It seemed like a pretty solid promotion: bring in one of your old DVDs to Best Buy. Trade it in at the customer service desk. Receive a coupon for any $5 off Blu-Ray with a price of $9.99 and up. Step 4: Savings! Except, according to the employees on the floor while Carl was shopping, the deal changed while he ran out to his car to grab another DVD.

Today I went to a local Best Buy with the intention of getting three Blu-Rays for about $5 each by trading in three DVDs as a part of their “Upgrade & Save” promotion that just started today. Only problem is that I with ended up with 2 instead of 3 Blu-Rays.

At first thing went smoothly. I went to the Customer Service counter and turned in two of my DVDs in exchange for a voucher/receipt for $5 off “any” Blu-Ray $9.99 and up. So I grabbed two movies I wanted and went to the checkout, there encountered the first problem. The vouchers wouldn’t scan correctly and the discounts had to be entered manually by someone other than the cashier. To make matters worse only one counter was open and a long line of customers were waiting behind me impatiently.
I quickly paid and left, when I got to my car I decided to take my last DVD in to purchase “American Gangster” as a gift for my friend. I went back in with DVD in hand and patiently waited for at least 10 minutes behind a couple returning a TV and satellite radio. Got a voucher and quickly grabbed the desired Blu. Got up to checkout only to have the same cashier tell me that Best Buy could longer honor the voucher for $9.99 movies!

I told her that the advertisements clearly stated that “any” Blu-Ray marked $9.99 and up was eligible for the deal. She told me that they had just gotten word from corporate saying that the ad was messed up. She then called a floor manager over to tell me that the voucher couldn’t be used on movies that were “already on sale”.

I stubbornly walked back to the movie department to see if anything was normally marked $9.99…nope. I called my father who was in for advice in hopes of him getting through to the manager and he told me to deal with it myself. I went to Customer Service and asked to contest the refusal of my voucher on the Blu-Ray. The employee there got the same manager to tell me the story again, I then told him that not longer than 15 minutes before that I bought two Blu-Rays that were on sale for $9.99 and had advertisements on the self about the $5 promotion. I asked for them to make an exception or to give me my DVD back, I ended up with the DVD…

I can’t believe in such a short time (approximately 10 minutes) that the policy would suddenly change and no exceptions could be made.

Best Buy Upgrade & Save, Jan 8 – Jan 28, 2012 Best Buy Upgrade & Save, Jan 8 – Jan 28, 2012 [DVD Talk]
$5 Coupon [Best Buy]

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