Cool that MA lets the consumer collect in cases of misleading advertising. Other states (hello, Illinois!) simply have small, little-imposed fines.

Still, I bet (and I'm just saying this here to prepare Matt in case he does go to court) Best Buy will claim that the media that they used in this case was "the internet", which includes both the web page that the original price was listed on, and the e-mail that they claimed they sent notifying him of the error.

I give odds that the judge won't know the difference. But still, give it a shot.

Ooh, i *really* hope we hear a follow-up to this later involving "Brian" getting what's coming to him.

but the@humphrmi: but then Matt didnt receive any communication(emails or whatnot)....

Isn't it illegal to pretend that you are someone else and make financial transactions in their name?

I never understand why stores think it's more cost effective to not eat the cost of a goof on their part.
it's like they think that no one has friends, families, or workplace associates that might hear the story of bad customer service and choose not to shop there...effectively, turning what could have been an awesome opportunity on their part to show graciousness into an opportunity to show how money-grubbing they can be. one pissed off customer who is motivated to tell his/her story can suddenly effect tens or hundreds or thousands of potential customers. who knows how much something as simple as this winds up costing them in the long run of unpurchased goods.

people tend to want the corporations they give their money to, to act morally and in a polite manner towards them. it's a respect thing...I worked hard for this money, but you get to have it. companies should respect that. I should think that a smart corporation would act like their customers are the most important thing in the world...they are literally gold walking through their door. without them, no matter how big you get, you'll eventually be on the verge of bankruptcy.

just ask sears and kmart.

Wow...

Sucks to hear stories like this, as I am an avid shopper at Best Buy. Mostly because unlike other "big box" consumer electronic stores (Circuit City, HG Gregg), BB at least maintains a huge selection of product. The last time I went looking for something as simple as a clear cover for my iPhone, Circuit City didn't carry anything for it because of their stupid exclusivity deal with Verizon.

Ah, well. Give 'em hell, sir! Any manager being an, "ahem," ass-hat of that variety deserves a bit of a lesson in customer service.

Sounds like fraud...

Can't wait to see how "Best" Buy does in the new world economic order! As soon as consumer spending clamps down I predict that BB will looking for a bailout.

Interestingly if you now go to their website, that product doesn't exist at all! Not even "sorry, sold out", but if you search the number or the name, it does not come up....

Isn't it also called Fraud if the assistant manager calls falsely claiming to be representing the customers wishes to cancel the order?

I believe that it is illegal to impersonate someone else on a phone or other medium without their consent.

Matt try to get the police involved or at least get a hold of the security tapes before they are erased as evidence against the assistant manager.

Best Buy seems to operate on a rancid mix of rampant dishonesty jumbled up with bumbling incompetency.

Phooey on Best Buy.

@henrygates: that's what I'm thinking.

i ordered 5 of these same flash drives after seeing the deal on slickdeals, and had NO problem getting them - ordered for instore pickup, and the store (Manchester, CT) honored the price, and sold them just like any other order. sad to hear that this happened to others...worst part is that you know that manager/assistant manager ended up buying the devices themselves as it was such a good deal...

actually i ran into the same problem and was wondering on how to resolve it.

i placed an ipod nano 16gb ordered with best buy for 69.99. they sent me a cancel emailed and said the order was cancelled due to a glitch in pricing. but i do have screen shot of the price as well as an email confirmation of the order i only ordered one because i wanted to actually use it and not ebayed it. how should i go on about the situation?

Hmmmm... I have 8 of these waiting for me to be picked up. Hopefully all goes well.

Isn't there some law against impersonating someone else? You'd have plenty of employees as witnesses and I don't think any of them would risk lying to the police to keep their crappy job that they probably already want to quit. I'd think they'd probably love doing so, since if this guy is so anal towards a paying customer, I can only what a nightmare he is as a boss.

In MA, if there is a gross pricing error of more than 50% off the obvious price of the item, it does NOT have to be honored.

Wow, the fact that the manager represented himself to be you over the phone, in a financial transaction seems like it could be a criminal offense. I doubt any law enforcement outfit is going to give a damn, but if you research the charge yourself, and then bring it to the law enforcement agency, you might be able to get them to make some noise about it.

@chiieddy: Relevant statutes:

[www.mass.gov]
Section 329B - subsection iv - actually it says if it was valued at more than $10, then they should reimburse him $10 (which they did... $15 actually)

What does "the same advertising medium" mean in this case? Maybe they're going to make the argument that every form of internet communication counts as one medium, and that email is effectively the same as the Web.

Ok, so Best Buy made a mistake. They should have honored the price on a respectable number of drives but not unlimited quantities. It amazes me people think they are entitled to this because a simple error. The retailer clearly did not intend to place the drive at that price.

I personally do not know of anyone who is perfect and never makes a mistake. This story is about greed!!!

Well, for my part, I *love* Best Buy. Only BB could be so incompetent as to allow me to use the famous Comcast cable installation coupon no fewer than 9 times. If Matt getting hosed is the price of that level of foolery, it's a price I'm willing to pay!

@all who are talking about the medium
please re-read his post, he never got the email.

Best Buy as a company pays less than a $1 for a typical minimum sized (2GB for 2008) PNY flash drive, since they buy literally tens of thousands a month.
An average Best Buy store likely has a few hundred missing flash drives a year.

Retail management; talk about being between a rock and a hard place. Your job is uphold company policies, even if they are to cause customer inconvenience, while your job is to also guarantee your customers' satisfaction. When the two conflict, as soon as you make a move, your in trouble. When the move you make violates the law, because of what is likely a lack of training, your still screwed.

wouldn't the actual damages be 16 and then triple that 48 dollars?

someone else learned their best buy lesson.

@redkamel: + X 5 for the 5 occurances.

@chiieddy: Given that BestBuy Corporate did and has not issued any system wide change of price, and the price error is not an obvious error (2 dollars for a 2 gig flash is a good deal, not an improbable one. Look at Black Friday. 4 gig drives for free after rebate. Also, it is not transposed numbers, and does not look like 1000.00 became 100.00.) if an error exists at all, there is no gross pricing error.

take the Brian or Bill guy to court as well! Sue that Mother-effer for theift!

If I was in that position when the guy made the phone call, i would of yelled and brought attention upon your self and yell that he is stealing your identity!

@cookmefud:

Amen!

What gets me is how wearing an "Assistant Manager" nametag gives some people a power trip.

It was a legitimate purchase; the pricing error was the fault of Best Buy's ad dept. Given this, it should have been no skin off anyone's ass at store level to honor Matt's order.

I had a similar case a few years ago where a Wal-Mart assistant manager refused to honor a posted price on a high-end DVD player, insinuating I had made the bar code shelf tag myself. Within 2 weeks of sending a strong, factual letter to Wal-Mart's District Manager I received an apology, the DVD player at the posted price and noticed the a-hole assistant's picture had been removed from the manager photo board at the front of the store

@liemster: There's probably nothing you can do. Pretty much every online retailer has it in their policy that they can cancel your order for any reason. From Bestbuy.com :

Prices and availability of products and services are subject to change without notice. Errors will be corrected where discovered, and Best Buy reserves the right to revoke any stated offer and to correct any errors, inaccuracies or omissions including after an order has been submitted and whether or not the order has been confirmed and your credit card charged.

At that price, why was he buying only five? I would have gotten at least a dozen.

Something is fishy here.

@BeeBoo: I got only 4 out of this deal. I didn't want my order to get a giant red flag during the order process.

wow...triple the damages? Someone is sooo gonna have a rough day at work tomorrow if this guy actually does it..which he totally should. No store should treat their customers like that -_-; thats really moronic.

@BeeBoo: he was getting off a gift card if i read up there correctly.

"I wanted to tell the CSR that I did not want my order cancelled and that I expected my order to be honored. He gets off the phone and tells me that my CC would be credited immediately and that they would send me out a new gift card to replenish the one I used with my order.'

See..

And even if he did want to dump his entire gift card onto that he'd really on come out with 6. 2.50 * 6 comes out exactly 15. But you still have to think about taxes and such so there was probably a reason he knocked it down to 5.

That is seriously messed up. He better not let this go because this is a fight he deserves to win.

Alright, coming from a retail standpoint (in before "blaming the OP, which this isn't).

It rather scares me that people are so bent on capitalizing on a price MISTAKE. Key word, mistake. Unfortunately they DO happen. For those that happened to capitalize on it, great. Those that didn't or were shut down should bite their losses and realize it was a gamble to begin with.

I can't help but wonder how many people here actually work in a retail oriented business. If you made an advertising mistake in which a misprint took a huge chunk off an item, would you be oh so happy to distribute multiple of the item off to those that want to prey on your misfortune, but yet otherwise would probably not even consider making the purchase? I think the answer to this is obvious (and I don't believe anyone for a second that says "well if I made the mistake, I should pay" for a second, because they've obviously never been in that situation.

However, in the defense of the OP, the way it was handled was very poor at best. Now, I wasn't at the BBY, neither was anyone else here. I can't help but wonder if they had ad correction signage posted or how they were actually handling it. It seems like in this case though they tried to pull a god clause of sorts and "Take their toys and go home" so to speak.

That being said, the OP should have gotten something at least for the fact he went down to the BBY. I know at the retailer I work at, an email would be a joke of a response. If we get an order and it's for an obvious item mistake or such, or unavailable item, whichever, we call, immediately. As in within 5 minutes of when the order prints.

I think a $15 gift card offer is rather laughable though. I don't know what I would have done in that situation, but probably would have tried to meet the OP halfway or such. Example, maybe let him get 2-3 at the mistake price, and offer the others at a discount or such. I always follow the "meet them halfway" rule. If the normal price is 18, supposed to be on sale for 10, and for some reason they advertise at 2, I'd be willing to sell them for 6.

IMHO it's all about how the situation is handled and how tactful the store is. In this case, seems like BBY well...wasn't.

@henrygates: Yes. It is called fraud.

They probably meant to have the sale price be $16, not $16 off. Getting deals shut down is the price Slickdeals people have to pay, YMMV.

@eelmonger: State law trumps company policy.

@triscuitbiscuit: That's due to a certain site or two on the internet finding the deal and the inevitable response from the readers of those sites.

I wonder if you can also nail the assistant manager with an identity theft lawsuit, since that's technically what he did to cancel the order....

Torabo, that's the most asinine thing I've ever heard. That's hardly identity theft. Identity theft involves some kind of theft or benfit which stems as a result from illegal use of someone else's information without their knowing.

More people need to start taking these stealing, kying bastards to small claims court. And, by more, I mean millions more.

The only way we are going to get the respect we deserve as customers is to (a) shop where we get that respect and (b) sue when we don't.

@Torabo: I would charge the manager who lied,committed FRAUD.Number the 800# should have caller ID,Number 2 the store should have surveillance cameras.

If I was an attorney I would subpeona the call 800# caller ID records and the store camera records for the area near the phone in question.And if the call is recorded I would get that too.

It almost sounds like the store was supposed to stop those sales from going through but failed and difference or sale must come from their budget.

@Wolzard: That assistant manager benefited from higher sales to profit numbers by falsely pretending to be the customer without permission to cancel the order. Sounds like identity theft by your definition.

@Mollyg: Yeah, except the Best Buy website doesn't follow MA law. Also from bestbuy.com:

The Best Buy Web site is created, operated and controlled by Best Buy in the State of Minnesota, United States of America. The laws of the State of Minnesota will govern the Legal Notices and Conditions of Use without giving effect to any principles or conflicts of laws.

@silver-bolt: With all due respect good sir/ma'am, you are twisting my words. He did not illegally or without the OP's consent obtain any personal information which would allow him financial gain or other benfit at the expense of the OP's good name/credit history/financial records, etc.

To claim that merely stating he is Joe Customer and wanted to cancel the order constitutes identity theft is a gross overexaggeration of what identity theft actually involves, much as people overuse bait and switch these days.

Upon further reading, I don't even see where people are getting from his story that the manager pretended he was the customer. It sounds like he called, referenced the order number (which he would have access to anyways), and stated the customer wanted to cancel the order. Depending on how you interpret the OP's words it could go either way, but it doesn't sound like the manager even pretended he was the customer, especially if he said the items "shouldn't have been picked" which is clearly verbage retailers use for items that are to be set aside...not something someone would likely call and say if they were pretending to be a customer.

Addendum, as I don't think there is an edit button on this here website...

"Identity theft occurs when someone else uses your personally identifying information without your knowledge or permission to obtain credit cards, get wireless or phone products and services, obtain loans and mortgages, get a job, and commit other types of fraudulent or even criminal acts, in your name, leaving you responsible for the consequences."

I would have grabbed the actual full definition, but it's late and I'm really not in the mood to dig up the definition from the mountains of PDFs I had to read a year back on the topic. This reasonably suffices though.

[www.ed.gov]

Of course, by no means am I saying the manager's attitude/reaction is any less excusable, but to call what he did identity theft enters a realm of sheer absurdity.

how sickening... countless stories like this are the reason I confine my gizmo purchases to costco, jr and newegg. Best buy will die a slow death.

I work at Best Buy, and the assistant manager of my store bought three of them before the store opened. When I went to buy two of them, I was shut down at the register that it was a "pricing mistake" and I couldn't get the price...even though there were signs up that advertised them for $2.49. If I really needed another jump drive, I probably would have argued it more, but it's not any less ridiculous that this happened.