NORTHEASTERN ILLINOIS – Reader Humphrmi reports on how his Best Buy handled demand for the doorbuster deals.

Verdict: It sucked. Unwilling or unable to throw some elbows, Humphrmi missed out on the tickets. His story, inside… — BEN POPKEN

---

Humphrmi writes:

“I don’t see much mention of it anywhere else on Consumerist, but here in Northeastern Illinois Best Buy did this new thing today whereby one had to acquire tickets to purchase the top Black Friday items (HDTVs, DVD players, notebooks, desktops) and their fliers touted handing out these tickets at 4:00 AM, 1 hour before the store opening.

Thinking that the ticket scheme would add some semblance of sanity to an otherwise chaotic shopping day, I ambled over to my neighborhood Best Buy (actually went to two nearby stores in the span of about 10 minutes) about 3:30 AM only to find that all of the tickets for the big savings items I wanted were already gone.

What’s worse is, your place in line really had no bearing on whether you got what you wanted or not, it had more to do with pushing your way into little interspersed crowds trying to get the tickets from the Best Buy hacks spread out from the front of the line to the back of the line. Wanted the HP laptop for $379? Hope you didn’t go to the back of the line, that guy was handing out tickets up front 10 minutes ago. Sorry.

I never bothered with Best Buy before because of the madhouse atmosphere and I could usually find just as good of a deal at an office supply store or on line. I gave it a shot today because, well, the prices were actually lower on some things I wanted and I thought the tickets would help. Nope, in fact I think they just make things worse.”

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.