Best Buy Accused of Overcharging

An anonymous reader writes "Connecticut's Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has accused Best Buy of overcharging its customers. His accusation is that customers see one price on Best Buy's website, in stores salespeople would show them a different internal site from a kiosk. Best Buy denies the charges. 'Previously, the company confirmed that store employees have access to an internal Web site that looks nearly identical to the public BestBuy.com site, but the company's policy is always to offer customers the lowest quoted price unless it's specifically identified as a deal available only to online shoppers. Jerry Farrell Jr., Connecticut's consumer protection commissioner, said the lawsuit should be a warning to companies to be more transparent in their business practices.'"

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[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this was common knowledge but besides that I don't see a problem. There is cost associated with getting a production from distribution center to store and of course store overhead -- why not pay more. I was at Performance Bike store the other day and noticed the item at the store was about 5% more than online, and seems reasonable.

This is why I've stopped going to Best Buy

[yeremein]

A few years ago, I went to Best Buy intending to buy a digital camera, only to find it cost 20% more than the price advertised on the web site. So I bought it elsewhere. I'm fine with web-only specials, but this was not identified as one.

I don't think anybody buys stuff online from big brick and mortar chains anyway. If I go to Best Buy or CompUSA's website, it's because I want something fast and I want to make sure they have what I want at a reasonable price before driving across town. Once I learned Best Buy's website does not reflect Best Buy's in-store prices, any reason I had for going there evaporated.

Re:I feel screwed just by walking in the door

[morgan_greywolf]

My father bought a 17" LCD from BB for $400 3 years back and they charged him $80 for a special extended warranty on top of it. I told him the warranty was not worth it, and it was a hassle getting that money back the next day until I threatened to return the whole unit.

Although, three years ago 17" LCDs were generally priced higher across the board then they are today. OTOH, 3 years ago you could buy a 17" LCD for $300-350 or so almost anywhere online, with shipping coming in at $10-20 for ground, but many places will cover your shipping cost if you spend more than $200, so YMMV.

BB is not a place you go to for anything - service, product selection, etc. I'd rather take the limited selection of Costco for something big like a TV, or just get it online.

And so people are. Places like Costco, Sam's Club and Wal*Mart are eating Best Buy, Circuit City and CompUSA for lunch, so these companies have been forced to close stores and cut staff. People aren't so concerned with selection when these days when, for instance, the HP midrange notebooks and the Dell midrange notebooks aren't much different in specs or features and any price differential is essentially washed by massive volume deals that warehouse stores and retail giants like Wal*Mart are able to get.

Re:About damn time

[Critical Facilities]

I agree with that. It seems to me that kind of thing happens a lot and is a blatant abuse of the old Loss Leader [usatoday.com] sales strategy. I can't figure out why they don't get nailed for it.

You've confused CC with Best Buy

[Anonymous Coward]

In my several years at Circuit City, the company never operated a "intranet" version of our site. Going on any of our terminals, our customers found the start page set to the public circuitcity.com website, and were in no way prohibited (apart from websense restriction on adult-oriented content) from browsing the internet and checking prices at competitor stores, and even e-commerce outlets. You must've been in a Best Buy store.

Now, what we did have on our site were prices with a line through them saying "add to cart to view sale price," because of the BS vendors liked to pull with their "minimum advertised sale price." Same reason some items in the newspaper insert on Sunday would say "$199 before $30 instant savings."

I don't like the senior management in Circuit City, I think they've abandoned their commitment to employees and customers alike, but we need to check our facts when we go into specifics regarding an improper business practice.

Re:About damn time

[ronadams]

When you see the ads for that really good deal on memory, monitors, or whatever, you can be sure the inventory of each store is way under what they expect demand to be. What happens when you have your heart set on that shiny new 20" LCD monitor for only $299, but you arrive and only the $375 21" models are left? Are you strong enough to resist?

they have had a disclaimer for a long time

[night_flyer]

Online prices and selection generally match our retail stores, but may vary. Prices and offers are subject to change.
© 2003-2007 Best Buy. All rights reserved. Best Buy, BestBuy.com and the tag design are trademarks of Best Buy. For personal, noncommercial use only.

a similer disclaimer is also on their print ads... and they arent the only ones...

Re:About damn time

[Hoi Polloi]

Yes

Making me feel cheated is a great way to keep my wallet closed.

Send them a message

[n0w0rries]

The in store price should match the online price. Don't tell me it's ok to charge more in store because of store overhead. What about the online overhead? The website expenses, warehouse expenses, labor, etc?

I was looking for advantage for our cats, and found petsmart had it for a similar price as other online vendors--so I drove down to the local petsmart and it was almost twice the cost! I showed them the printout and asked why it was so much more--they just said they don't honor their website prices in store. So I went back home and ordered it online from a different vendor.

Same thing happened at Circuit City. So I don't shop there anymore either.

The best way to vote is with your wallet. Don't give your money to places with deceptive practices like that. Even if something is on sale--give your business to a company that has good customer service--it's worth paying a little extra for it.

Re:the value of best buy's service plan

[Snarkhunter]

Yes, (chance_of_breaking) * (cost_of_replacement) < (price_of_plan), but isn't that also true of car insurance, medical insurance, and every other kind of insurance? Also, you forgot 2 big factors in that equation: peace_of_mind and convenience. I worked at a Fry's for a while, and it most often seemed that people bought the service plan for those last two reasons, not because they thought they were going to come out on top monetarily somehow.