When you find a discrepancy between the information on a retailer’s website and the information a product’s manufacturer prints on the package, who should you believe? Brie tells Consumerist that when she found such a discrepancy, Best Buy employees insisted that their site couldn’t possibly be wrong. The product packaging, they insisted, must be misprinted. Well, no.
The product in question is, of course, from Insignia, Best Buy’s house brand. Brie writes:
Oh Best Buy, this is why I hate shopping with you. I ordered this frame as a gift and chose the pick up in store option. Which albeit being the normal pain the pooper that is dealing with Best Buy (receipt checks anyone?) went rather smoothly. Until I got the frame back to the office. See the description for the frame states 2G of internal memory while the box says 1G.
I called Best Buy and spoke to one rep that was in the processes of trying to determine what happened since Insignia’s site had the same info (not surprising since Insignia is Best Buy exclusive), when my phone dropped the call (yay AT&T). I called back and spoke to a second rep whose answer was that I should call Insignia and tell them that “their box is wrong” since both Best Buy and Insignia had the memory listed at 2G. I explained to the rep that they probably share the same database since they are the SAME company when he said all he could do it to suggest I call them since “their site is correct”.
Honestly, I just wanted them to change the site, I’m a web minion by trade I know there is such a thing as a type, it happens and it is pretty damn easy to fix. Just take your finger and change the 2 to a 1, voila it is MAGIC!!! I finally called the store that I went to. They verified that their info had the memory listed at 2G and that they had 26 frames in stock. They went and looked at the boxes in person and low and behold, the boxes all had the same info. Their first thought was that the boxes were wrong because their site is always right ::bangs head on desk:: but finally they admitted that the site was probably more of a likely culprit then a packaging snafu.
All hail the all-powerful and all-knowing website, where no data entry error or typo has ever appeared!
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“there is such a thing as a type, it happens”
I chuckled.
too good.
So glad I was not the only one to read this and “LOL”
Lo and behold, there’s “low and behold.” Another “type.”
“I’m a web minion by trade I know there is such a thing as a type,”
Yes, yes there is.
Did the OP ever verify how much memory is in the frame from the frame itself? You can usually hit My Computer:The Frame: then right click and select “Properties”, and it will list how much capacity the device has and how much is in use. The frame itself may also have an available memory function in it’s OSD.
I never thought I would have to tell you this Steve Dave but go back and RTFA …it was a gift. You wouldn’t open a gift to test it out.
I know you probably missed it…but I wanted to bust your balls…lol
Well, if you are complaining that it could be wrong, go down to Best Buy and have them PROVE it’s 2G by making the Geek Squad open it and run Properties.
I’m sure that the customer service rep on the phone didn’t have the ability to modify the Best Buy website. In fact, he probably didn’t even have access to the team that does.
So you call the store talking about “sharing databases” in hopes that some sales guy can change a website? Or that he even knows who to call to get that done? Seriously?
1G, 2G, 3G. I hear tell Sprint has 4G now.
Yeah, but you have to pay an extra $10 for those g’s so, do you really come out on top?
Completely off topic but this always reminds me of a Married with Children episode where Kelly was collecting G’s and K’s because the guy on TV said you could buy a car for 18 of them.
*Insert Lex Luthor “WRONG” here*
Married…with Children is NEVER off-topic. I grew up on that show, I love that show, and I wish Arrested Development could have had a run like MwC’s.
I’m still trying to figure out why my parents let us watch that show. I was 4 when it first aired, yet every night at dinner we had it on.
“The Best Buy website is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate:”
Simple solution – Take the USB cable that should be included with the frame and use it to plug the frame into a USB port on your computer. Wait for the drivers to install then click the start menu and locate the new drive on the “my computer†screen. Now, right click on the new drive and then click properties. This will tell you how much file space is available on the drive.
it was a gift….why would she open a gift she purchased. Then if she had to return it, she might get a nasty restocking fee for open box.
Restocking fees don’t apply to digital frames. Only to Laptops, GPS, Cameras, Camcorders and Special order items.
Plus the Insignia box is pretty easy to open without actually tearing anything. I’ve impressed many a customer by taking out the manual to fact check then packaging it up like nothing happened.
Sincerely yours,
Best Buy Employee since 2006
Not if half the memory is “missing”. If they insist that the web site is correct, then they should accept the return of any frame with 1 gig of storage as defective.
I’ve had that happen. Bought an insignia hdtv tv 2 years ago since it stated it had 3 hdmi ports… opened it up, wrong only had 2
With it being a gift, I would be uncomfortable opening the box to check what memory the frame actually had.
State Attorney General’s Consumer Affairs Division. Best Buy loves dealing with complaints of deceptive advertising.
If Best Buy isnt willing to listen to you, a letter from a government agency will usually get their attention.
I was waiting for this story to take an even more twisted turn, like this:
“Finally, I was so fed up with the whole debacle that I decided to return the frame to Best Buy. When I went to the service desk, [redacted] told me that I was obviously trying to scam them by returning a 1GB frame for the price of a 2GB frame. The manager was called in, eventually called the police…” etc etc.
Dealing with BBY, this gal ought to count herself lucky!
+1 rep for you!
Exactly what I was thinking…
Many moons ago I worked for Best Buy. Sign errors were a regular occurrence. The pricing errors were particularly fun since Best Buy would honor them. This was back when scanners were around $500.00 and one fine morning someone printed off the new signs and placed a lovely $50.00 sign on one of the HP scanners. I think as many as three went out the door at that price before someone caught it.
If they printed just the signs wrong, how did three make it out the door before anyone noticed? The first one that rang up $500.00 and the customer insisted it was $50 would have resulted in someone noticing, right?
This is such a non-story, we all know that everything on the internet has to be true… right?
It turns into a story when they refuse to fix it
People who still shop at best buy = masochists.
At least she ordered it online and went for in store pickup.
So she’s a masochistic procrastinator. Saving the hurt for later…
“Oh Best Buy, this is why I hate shopping with you. “
I would never understand why people shop at places they hate…
Their website knows as much as their employees do, which is to say, NOTHING
So if the site is never wrong guess that means next time they have a pricing error they have to honor it.
Because they have a penchant for getting their own pricing horribly wrong, I never shop Best Buy.
Amazon. Newegg. Costco. The alternatives are endless.
I bought one of those insignia frames on a Black Friday deal, I returned it on Saturday.
Crappy image quality and very grainy….I was dissapointed. Do yourself a favor and get a better quality frame.
I purchased a laptop through Best Buy’s website a few years ago and it was advertised as having a built in multi-card reader. Lo and behold, that model didn’t have one. So I (along with a bunch of other buyers since that specific lappy was on sale) called their CS and was offered $25 gift cards. So yes, they DO screw up the descriptions on the site.
Am I missing something here? Why are you still shopping at WorstBuy?
Y’all have got to come up with a better nickname, that one is getting so stale.
Your really cannot fight stupid. Sheople will do what you tell them and believe what they read…