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Best Buy Sued for Price Match Policy

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SteveLord

Member
Joined
Jan 19, 2005
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-buy-price-match-denial,news-3669.html

Ironic considering the thread below this. :screwy:


Internal Best Buy documents point to shady anti-price matching policies.

Ever been to Best Buy armed with a competitor’s ad in hopes of getting a better price, only to be shot down by a barrage of seemingly inexplicable excuses? If so, you’re not alone.

The U.S. District Court has granted a motion to allow plaintiff Thomas Jermyn and any similarly situated NY State residents to enter into a class action lawsuit against Best Buy for violating its price match policy, according to HD Guru.

The suit alleges that Best Buy knowingly deceives customers. As noted by the plaintiff, Best Buy uses its “price match guarantee policy as a ploy, to lure unsuspecting consumers into its stores and to induce them to purchase its merchandise, while allegedly having an undisclosed ‘Anti-Price Matching Policy,’ pursuant to which employees aggressively deny customers’ legitimate price match requests.”

According to the report, the decision to grant the suit class action
status was based on Best Buy internal documents, depositions of current employees and declarations by two former employees.

Some of the evidence supposedly included an “Anti-Price Match Policy” which was distributed to regional managers, store managers, assistant managers, and necessary store personnel. Perhaps most striking of all was the point that alleged that Best Buy provided financial bonuses on denying proper price match requests.

A Best Buy representative responded to questions regarding its policies, saying, “We encourage customers to become familiar with our price-matching policy and use it to their advantage, especially in these tough economic times.” The representative also added that customers who believe they’ve met the applicable criteria and are unable to price match at their local Best Buy store should contact the Customer Care Center.
 
I have personal experience with their shady practices. My dad was looking to purchase a Sharp LCD from Best Buy. He brought in the Sunday flier from Circuit City showing the exact same model for $300 less. The store was within 5 miles of the Best Buy that we went to. They (Best Buy store employee and Manager) said that they would not match Circuit City's price because they would loose money on the deal?!?!?! My dad tried to play hard ball but they would not budge. We took our business to Circuit City and I now try to avoid Worst Buy at all possible costs. I hope something positive comes out of this class action suite.
 
I don't know why anyone shops there. They are grossly over priced from what you pay on newegg.com. Look at HDD prices in BB vs NewEgg and you'll see what I mean. $120 for a $70 drive? No thanks.
 
I don't know why anyone shops there. They are grossly over priced from what you pay on newegg.com. Look at HDD prices in BB vs NewEgg and you'll see what I mean. $120 for a $70 drive? No thanks.

1. Not everybody is willing (and some few not able) to shop online.
2. Not everybody knows about NewEgg, ZipZoomFly, eWiz, Buy.com, TankGuys, etc.
3. Some people believe that any cheaper item is of inferior quality.
4. Some people like the convenience of being able to actually walk in the store and look at things.
5. Some people like to have the item when they purchase it, rather than waiting for shipping.

And sometimes, Best Buy has very nice sales (and I swear I must've posted this in a dozen other threads). Seagate 7200.9 500GB (retail box) drives were $99.99 at Best Buy when they were still $109.99-$129.99 online. Rocketfish (rebranded Lian-Li) full tower cases for $80 ($60 at some stores). 4870 and 4850 cards a couple months back. I got my current laptop there, because it was a damn good deal at the time. If you're going to bash a store, then please do a better comparison than "Today, HDD X is cheaper from NewEgg than Best Buy!"

Regarding the thread topic, I don't bother to do price matches anywhere. If it is cheaper at Store A, just get it at Store A rather than arguing about Store B's price match policy. Doing otherwise, unless the stores are 50 miles apart, and the extra gas used to get there negates the savings, is dumb.
 
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1. Not everybody is willing (and some few not able) to shop online.
2. Not everybody knows about NewEgg, ZipZoomFly, eWiz, Buy.com, TankGuys, etc.
3. Some people believe that any cheaper item is of inferior quality.
4. Some people like the convenience of being able to actually walk in the store and look at things.
5. Some people like to have the item when they purchase it, rather than waiting for shipping.
Points # 1 through 4: Only they can overcome their own ignorance.
Point # 5 I consider valid.

Seriously, if people haven't figured out it is a buyer beware market by now, especially with the economy the way it is, they're doing themselves a great injustice.

1. Do your homework.
2. Do your homework.
3. Measure twice, cut once.

Ignorance is the only disease wherein the cure lies solely within the infected.
 
We just had our last compusa store close locally. They had a SanDisk III CF card for about $50 cheaper than BB. There are still physical BB stores located in cities where there are CompUSA stores.

They wouldnt honor the price :( I told them to shove it up their ***.
 
Shipping online is either cheap or free much of the time. Whereas in a store, you have to lay down sales tax. (Of course many online stores/states where you do this also)

Sometimes you can't wait 3-5 days for something though.
 
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excerpted from the THG article said:
The suit alleges that Best Buy knowingly deceives customers. As noted by the plaintiff, Best Buy uses its “price match guarantee policy as a ploy, to lure unsuspecting consumers into its stores and to induce them to purchase its merchandise, while allegedly having an undisclosed ‘Anti-Price Matching Policy,’ pursuant to which employees aggressively deny customers’ legitimate price match requests.”

Best Buy has a long, rich history of being dishonest and deceptive; yes, by all means- "buyers beware".
 
I don't know why anyone shops there. They are grossly over priced from what you pay on newegg.com. Look at HDD prices in BB vs NewEgg and you'll see what I mean. $120 for a $70 drive? No thanks.

LOL

All the hard drives in my current rig are actually from best buy.

What nobody realizes is that they're prices are accurate for RETAIL products. And with that said, when they go on sale they're cheaper than newegg.

Best buy is great when they're having a sale, and that's pretty much every weekend. If you have beef when them personally, great. But I've had good experiences, they honor their return policy without a hitch, and as stated already, when **** goes on sale, it's generally a deal better than newegg. but I can understand what the op is saying... and it's probably valid, but saying that they're always so much worse than newegg is a flat out lie.

Anyway, best buy's increased hard drive prices appear to impact one brand most: Seagate, and I LOVE best buy for that (to me, that's a discouragement to buy). :)
 
I almost buy entirely online now. Shipping from Newegg is fast (usually 1 day because I'm in NY and they have the distribution center in NJ). I also agree that in most cases I just buy it wherever it's cheaper instead of haggling with another store to honor someone else's prices. The exception is when something is out of stock, but there's always the price match clause that states the item needs to be in stock (and yes some employees actually call their competitor to check). Sometimes you can get lucky and they won't check, not that I'm an expert because I haven't price matched anything in years...
 
Back when Circuit City was alive, I once had to take advantage of their price match policy which was similar or essentially the same as Best Buy's. In addition to the add prooving the local competitor's price, I brought in a printout of Circuit City's official Price Match policy.


I don't recall the nature of CC's ridiculous attempts to deny the PM to me but I know what I did: I did *nothing* other then calmly read the PM policy provision paragraph... the CC clerk tried three times and I just calmly read and pointed to what I was reading to him... three times... without saying anything else.

He then relented. Just an idea if anyone needs a PM and wants to see if it would work for them...


P.S. I'm not gonna search for Best Buy's official PM policy but if anyone finds a link, please post so I can take a screen shot and save it for the future... ;).
 
Best buy is great when they're having a sale, and that's pretty much every weekend. If you have beef when them personally, great. But I've had good experiences, they honor their return policy without a hitch, and as stated already, when **** goes on sale, it's generally a deal better than newegg. but I can understand what the op is saying... and it's probably valid, but saying that they're always so much worse than newegg is a flat out lie.[/

Every weekend? That's a stretch, considering the stuff "on sale" isn't stuff we are always looking for. I don't see sales on video cards or RAM every weekend. I rarely see these epic hard drive sales you are talking about. But it may just be the Best Buy near me being frugal.

I have never had and problems with newegg or CC or practically any other place with returns either.


There are other reasons people here refuse to give Best Buy their business. That is because of Geek Squad.
 
Every weekend? That's a stretch, considering the stuff "on sale" isn't stuff we are always looking for. I don't see sales on video cards or RAM every weekend. I rarely see these epic hard drive sales you are talking about. But it may just be the Best Buy near me being frugal.

I have never had and problems with newegg or CC or practically any other place with returns either.


There are other reasons people here refuse to give Best Buy their business. That is because of Geek Squad.

In the end, I'm concerned with getting the product I want at a good price, and sure, best buy's normal prices are bad, but when they go on sale they're great deals. I picked up 2 VR300's for 420$. I consider that a pretty good deal. that was retail packaged products, to buy the OEM versions at newegg would have cost me 460$ and I'd of had to wait 3 days. (one was 200, one was 220)
And my caviar black was same price as newegg, so all I paid was the "get it now" tax.
 
... but I can understand what the op is saying... and it's probably valid, but saying that they're always so much worse than newegg is a flat out lie.
I wouldn't call it a lie. Often times they are overpriced. Enough so, I won't shop the big blue box.

So... instead of calling your fellow forum goers liars, how about understanding we have different opinions?

I do wonder... what interest do you have in defending this retailer? Just customer loyalty, or it is something else?

Thanks.
 
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They wrote down the Price Match scam in company training material?! That's where they got in trouble.

Most companies are smart enough to keep their illegal scams unprinted for a jury to read. Then you have to weigh the testimony of the workers, and of course it's easy to say it was just a 'disgruntled worker' causing problems.

BB is cooked on this one. I predict they will quietly settle this lawsuit and "admit no wrongdoing."

I've never tried to price match with BB, but I don't shop there anymore because it's a gigantic cluster**** of teenagers trying to sell me extended warranties, and credit cards. They even have salesmen from other companies wandering around hawking crap. I also don't do rebates... If it's that easy to get the rebate, BB can send it and get the money. I wasn't born yesterday.

Anyway... watch for the settlement agreement coming soon.
 
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