Best Buy Internet Scandal

[21pro]

I found this kind of interesting. A family friend has a daughter that works at Best Buy.

Apparently, Best Buy has a secret intranet site which lists higher prices than its normal, consumer-based web site.

When a customer comes in to the store saying they’ve found an item for a lower price on the Best Buy website, salespeople have been pulling up the intranet version, with the higher prices.

Most of the staff is either hiding the truth or unaware of the intranet version upon hiring or training, but when you point it out to them and they see for themselves they will realize it.

Just passing the info along... If you want the website price, bring in a 'print-screen' copy of the weblisted price.

 

[Berlin]

BB ought to be sued if they are doing that. So far I never had to get the BB store staff pulling info from the net .

 

[Mia.Colpa]

Are you saying that we would look at the consumer website and find a price and then go into the store and the staff pulls up a higher price for the same item on their intranet? If we pay the higher price, shame on us, we should know our prices going in and argue the point, yes a copy of the online price would definitely help. If we don't know our prices and buy it, we deserve what we get. If this is a calculated tactic on behalf of BB to take advantage of innocent, unsuspecting buyers, they should be outed, in the major newspapers would be a good start.

 

[mprex]

Big chain stores like Best Buy (and others) have many-tiered pricing (for valid reasons.)

When you go to the "online" store, the prices there are set by the national office.

When salespeople look up the price, they connect to a different system reflecting regional- or (store-wide) prices. This allows the store manager, for example, to further discount certain clearance items just for that store.

The problem at Best Buy is the internal system at the store doesn't always correctly reflect the lower national-level pricing. There can be many causes of that from a technical perspective.

It's also confusing because the store's system looks just like the national system. In the old days the store system would be a text "green screen" so such confusion was not possible.

In any case, this was widely reported in the press already, and as far as I know Best Buy has remedied the problems.

 

[Cobster]

Any fools who defend big corporations like Shit Buy, are just that, fools.
They (big business) will do anything to scam every dollar out of you.
Glad they got busted.

 

[MarkII]

what you have to watch for is model number discrepancies. Staples, Best Buy and Future Shop all receive the same items under different numbering.

You may see a printer for a lower price elsewhere..but their printer has a DIFFERENT number so it does not count towards the price reduction.

It is in fact the same printer. The suppliers will do different number runs depending on the quantity ordered. This is a fact the consumer protection act must soon address.

If the manual inside says it's for all (for purposes of explanation) 900 series All in One printers...then it is essentially the same model no matter what the numbers after 9 are.

This is a legal grey area many box stores are preying on customers with. Since the store number is different from the competitor on the same item they do not have to price match as advertised.

M2

 

[A-ROD]

I had a problem like this at Sears Travel last week. I went in to book a vacation...the rep said it would be $1895 per person all taxes in. I said the online price was $1595. She checked their site and said sorry. I asked her to look at the regular Sears through site through IE and boom, I was right.
I got it for the online ($1595)...buyer beware.

 

[Cobster]

Watch it, some on this board defend big corporations ASN.
Posting stuff like that is a no-no.

 

[Cobster]

I meant some members on here.
Die hard big corp. lovers.
Gotta love that site you posted.
I know there's one for Robbers as well.
www.ihaterogers.ca or something like that.
They need one for Hell Mobility as well.

 

[SilentLeviathan]

From what I understand, Best Buy has their regular website and the same website on an internal intranet. All the kisosks in the store are hooked up to the internal intranet site. They are kept seperate so if one goes down the other won't. As well, during busy times (i.e. Christmas) the internal site can still be accessed normally as it has a much smaller load on it. Now the issue is that since the sites are seperate they are updated and maintained seperately. When a incorrect price is noticed it is changed once by the extranet team and once by the intranet team. Obviously this isn't perfect as problems like what has happened in the US can occur. However, I don't believe that it was intentional.