Best Buy Still Embracing Deceptive In-Store Kiosks

[Bateluer]

Odd, I've never had a problem with Best Buy, aside from crowds on busy days. Maybe its just the stores I've visited in Michigan and Arizona, but the people are usually very polite and courteous. Though I don't doubt that they are using the 'fake' website at their kiosks, I always research online before shopping at a B&M store. If they're giving me an unacceptable price, I can simply leave.

Circuit City, on the other hand, has never been a good experience for me. Their people are usually no where to be found, their merchandise is usually blatantly over priced, the store is usually dirty, etc. As I recall, they were almost thrown out of the state of Michigan for bait and switch style tactics. The only time I go into CC now is when I'm trying to kill time before a movie starts.

 

[RightIsWrong]

I got a taste of this a few weeks ago.

I had just bought an HD-DVD player and went in to get my 3 free HD-DVDs that were advertised on their own website and they were completely unable to pull of the ad to verify that I did actually get them. I called by wife to get the exact link to give to the CS rep so that they could verify the promo and they were unable to pull up the link. He told me that their site is "slightly different" than the one that the rest of civilization actually sees.

I went back to my office and came back 15 minutes later with a print out of the add, got my 3 DVDs and left shaking my head.

Edit: This took place in Austin, TX.

 

[Captante]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt
Anyone dumb enough to walk into a Best Buy in the first place deserves what they get. An uneducated consumer is begging to get taken, BestBuy just does it more efficiently than most.

I do this every time @ any B&M store I shop at to avoid problems, intentional or otherwise.

Also as I've said before, BB quality varies widely from store to store & the two here in CT where I shop have always treated me well.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Originally posted by: zerocool84
Ahh I'm glad I live with-in 10min of a fry's

Fry's is nerd nirvana. I haven't stepped foot in a competitors store in years, except a trip to CompUSA to see what kind of discount I could get when they were closing.
That was a waste of time, even in their death throws the prices at 10% were higher than Fry's on almost everything. I couldn't even talk them down on the price since the liquidation company controls that.

In the long term, F CompUSA and F BestBuy.

 

[pontifex]

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal was surprised to hear that his investigation failed to end Best Buy's bait-and-switch, telling the L.A. Times: "We thought Best Buy had addressed this. That's what they said to us. Apparently that's not the case."

since when did the courts just start taking people's word for stuff?

 

[Parasitic]

Originally posted by: pontifex
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal was surprised to hear that his investigation failed to end Best Buy's bait-and-switch, telling the L.A. Times: "We thought Best Buy had addressed this. That's what they said to us. Apparently that's not the case."

since when did the courts just start taking people's word for stuff?

Never. The courts didn't take people's words for stuff...they took CORPORATIONS' words for stuff.

Individual Americans are still getting screwed.

 

[RichieZ]

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski

Originally posted by: zerocool84
Ahh I'm glad I live with-in 10min of a fry's

Fry's is nerd nirvana. I haven't stepped foot in a competitors store in years, except a trip to CompUSA to see what kind of discount I could get when they were closing.
That was a waste of time, even in their death throws the prices at 10% were higher than Fry's on almost everything. I couldn't even talk them down on the price since the liquidation company controls that.

In the long term, F CompUSA and F BestBuy.

frys is great if you like buying returned items... everything there has the return sticker on it

 

[Tchen811]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt
Anyone dumb enough to walk into a Best Buy in the first place deserves what they get. An uneducated consumer is begging to get taken, BestBuy just does it more efficiently than most.

Why shouldn't I go into Bestbuy when their card is one of the cheapest around, if you can even find one? I totally understand an average consumer can be taken advantage of if he/she doesn't know about Best Buy's shaddiness.... That's why I went on here to reconfirm Best Buy sucks once again....

 

[StormRider]

I like Best Buy. The one I go to has good looking female employees.

 

[nutxo]

I always print the page with the url at the bottom. I got screwed on a camera a few years ago. It wont happen again.

 

[thraashman]

Originally posted by: StormRider
I like Best Buy. The one I go to has good looking female employees.

That's why I got a job at one for about a year at the end of college...... Never got any out of it though. I did however make some good friends out of the situation ..... who haven't been any help in getting me any though...

 

[Pepsei]

just checked today... yep... i was going to buy a sony mindv starter kit. shows 71 & change... at the store it is still 79.99.

 

[krunchykrome]

I experienced this just last week. I was going to buy the roboquad robot there. I looked it up online and it came up as $49.99. I remember when I got to the store, it was like $20-$30 more.

 

[Parasitic]

Originally posted by: thraashman

Originally posted by: StormRider
I like Best Buy. The one I go to has good looking female employees.

That's why I got a job at one for about a year at the end of college...... Never got any out of it though. I did however make some good friends out of the situation ..... who haven't been any help in getting me any though...

That's probably because the men who work at BB are usually geeks or overweight college dropouts who live with their parents?

 

[videogames101]

wow, thats some dirty shit....

 

[Pepsi90919]

absolutely; had this happen at the Walden store, I knew a stereo receiver was a lower price than what he was telling me, and when I used his terminal, it wasn't giving me that price. the browser he was using was a little shady too. i had to go home, print off the REAL ad, then come back and pricematch it. :|

 

[Parasitic]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
absolutely; had this happen at the Walden store, I knew a stereo receiver was a lower price than what he was telling me, and when I used his terminal, it wasn't giving me that price. the browser he was using was a little shady too. i had to go home, print off the REAL ad, then come back and pricematch it. :|

One of the reasons I hate shopping at BB is that they really treat their customers like trash. A couple of years ago I walked into BB with a CompUSA ad printed off the internet and wanted to make a PM the manager accused me falsely of photoshopping the ad because apparently the advertised price was below their cost and it must've been doctored since "it costs Best Buy and CompUSA the same to stock the same item," he argued.

What kind of business does that?

 

[SandEagle]

Originally posted by: Tchen811
Yup, I can say they are still doing it. I was just at Best Buy in Culver City, CA and picked up a BFG 8800 GT video card. When it rang up to the original price $279, I told the sales person that it should be $252 according to their website. But, when he pulled it up in their intranet website, it didn't show the discounted price.....

Now I have to print it out at work and bring it over there and do some smack down......

:|

print out the article and raise hell with the manager. tell them you're gonna call Dateline NBC. they may cave in and give you a gift card or a discount of something

 

[EarthwormJim]

I see nothing wrong with having different prices online compared to in-store. The online section of best buy has different operating costs, and as such sometimes can give better deals.

However I do have a problem with the in-store "online" site having different prices compared to the real web site. That is not just deceptive, but an outright lie.

I have never personally experienced a discrepancy between the real website and the in-store web site at the kiosks.

 

[monk3y]

Wow I had no idea this went on. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[thomsbrain]

Originally posted by: ppdes
I don't see what the problem is. Everyone knows online retailers can offer cheaper prices because they don't have convenient B&M stores. Making people who use the stores pay B&M prices makes plenty of sense. If anything BB is being too nice by letting people pick things up in stores and price match online prices in stores. Those people are using the stores that BB has to pay extra for, but paying online prices that have to compete with online retailers that have no stores.

The problem is that the consumer goes in, sees the B&M price and says "but the website had a lower price." Then the sales associate pulls up a FAKE website and points to a FAKE online price, and tells the consumer that the B&M price is the same as the online price, which is a LIE.

If the sales associates would simply admit that the B&M price is higher than the online price, and the fake in-store site were re-organized and simply called an in-store inventory catalog, no one could complain.

 

[Iron Woode]

I think I have a great solution to the BB kiosk problem:

since the kiosk is basically allowing access to the BB in-store database, maybe BB should use a different interface that doesn't resemble the National website. This should end the confusion.

On a different note:

Over a year ago I went to Futureshop to get a new DVD burner (BenQ 1640) and no one else had one in stock. I checked the website which listed it at $125 CDN (full retail box) on sale. At the store it was listed at $149 CDN. I pointed out the website listed it cheaper and he checked it out. Yes, it was cheaper, but I didn't notice it was a web special only. So I asked him if I could buy it off the web, get the discount and take the drive that's right there. He went and talked to his manager and said it was no problem. They basically price matched their web only special for a store unit. I was happy.

 

[Parasitic]

Originally posted by: Iron Woode
I think I have a great solution to the BB kiosk problem:

since the kiosk is basically allowing access to the BB in-store database, maybe BB should use a different interface that doesn't resemble the National website. This should end the confusion.

Only it'd be that simple...
BB for a fact knows about this deception, but they won't act on it because it will reduce their profits.