George Gombossy, the reporter who investigated Best Buy’s secret intranet site, has announced that the Connecticut State’s Attorney’s office is now investigating Best Buy. Hmmm, we wonder why!

The state attorney general’s office has started an investigation into whether Best Buy maintains a secret intranet site that may have been used by some salesmen to deny customers discounts that appear on the company’s public Internet site.

We applaud the CT State’s Attorney for moving so quickly on this, but wonder if the investigation will have any teeth. As commenter something_amazing pointed out, Best Buy’s price matching guidelines explicitly state that the website does not match store pricing, and the store only matches “a lower advertised price offered by a local retail competitor on the same available brand and model.”

Regardless of current legality, we think maintaining an identical website with different prices is a deceptive practice and should be investigated. The State’s Attorney will also be investigating other chain stores to see if the practice is common. Are there any Consumerist readers who would like to take it upon themselves to document these practices in other stores, or at Best Buy? Photos would be helpful.—MEGHANN MARCO

State Begins Investigation Of Best Buy’s Sales Practices [Hartford Courant]

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