trained / inept salespeople don’t understand that the kiosks aren’t the “real” bestbuy website.
@ a couple of you – just because people don’t drink every last drop of Consumerist kool-aid for every story, it doesn’t make the bestbuy employees / shills. Believe it or not, but some people can actually think for themselves.
I usually browse products online to see who has the lowest price, then I go to the brick-and-mortar store to buy the product with the printout in hand that lists the product’s online price, model number, product number and so on. I do that in case the store has a different price than the website, and if the product isn’t out on the sales floor. When buying a DVD box set at Best Buy, I noticed they were selling for something like $4 more than online. I showed the cashier the printout and he did the price match without any problem. The interesting thing I saw was that on the register he entered Best Buy as the competitor for the price match. Before Christmas, I went to Circuit City to get a product that was $34 online. At the store it was $50. I figured I was OK, since I had the printout of the online price. Well, there was only one cashier and eight people in line. I said screw this, and went back to my office to order the thing online with in-store pickup. I’ll be doing that from now on. I doubt the in-store price will ever be lower than the online price, so I might as well order online to begin with.
@just_paranoid: Because an element of realism is needed. The question is, which “deceptive practices” need to be stopped? Nobody here is saying stores should deceive customers, but nobody here can stop them from doing it. And as some people here have pointed out, in this case, the in-store price dif only seems deceptive to the person who’s disappointed.
Yeah, I used to work at one of these places. Make no mistake they can access the normal Internet site from ANY of their PCs so don’t let them BS you with that. They also have access to competitor sites. I’m pretty sure I got fired because I would willingly look up other websites for people and get them the lowest price. Trust me their HR practices are not much better than their customer service.
Did anyone notice that the physical printout says “On Sale” with a check mark? The in-store snapshot does NOT say “On Sale”. Clearly, the differences in price are the difference between the sale price and the regular retail price. That, however, doesn’t make it any less deceptive for a consumer. But, the fact that the web site has the item marked as “On Sale” automatically indicates a lower price.
I agree, you should always print out what you see on the web and carry it into the store to ensure you get the price that you see. I’ve gotten lots of discounts from Circuit City by using this tactic alone. Circuit City always matches the price of their online store at the retail outlets.
Not to defend Best Buy, but this looks like the in-store database doesn’t get updated with the same sale pricing as the web site database (clearly they are separate databases). Best Buy needs to resolve this issue so that both are using the same data and both sites will show the same pricing.
If you guys really have a question about the prices online, as an employee. Tell them to log in to their Employee Toolkit. On there we have 2 options – BestBuy.com – Local and BestBuy.com – National. Tell them you want to see the national one. Also, it is GM’s discretion on whether to match BestBuy.com prices. Ours usually does.