While I understand the purpose of allowing these kinds of suits, I'm bothered by lawsuits filed by individuals (or classes thereof) that didn't suffer any actual harm. Clearly these suits are needed to keep companies in line and to deter false advertising, etc., but private suits like this just bother me. It seems that this kind of this is better suited for a govt. action (civil suit brought by the AG, etc.) rather than a private one, since these plaintiffs, who suffered no real injury, now stand to (potentially) profit handsomely from this suit. I certainly wouldn't say I think these kinds of suits need to be prohibited, but I still can't quite come to terms with them.

@Esquire99: The problem is, government action will not happen until a suit like this attracts attention to the problem or some senator gets screwed by this policy.

Why have price matches if you aren't going to honor them? It would seem it just builds ill will, not to mention lawsuits!

I try not to use the, I would rather by directly from the place with the best advertised price, but I have when the other place was out of stock.

@AshCatScram:
Unfortunately there is a lot of truth to that. Really, more likely that someone at the AG's office gets screwed before it gets proper attention, but your point is still valid.

@Esquire99: There was actual harm. There was fraud which has some economic penalty. More to the point, consumers were deprived of the benefit of their bargain. A consumer might not have shopped at Best Buy if he/she could have obtained the product elsewhere at a lower price. In fact, the entire price match guarantee is predicated on a lower price being available elsewhere but a consumer being willing to part dollars with Best Buy if the store will match the price.

I have no problem with an AG bringing an action, but I would hope at that point that the action would be for criminal fraud and actually put some Best Buy executives in the pokey. That would end the practice pretty quickly.

@H3ion:
Isn't that just theoretical harm? The consumers weren't actually out anything. They didn't lose any money or property. I'll give you the "benefit of the bargain" angle, but that isn't really cognizable harm. Again, I totally understand and accept the fraud angle, but absent any cognizable harm, I'm still bothered by the suit.

Okay ... this has been beaten to death, but for the sake of playing the Devil's Advocate, I'll give you the perspective of someone who worked at said business during the time that this broke.

Best Buy views their online store as another store in the company. It is assigned its own store number, even though it has the ability to sell products out of other stores.

The purpose of this "secret intranet" was not to defraud customers but to provide consistent pricing for THAT store. You wouldn't expect to go into a store in Los Angeles and see what the pricing of a store in central Tennessee (whose prices, I assure you, differ significantly), and likewise the "secret intranet" simply showed you the inventory and pricing in the store you were currently shopping in.

The problem that surfaced was the fact that they used the BestBuy.com layout so that the system that employees and customers accessed APPEARED to be the website, when, in fact, it was not. Uninformed employees (which account for a startling number) were unaware of the difference between the intranet and internet site, and told customers that they were one and the same.

Whether or not this is worthy of a class-action lawsuit, I don't know.

"The problem, of course, is that while this practice is misleading, it's not illegal."

Yes - but isn't using the price matching guarantee as a cornerstone of your marketing, but then employing deceptive practices to avoid doing it along the same lines as the weight-loss ads showing atypical results?

@Esquire99: Well, sorry to disagree but I've been disagreeable for so long I wouldn't know how to stop. In practice, there are two parts to a civil action. There is the issue of liability and the issue of damages. If there's no liability found, everyone goes home. If there is liability found, then there is a finding on damages.

It's possible to have liability without any economic harm. The result is a damage award for $1. But the contrary isn't true. There has to be a find of liability before there can be any finding of damages.

In the Best Buy case, I don't know how the damages would be computed. They may wind up nominal. But the fact remains that Best Buy is doing something that isn't right. They're advertising a policy to get people to shop at their stores when they have no intention of abiding by the policy. I think that is or at least should be actionable.

Carrying out my policy of disagreeing, I disagree with Laura when she says that the practice is not illegal (last line of the post). The Target case she cites is not the same as Best Buy's practice and consumer fraud or deceptive advertising, which is present in the Best Buy case if the facts are proved, is very much illegal.

@RipperHoss: I'm not sure this is the sole basis for the suit although it is a piece of evidence. I think the practices which were alleged to originate with management, to make sure that the price guarantee was not met, even though it was advertised, is enough to let the suit go forward.

@RipperHoss: Uninformed employees are the responsibility of the company. If the two sites are easily confused, either change the layout or educated.

@RipperHoss: Employees rarely are at play at these kiosks, which are almost entirely left unattended for shoppers to access at whim. They are in central locations, far from any employee stations. They look exactly like the website and it has honestly always been my assumption that it was their website, which I used mostly for speccing hardware.

At the very best, it was a gross negligence. But get real. It was likely deliberate fraud in my opinion.

@Esquire99: If nothing else, it's a waste of my time to drive to Best Buy, expecting them to price match, and then have them come up with an illegitimate reason. It's a bait and switch because they have, in effect, advertised a lower price than they'll actually going to fulfill.

I'm more curious about the overly generic descriptions of the denied price-matches, e.g. "a local competitor, offering a lower price on an available product of the same brand and model, video games"? Does that local competitor have a name and location? What day did this occur? What was the reason Best Buy gave for denying the price match? What were the prices involved? There's not enough information given to establish that Best Buy denied the request for an illegitimate reason.

@Overheal: Again, I'm not saying that there was not fault. I'm simply saying that the "idea" behind them was that they showed what was available in the store you were currently in at the current time. The use of the same design and interface as BestBuy.com was a big problem. I admit it.

The ultimate problem is that Best Buy views the internet store as a separate store, and they had NO price match guarantee with their own stores. As such, every time a store needed to price match BestBuy.com they actually had to get a manager's approval to do so.

As for the comments about uninformed employees, I agree. Completely. They were the bane of my existence while I worked there. Unfortunately, when you don't offer commission to people that generate thousands of dollars per hour, you tend to attract a certain calibre of person ...

@H3ion:
I have no issue with disagreement.

I completely understand the bifurcated nature of of trials, liability and damages. I guess what I have a problem with are the nominal damages. Someone brought a suit, took up a lot of the court's time, caused the defendant to spend a ton of money on attorney's fees, and for what? Nominal damages because they had no real, cognizable harm? I certainly understand and accept that such is fairly common practice and occurs in other scenarios, but it just bothers me. Again, I'm certainly not advocating that this kind of thing be prohibited, it just doesn't set well with me.

I'm also not saying that Best Buy shouldn't be punished for this. I too think what they are doing (or did) is and should be actionable, though as I said I think it might be more appropriate for the state to bring the action.

Really, I'm just bothered by people who haven't truly been harmed bringing suits like this; it seems like nothing more than a money grab.

@Esquire99: So the Braunstein lawsuit linked above claims actual harm: the plaintiff had purchased a Nikon camera for $1999, and later found a it selling for $959 elsewhere. Best Buy refused the price match and he had to pay a restocking fee when he returned it, meaning his damages are at least $300. That's the kind of specificity I'd expect and I think it'd qualify as more than theoretical harm.

Most of this complaint seems like a rehash of the declarations in the Braunstein complaint, except that it describes the denied prices matches in vague terms.

@RipperHoss: Unless there was an intentional omission, what's the purpose of showing a potential buyer a website price that would effectively be exactly the same as what the customer sees as the physical sticker price? "We match our price with... our price!"

While I concede that there's a good reason that the store wouldn't match the price of inventory that would be associated to their online entity, the fact remains that in-store pickup negates the savings that are supposedly passed on to the customer through supply chain and operational expenses; seems a little too underhanded to me.

@RipperHoss:

While it may have been 'beaten to death' on Consumerist, the general population is still being suckered by this tactic. Even after the sleazy tactic was originally exposed, Best Buy was still pitching the in-store intarwebz ordering to unknowing suspects.

I actually tested this a few times, where I went in the store looking for something I researched online, found there was a huge price difference and when I queried, the employee hauled me over to the terminal and essentially tried calling me a liar. I whipped out my phone, pulled up the Best Buy site and proved HIM to be the liar. He didn't have much to say other than 'why didn't you just order it online and pick it up?'. Well, I prefer to select my own, rather than get the smashed up box or previously opened one. Not to mention the whole 'we don't match BB.com prices' stunt they used to pull.

So I ask this: If Best Buy wants to treat their online store as a separate entity, why would they market through bestbuy.com? Why not use Bestbuyonline.com and market it as a wholly owned subsidiary of Bestbuy Inc. This way, they would have veiled themselves from having the price match messes or confusing their customers.

As far as I'm concerned, bestbuy.com and the stores are ONE entity and should do business as such, not this whole deceitful split thing.

@davidschripsema: Yes, and once again we're seeing a case where civil and criminal law are being confused. If what Best Buy did was illegal, then the police or various attorneys general would bring action against them. You sue in civil court, as a private citizen, not because someone necessarily did something illegal (although that often helps) but because their actions left you un-whole (i.e. out money). Which is going to be the tricky part to prove here. If someone is out money due to the deceptive advertising, then they probably have a case.

@RipperHoss:

Being reasonable and logical is not allowed on The Consumerist.

Bestbuy and circuit city did this. And while I don't shop at that store (considering that they charge 1.5-7 times more than many online stores)but when a company does deceptive things like this as well as going out of their way to screw you (their website list a price and says available in stores then when you get to the store the item is much more expensive.

example of a bestbuy ripoff

Bestbuy:[www.bestbuy.com]

same item at newegg: [www.newegg.com]

thats $65 cheaper at newegg

example 2

bestbuy: [www.bestbuy.com]

newegg: [www.newegg.com]

$70 cheaper at newegg

when people shop at these stores, they know they are getting ripped off but it really hurts them to be double ripped off because of the stores dirty tricks

Don't fool yourselves, the only ones who will see much financial windfall from this suit are the lawyers involved in it. Most class actions don't result in much benefit to members of the class, save for a token refund or coupon or something.

However I do believe these kind of actions are necessary to highlight bad business practices as is the case here.

Best Buy wants to expand its business. They want to go toe-to-toe with all of their competitors. One of them is Amazon. To compete, BB wants to offer similar prices on the website. To expect them to drop all of their in store prices is insane. Instant bankruptcy.

Best Buy does need a better method of executing this plan. Such as clearly stating which is the online price and which is the in store price. Although, this is risky for their business. What if customers stop buying in the stores?

Either way, this is only "fraud" because some people feel that websites for brick and mortar locations are some sort of sales ad for every store. At no point does Best Buy make that representation.

Everyone just loves to bash Best Buy. I for one, enjoy how much my BB stock has increased :)

I have never had a hard time price matching something at Best Buy. One time they matched an unknown store that was selling Guitar Hero 2 (with guitar and game) for $59.99. The price at Best Buy? $89.99. I even got the 10% of the difference too. I always bring competing fliers and not once have I ever had a problem, so maybe this is just a location thing.

@Extended-Warranty:

they can easily match amazon.com prices or even lower, there just too much of idiots to do it. they have this mindset

"I only get this many customers and to stay in business, I have to sell items at these prices, if I loose any customers I may have to increase prices" (many businesses go by this especially small businesses, this practice always leads to going out of business.

a smart business mindset

"I don't have enough customers, if I lower my prices, I will get 100 times as many customers and I will make more money"

many of these companies want maximum profit per item sold, thus high prices. but as soon as another company comes in and sells for cheaper, everyone flocks to them and you go out of business

remember people will go miles to save a few cents

@RipperHoss: I think that's what the problem is. While your reasoning that the online store is it's own store and the kiosk just portrays the stores inventory that you are at (but it resembles the site. I'll equate that to one part laziness of BB and one part convenience for the customer) it doesn't make much sense they wouldn't price match one of their other stores. While it makes sense in a business perspective because the site is easier to maintain and essentially costs less to run than a physical store, that's still stupid.

Illegal? I don't know. Definitly if they price matched other physical BB stores, then by your reasoning they should honor the same price from their website as well.

@Esquire99: Nominal damages are important because they often come with other legal strings. That is, say BBY loses the case and plaintiffs get awarded $1. The settlement or order will almost always include an agreement by BBY to refrain from whatever activity is accused.

Often a lawsuit is used to make someone do/stop doing something, without any money needing to change hands.

@Esquire99: You are right - in fact you probably do not have standing if you do not have any damages (as far as I know the standing requirements apply to class actions as well). However, as Michael Belisle points out, at least in this case there does seem to be damages.

@huadpe: I think you are mixing many concepts at once. To have standing to sue you need to have some sort of harm however the damage does not need to be economic. Further, if you win a lawsuit and want to try and get someone to start/stop doing something you get an injunction - you do not need to be awarded any economic damages to get an injunction.

That being said, what qualifies for harm is specific. If one does not seem to have harm the defendant will bring it up on a motion to dismiss. As is discussed above though, it seems that there is a harm in this case.

@dragonfire81: Represented members of the class, in this case, the one/two people named on the suit, do get a part of the lawyer pay that comes out of the settlement amount. So while you, me, and joe smuck get a coupon for 10 off 100, Todd Laff will get a pretty penny for his time.

@RipperHoss: I might buy that initially this was an innocent thing. However, if the company had any integrity, it would have reexamined this issue and redesigned the store-only site after the many complaints about this problem started to surface. This started to get press when, 2007? Earlier? Even if they have no integrity, if they were at least smart they would realize that having something that the buying public *perceived* as fakey was a problem. It would be a tiny tiny job to use a different stylesheet for the store-only site so that people would know what they were seeing.

@Esquire99: Too many damn lawyers on this site. (LOL) We could probably start a pretty decent law firm. "Online Lawyers, LLLP".

The problem I have with these complaints is that if you actually read the BB price match policy, it clearly says that they will match local competitor's prices. Not online prices, which would include their own. If you buy online, the assumption is that they're not including shipping in the price (with some exceptions of course). Sure, I've seen a few items that were a few bucks more in store than the website said, but that wasn't anything I couldn't fix with the web access on my cell phone by ordering online with instore pickup, and killing ten minutes.

@frank64:

I honestly don't understand this whole price matching debacle. I've NEVER had any trouble price matching anything. Managers never seemed disturbed (hell they don't even have to confirm it at our store -- other people do). We just try to make the customer happy. Maybe that's why our store is one of the more successful ones out there...

As far as the (previous) article goes, I'm not really sure why some people expect to price match an out of stock item. If store X has it for 200 dollars less but they don't have it in stock, there's no way to get that item for 200 dollars less unless they're taking back orders. It makes sense to me.

@Esquire99: So as long as you steal a small enough amount from a large enough number of people, you should be immune from suit? In essence, that's what you're arguing. The whole point of class actions is to avoid the situation where if you steal just a little from a whole lot of people, you're effectively lawsuit-proof because only a crazy man sues over $5.

@Esquire99: Having driven out to Best Buy twice to pricematch items, and having been denied pricematches on no grounds whatsoever, I'd say that false advertising and hours of time is harm to consumers.

If price matching makes sense for your chain, then price match. If it doesn't make sense to price match, then don't do it. But to advertise price matching in order to lure people into your store, then deny it in the hopes that they'll just buy the thing at full price... that's deceptive, injurious, and deserving of scorn.

Best Buy deserves to be sued massively for this practice.

@TVGenius:

I've NEVER been able to get the local (Toronto) Best Buy or Future Shop (owned by BB) stores to honor their price match rule even with local stores. I don't know if it's the same in the USA, but in Canada, the offer is that if you can find a better price, they'll beat it by 10%. They usually state some "rule" which disqualifies the store in some way. You see, ALL of the independent computer shops in Toronto beat BB and FS prices. That's on retail boxed items, not OEM items.

I once even went through the motions by calling their customer service line and checking on what I needed, and what to do if they refused (because they had in the past with little explanation).

I got the competitor's price list, their web address, and the competitor's phone number so they could verify the details. I made sure the merchandise was retail boxed. Denied on the spot without even bothering to phone the competitor or anything else to check. The stated reason at first was that the price item was for an OEM item, and thus didn't qualify. It wasn't. I made sure of that, it was retail boxed, and the same model. They then claimed that the store was a wholesaler, not a retailer, and didn't deal with the public. Nope. I've bought stuff from that particular store numerous times, and I don't work for a computer shop. Didn't care. Wouldn't do it. I then asked for the refusal with reasons in writing -- their customer service line suggested I do that. After bouncing around between several "managers" who weren't, I finally got someone who tore off a photocopied copy of their lowest price "guarantee." She randomly circled a bunch of stuff that had nothing to do with what I was told, and escorted out by security.

Forget it. They don't price match with ANYBODY, not even local brick and mortar stores, and they get very surly with anyone who asks.

I had a drive go bad, and needed one now. I try to keep a 500 gig or 1tb on the shelf. I went internet searching found the one I wanted, for the price of over night I could just go buy one local. To get an idea of the price I went internet shopping. The drive on BB site was $69. When I went to the store it was $79. I told the sales guy it was cheaper on the net. He looked it up and they priced matched it. I guess I got lucky on that one.

Newegg has such a ridiculously small margin. And they don't have over 1000 stores to pay rent on. To expect Best Buy to always meet their prices is insane.

There are times, however, where Best Buy actually beats Newegg. Was looking at a headset/mic combo, and Best Buy had an everyday price that was about $40 cheaper than Newegg. I was rather surprised.

Anyways, the people who complain about a store being more expensive are pretty close-minded. Do you go to the corner store and whine and moan about the milk being double the cost? You are paying more for a physical store, people you can actually talk to, and not having to wait for things in the mail. Get over it, or don't shop there.

I had no problem getting BB to match their website for a recent appliance purchase. Saved us well over $200

@frank64: i'm the same way. i figure if company A has a better price, i'd rather give them the business over company B.

@Esquire99: I see this as more of a deceptive business practice or false advertising. Back when this was happening iPhones and other more web capable devices were very rare so the ability to call a store on this was harder.

People are harmed by deceptive practices or advertising if they found out after the fact they were coaxed into buying something by deception. IE: you paid $20 for an item (that had $25 on the sticker) thinking you were getting a price match but the real website sold it for $15. In this situation people were harmed. Those that caught it and walked away had their time wasted.

@dragonfire81: I would like to see a better sharing situation between the law firms and those who join the class action. I see too many where the law firm gets a huge cash settlement and the people who joined get a 20% off coupon.

Since most price matches require them to be on an identical model at another store they are largely worthless. So many stores have unique model numbers while the product is only slightly or sometimes not even different other than the model number. IE: Bbuy and Sam's Club carry the same HP laptop only the Sam's one has a different model number.

Hmm I wonder if I can get on this and get my 5 cents while the sharks get millions.

@Villnius: I for one don't know why this is such a big deal. If you're willing to go through that much for a price match, why not just drive to the other store to begin with and save yourself the hassle altogether.

The best thing that we can do is vote with our wallets and buy from smaller local guys and online like newegg or amazon if we want anything to change.

@mythago:
But here I don't see any cognizable damages at all. It's not like they had $10 and now only have $5. I realize that being out "time" is arguably damage, but it's not easily quantifiable into money. They are saying "Best Buy told me they would do x, but then they didn't do X," not "I paid Best Buy $10 and they didn't give me anything."

@seishino: It is easier than hours of time wasted. If you make a guarantee that you price match and you do not price match my product I have lost a very definite amount of money. That is probably damage enough for standing.

I'm rather positive that this is the most informative and intellectually debated thread in Consumerist history.

Bravo.