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Worst Buy
Cutriss writes "Steve Lynch of Hypothermia has been running a consumer awareness page following of an Internet pricing disagreement between Best Buy and over 2000 angry customers, where Best Buy refused to honor a web-only sale price of a GeForce4 Ti 4600 for $129.99, at a "Special pre-order price". The situation has escalated further - Rod Hill, Store Manager for Best Buy #513 in Tucker/Dekalb County, GA, had a customer arrested on Friday of last week, citing Fraud and Criminal Trespassing. Hill informed police that Abraham Cherian, an Indian American, was trying to rip off the store, the same store that had conceded to give another customer his video card as requested 10 days earlier. Best Buy is now apparently red-flagging inquiring troublemak^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcustomers who attempt to obtain their purchased cards from Best Buy locations." FWIW, if the description of what happened is accurate, Best Buy has entered into a binding contract to sell the cards at the advertised price, and if they don't want to honor it, the people affected should take them to court (or contact their local Attorney General's office, which is what they appear to be doing). It's Best Buy's obligation to make sure their prices are accurate.
You'd think after the Kodak fiasco & another online vendor got the price of an X-Box wrong - and in both cases the customer got it (eventually) at the advertised price they'd just cave in and avoid the bad publicity!
Video Game cheats, hints a
I'm guessing they have a disclaimer on their web site. "We reserve the right to cancel sales in the event of errors" or somewhat. Don't know if it'll hold up in court, but it seems somewhat reasonable to me. It's not like they took the money and didn't give it back. Although I guess it would make a difference if the credit card was charged, and that would be the equivalent of money actually changing hands.
"The Indian was arrested and..."
The police report seems to have an old fashioned Western approach to law and order.
Hill informed police that Abraham Cherian, an Indian American
... and what exactly does that last part matter for?
--- I do not moderate.
now best buy will be dual /.ed. both their site and their stores!
I want 2D games back.
It wasn't enough that we killed their children, stole their land, gave them diseases, slaughtered their food sources, raped their women, and destroyed their once-proud culture, now we won't even let them play Medal of Honor.
The hooligans are loose! The hooligans are loose! What if they become ruffians? -- Bill Hicks
It is about $200+ difference, not to mention, if they say it is 129, then that is what they sell it as. No false advertising you know.
Best buy has done stuff like this before, where they accidently show on the website a monorot for like 150$, and they fix the error when it comes to billing the customers credit card.
So now, it seams both sides are being a little more aggressive. And yes, I would be one of them had I seen that card going for that cheap.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
They seem to do this intentionally. This isn't the first time Best Buy has misguided customers on its website. They purposely mark a product with the wrong price to get everyone's pre-order dollars and then don't ship it and call it a "typo". They then proceed to either refund you or give you a "discounted price" for their "mistake" which is no where near the original price advertised on their website.
It is some kind of cheap ploy to get people to use their website for all of their purchases. This is all to common with e-tailers these days. I for one sincerely hope that Steve and Hypothermia take Best Buy to the cleaners over this one.
It's not that bad... the police sided with the guy, saying the manager shouldn't have done that. Seems like they're doing just what they should, in this case. Best Buy are being assholes about it, and they're getting slapped for it. No news here.
- Free tabletop fantasy gaming! Grey Lotus
Remember reading about this in MaximumPC a month or two ago; Best Buy's stand then was that it was an error/typo and not a legally binding contract -- they said that they would not honor the price... seems that some of the stores have been honoring the price, unbeknownst to corporate management..
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
I work for an educational institution, and one of the doctors that I work for recently had an experience at the local Best Buy.
He had just bought a harddrive and taken it home, only to find that inside the sealed box was a can of tuna. This is something so utterly rediculous, he decided to back up his case. He called the tuna manufacturer and found that the code stamped on the bottom of the can showed that the can had been shipped to the same county as the manufacturer of the harddrive.
So now it is time to go to the store and try to get a replacement. Of course, everyone knows the story. The manager refused to honor the story, even when presented with this amount of evidence.
The next step was for our doctor in question to go to a bigger regional manager and tell the story. When this manager heard the information about the problem and had looked up the purchasing history of this doctor, he immediately had a new harddrive waiting for the doctor.
I have left quite a bit out of this story, including the bit about where the police were almost called and where the doctor notes to the first manager that he makes more in a month than the manager does in a year, but you get the idea.
If what has been reported is true about the Indian American being arrested for trying to get his GF4 at the low price. That is a whole new story. Reading up at Hypothermia and the HardOCP Forums it seems so. After some of my experiences at Best Buy, and all this nonsense over the GF4 they are definately on My List. This story about arresting a guy over what happened is just the icing on the cake.
What exactly happened still seems a bit unclear, and we should probably what for Best Buy's response, but it really doesn't surprise me that Best Buy acted this way. Their company cultrue seems to foster turning employees into assholes. IMHO, of course.
To make up for their screw-up, BestBuy sent everybody a $30 gift-certificate. Obviously, it's not a GF4, but it seemed like a good attempt to correct an obvious misprint.
Still waiting for mine! ;-)
--
From: onlinestore@bestbuy.com
To: <ajs@ajs.com>
Subject: BestBuy.com Backorder Notice
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 05:32:13 -0600
Message-ID: <EC0250S603avN3qljWw0001d1ed@ec0250s603.xbby.co m>
Dear Aaron Sherman,
Thank you for shopping at BestBuy.com!
Unfortunately, the following item(s) are still unavailable to be shipped, but we hope to be able to ship this item(s) to you soon.
If you prefer to cancel this item from your order, please contact our Customer Care representatives at onlinestore@bestbuy.com or call our Online Store help center toll-free at 1-888-BESTBUY (1-888-237-8289).
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
ORDER NUMBER: 213****
Order Date: Feb 6, 2002
Credit Card Used: ****************
Item Description Type Qty Web Price Total Status
VisionTek Xtasy GeForce4 Ti 46 --- 1 $129.99 $129.99 On Backorder
[................] SNIP!
They've had customers arrested for comparison shopping.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
If it were a typo, I'd have to agree with you. But quoting a "$200 savings" along with the listed price, which just happens to match the average pricewatch price on that card, isn't a typo.
Besides, there is one other thing to consider here...people have PAID for the card at that price. Even if it were a honest typo, Best Buy (or any other company) is obliged to give the option to either use the money towards the proper purchase price, give a refund or give store credit. They only have rights to your money in exchange for goods or services rendered.
After all how would you feel if you paid your hard earned money for something that you aren't getting and when you asked for your money, you were told to "sod off"? I don't know about you, but I'd be rather miffed
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
Hmmm ... 2000+ calls may do something about the problem.
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
When does this cross the line to bait-and-switch, which is illegal?
:
I think it's a pretty fine line, not a blatant misunderstanding on the part of the poster. Don't be so critical - there's a real issue at stake, here.
Or, to sum up Best Buy's mistake in Fortune Cookie wisdom
Measure twice, cut once.
Education is the silver bullet.
This statement is 100% correct. The store manager in Dekalb who had that man arrested should in turn be arrested and sued for false arrest. When I worked for The Home Depot a few years back here in Macon, one of our signs for a 24 foot fiberglass ladder (nice ladder) was priced $100 too low. We honored it without any problems. Why? Two reasons: 1) it was our fault, and 2) it's the law.
Companies that don't honor advertised prices (whether it was an honest mistake or not) are obligated to sell the merchandise at that price. This is not '$199.95 or best offer', this is '$199.95'.
Slackware forever. Honestly, what else would you trust when it absolutely positively has to be stable, secure, and easy
Allright, can I have one minute of fame here ?? please :)
They even got my name all wrong, it should be Cherian Abraham, not the other way around..sheesh!
Its true. This all went down last Friday at the Best Buy store at Tucker, GA. I am just gonna repeat what happened word by word. Makes quite an interesting reading. And I would really appreciate if you guys could tell me where I should go from here.
So I went to BB at Tucker,GA last Friday armed with the receipts, my original and the copies I printed from the site. I was dumb enough to trust BB and I didnt have anyone to take along with me for the ride. I know I should have.
There was only one card left on the aisle, so I grabbed with a couple of other things (a 80GB HD and a Platinum Audigy) and went to the counter. There was this customer service lady who told me that six or seven people have been trying to PM with the same receipt there and its not possible. She said that the receipt was a fake, the guy who created it is no longer with BB etc. She asked me if I wanted to talk to the manager, so I said yes.
Out comes the General Manager called Rod, I politely explained why I am there. He asked me to follow him to a separate room. He did not want to discuss further details standing outside, he wanted me to follow him. Neither did he tell me then and there that I should get the heck out of there. I was kinda hesitant at first, but I thought no better of it and followed him. Inside we sat down and started going through the receipts. Then another guy, a sales manager called Paul McKim comes in, and suddenly Rod jumps out and drags him out whispering something. Rod comes back in and we start going through the same shit again. I believed that I would make him see the sense of it if I kept my cool and explained everything . He was giving me all fucked up reasons and all I wanted was a yes or no. He told me "I dont know whether I can pricematch that low, but let me ask my Sales manager".
15 mins later, cops walk in. Then I knew they were stalling me on all the time, that he was just waiting there, making sure I was there till the cops arrive. Anyway I still kept my cool and explained to them the reason why I was there. Half an hour goes by and I am still alone in the room with the cops talking to them. Cops are all the time outside talking to BB and not even bothering to listen to my story.
In comes on of the cops, cuffs me (God that hurts) and then tells me that I was cuffed so that I wouldnt hurt anyone. Yeah right!. So here I am cuffed for the first time of my life and humiliated. Then they told me that I was being arrested for Fraud and that I am being taken to the Dekalb Office and a detective would take it up from there on. They brought me out amidst the whole store, but I kept my head high , because I hadnt done anything wrong and I had nothing to worry about.
Cops took me on a joy ride for half an hour and it was a damn uncomfortable one. Once there, they took me to this holding pen alone and made me wait there. In comes one black lady, who looked far more reasonable and intelligent than all the three cops combined, and she told me that she is going to talk to the BB guy (Paul) first and then myself. I waited there for almost an hour (the whole thing took from 11:30 till 3:30) and then she came in and asked me for my story. I explained her everything. She tells me then that she does not believe BB's story that I forged the receipt. Looks like they first told her that the receipt was a Fraudulent one and that they have proof to that effect, but once we all got to the precinct changed the story saying that they cant prove it anymore. Also they changed the charge from Fraud to Criminal Trespass, though at no time whatsoever they had asked me to leave the store. I work as an Analyst for a firm in Atlanta and I was looking quite respectable in my work clothes. anyway, she told me that BB does not want me as a customer and I told her that I would be happy to take my business elsewhere.
She told me that they had changed their tactics from "Forging the receipt" to "Trespassing - not leaving the store even when I were asked to". I told her that all the time the General manager Rod, wanted to keep me there so that the cops would come in, and never he asked me to leave the store. She sympathised with me and told me that she ended up warning the guy from BestBuy.
So here I am Vindicated, Harassed, Ridiculed. Given up ? Hell no! I guess thats one thing you learn when you are a geek.
Rapid Nirvana
In case you missed it, here is the quote from hypothermia about the original web offer:
Type something, will you? We're paying for this stuff!
I was going to post exactly the same thing. Congratulations on being quicker to the draw. I was also going to add that there's one problem with that. At least one of the buyers called and confirmed twice that the offer and prices listed were valid. Any legal experts out there know how this will change things?
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
You're incorrect. IANAL, but I have talked with some, and here in GA, they are required BY LAW to honor that price, period.
Slackware forever. Honestly, what else would you trust when it absolutely positively has to be stable, secure, and easy
You're on crack.
If the price read "129.99" instead of "329.99," that's a typo.
"SPECIAL PRE-ORDER! 129.99 $200 SAVINGS!!" is most obviously not a typo.
In addition, if it's a typo, then you don't honor it. You don't honor it for some people, turn other people away, and have other people arrested for trying to get what they ordered at the price they ordered it at.
I used to work at Incredible Universe, an electronics store where the television department alone was roughly the size of a Best Buy. All the ones that made money were bought out by Fry's, and I was at one of the ones that made money. The way it was always explained to me was that we actually weren't responsible for the physical price tags on the items on the self; people could switch those, alter those, and so forth. We also weren't responsible for misprints or out-of-stocks on the newspaper ads; the ads are run for the whole country, and so long as one of the stores has the item in stock, it's a legal ad and not bait-and-switch. Misprints, of course, are the responsibility of the printer.
So people'd buy an item, take it to the register, and the clerk'd scan the UPC. We were responsible for the price the item scans at the register, and if it was wrong, tough titty, we'd have to sell it anyway. We'd change the price in the system pretty damned fast, but we'd at least have to sell it to that guy.
Once again, Michael posts bullshit that is totally wrong.
Tell it, brother. Of course, Michael was only following the Slashdot mission statement: 'Post bullshit that is usually totally wrong, and make sure it is done in the most misspelled and grammatically incorrect fashion possible'.
'I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes.' - Gwen Mezzrow
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
If anything, I would say the author's reference that the man was an Indian American is racist. Why does it matter? We don't know how this guy was carrying on -- he could have threatened to destroy stuff in the store, threatened the manager and/or store associates. Hell, he could have even been approaching customers in an attempt to turn them away. All of these things could get you arrested at a store in America regardless of the country you were born in.
If you're gonna boycott Best Buy, do it because of something more legitimate than an article claiming the arrest of this guy is racist.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
I read this whole thing and it was obviousy a typographical error and these people are trying to get something for nothing.
:) ), it seems to me that the poster is right. By accepting a credit card at the advertised price, and by actually charging the card and printing out a receipt, they're bound to give you the item. The receipt proves that, at this instant in time, you actually, legally OWN the piece of merchandise in question. They just have to grab it for you from the stockroom.
Most times, if there's a typo (like in a flyer), they'll put a sign at the door to the store, alerting customers to the typo. But I suspect that the first X people who get through before they detect the typo get a good deal. I think (but am not sure) that law generally states, essentially, that the price on the item is the price you have to honor, even if it ends up being grossly wrong. By posting a notice in the store, they're changing the flyer, and correcting the error.
Furthermore, from the web page referenced here, it doesn't seem like it's a typo. If the ad said "$129, regularly $399, save $20", then it might be arguable that the price was supposed to be $379. But it was "$129, reg $399, save $200", so the math actually worked out. It's possible, maybe, that someone misread a memo saying "knock $20 off the price" as "knock $200 off the price," and then everything got FUBAR at that point as they updated the ad and db to match their reading of the memo. But, as I said before, I think the first few people to get in before the error is caught could be given the opportunity to be, well, lucky.
And, personally, if I were at a store and something like this happened to me, how I respond would depend entirely on how I'd been treated at that store on other occasions. If they've treated me well, answered my questions, given me good service, etc., then I'd be perfectly happy to agree with them that "oops, wow, that's a doosy, okay, I won't buy it then." But, if they're jerks, with bad stocking practices, harrassment at the door when you leave (like they always ask for your receipt when you go out), etc., then, dammit, I'm looking out for myself just as they're looking out for themselves. They wouldn't alert me to an error in their favor, so why should I alert them to an error in mine?
But, yes, though IJAG (I'm just a geek -- let's all drop the IANALs already!
Or something like that.
(me, I avoid Best Buy entirely by shopping at Circuit City and Amazon.)
Well there we go. Best Buy has a disclaimer that addresses this issue.
Unless someone can prove that they advertised the product fraudulently, it seems like this issue is closed.
I will point out that Best Buy in their infancy did have some problems with fraudulent advertising, and was fined several times by different government agencies in Minnesota. But that's been at least 15 years ago, and those were back when they frequently advertised things for cheap and then took them off the sales floor so as to say they were out of stock. That's called Bait and Switch, and is illegal.
At this point, I would call the local friendly legal professional. I bet he or she would be very happy to pursue a wrongful detention civil suit against Best Buy and its manager. Lawyers love this sort of case, especially when it's a little guy clearly in the right versus a big retailer. You get the chance to teach BB a lesson, see the manager get his ass fired, and you could get a nice little chunk of change for your trouble.
And let us know how it goes. BB deserves the smackdown for this one.
'I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes.' - Gwen Mezzrow
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
Still don't see that waiving any of BB's rights as stated in the disclaimer. It opens them to "false advertising" charges, but those have always seemed pretty anti-free speech to me. Anyone know if false advertising laws have been tested?
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
...state and federal law do not agree with you.
the attorney general believes there is a case here.
I can imagine this being concidered only a typo if the $200 savings text was automatically generated from a backend server. If there is a database with the regular retail and the sale price, if the $200 came from subtracting one from the other, then it is just a typo.
Now, how far does a typo go before it is a liability? If the web server sends bad bits? Yes it is a typo because it distributes the media, not the content, now does the database count as a content source or a media producer? If it was the former, I don't think I could concider the mis-pricing to be a typo. It would be a corporate goof, but not a typo.
Bye!
Which law is it that says they have to honor the order? They refunded your money because they were unable to complete the order. That is generally considered a fair business practice.
The $20 credit is a bonus, they did not have to do that for ANY reason. That was simply to try to say "Look we messed up, heres 20 bucks off your next purchase."
They don't owe you jack.
Wait. Pretend you own a business. pretend you are building computers for someone. You price it out, but leave out a $500 part by accident. You take the guys money, and start building. A day later you realize your mistake. Are you obligated to provide it all to him? No.
You can give back his money and cancel the transaction.
A lot of people didn't read the posts. Here's the part you didn't read: we found an Advertisement at BestBuy.com yesterday that proclaimed "VisionTek GeForce4 Ti4600 for Special Pre-Order Price of $129.00..the savings is a $200.00 Value". Normally a "typo" or mistake would be something to the effect of a misplaced decimal point or an accidental wrong price. It usually doesn't consist of adding terms like Special Pre-Order Price and savings is a $200.00 Value, ( since it sounds reasonable $129.00 + $200.00 savings for a card announced that day with no real set price yet ) all over the advertisement. So we did the right thing and CALLED. BestBuy.com confirmed the price of $129.00 twice, at which time they gave us the $200.00 value / saving quotes. That sound like a typo to you?
---
Two rights don't make a wrong, but three rights make a left. -Me
Jumping to conclusions is a popular pasttime at Slashdot. The fact that the store confirmed the price to multiple people, and even actually sold the card at that price (supposedly) to a few pretty much eliminates any possibility that this was a typographical error on the website. You could argue that it was a general pricing error that somehow spread to all of the stores AND was posted to the website, but it certainly was not a typo.
I also, however, do not believe that Best Buy is legally obligated to honor any price they posted. It's their store, and it seems to me that they can charge whatever they want at any time. (Whether this is morally right or not is irrelevant)
Anti-free speech? Are you NUTS?
Fraud is not protected speech, period. False advertising is a form of fraud, as it is an attempt to "trick" the buying public by promising goods or services in a misleading way.
False advertising is very difficult to prove, however. Errors and unintentional ommisions are protected as just that, accidents. In order to win a false advertising suit you have to prove malicious intent.. and that's very very difficult to do.
I'm not really sure what occured in this case. It seems like Best Buy made a listing error, and then refused to honor. That would put them well within their legal rights.
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
but, if you are who you say you are, you should talk to a lawyer before talking to anyone else. There's a reason you hear "no comment" in disputes from parties on advice of their lawyer.
Assuming what you said is true, then best buy did break the law. Its called "bait and switch" and that is illegal. Of course the hard part is proving that they intentionally showed the lower price to get people to come and spend more than that. Its more detailed than that, but the point is its illegal(I think in the US). It happend to me with a mail order place, had a duron w/ main board combo advertised in a magazine. I called them, 2 days after getting the mag, and they said the sale was over. and that by the time the magazine gets to peoples hands the sale is usually over...I said the words "sounds like bait and switch, thats illegal" 15 minutes later my stuff was ordered and on the way.
LinuxWorx
Spelling errors are intentional as are gramatical error
It's LAW that we're talking about here - not what you think other people KNOW. Can you *prove* that people KNOW the price as a mistake? Or is it just a guess, however educated it is?
With your reasoning, I can also say the store KNOW the price is wrong, they just put it there anyway to lure potential buyers. The store gambles and lost. What's the difference?
People who stick lower price tags on products are criminals - but if the people *from the store* put the price there at the first place, it's a totally different story.
Several months ago I my daughter spent her allowance on a game at best buy. When we got it home I installed the game and found it would not run (crashed on startup). This was on my wife's HP Pavilion (about as generic a consumer computer as you can find). I then tried it on my own computer, a bastard, self-built, multi-booting geek box from hell. Same exact problem, failed on startup.
We went back to the store to exchange it for a different game. No chance. They will not exchange a game unless the media is damage, and then only for another copy of the same game.
I spent far too long arguing with the manager. I pointed out that they would lose a regular customer over a $30 game. He would not budge.
I have not been back to that store since then. So as not to disappoint my daughter, I let her buy another game (from a different store, of course) as it would have been cruel to tell her she lost her allowance.
Unfortunately, this refusal to exchange software is a growing trend. Eventually, I will be forced to pirate all software for testing before I make an actual purchase.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Old, but very similar article on the buy.com story.
About three years ago, I put in an online purchase for a very nice 19" Hitachi monitor for $165. The normal price for that monitor was some $400 higher. About 1,400 other people did the same thing, and a few even recieved their monitors - but the rest had their orders cancelled.
Since the company had selectively not honored many purchases, after putting the hold on their customer's money, a class action law suit was launched. About two years later, I revieved a small settlement check. I feel a bit of shame for playing a small role in continuing the litigious trend in the nation - but hopefully more companies will take closer note of their mistakes, so they have to honor fewer accidental low prices.
Similarly, they had also cancelled between 15,000-19,000 Celeron 300 processors, which was another big part of the story, as many others would likely recall.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
The person who was arrested will get lots of money.
Fight Spammers!
will StaPle their balls to the wall. she has been the biggest advocate for price laws in Michigan since she took office 4 years ago.
if you are getting screwed and you call her office, in a week that store will have an investigation going on its butt and a lot of the time they get taken to court.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
"It's Best Buy's obligation to make sure their prices are accurate."
Unless they have said something like we do not take any responsibility of typos in prices, blahblah...
And regarding the "Worst Buy" headline. Granted, their store isn't the best store in the world, but in many communities it's the only store of its kind.
That doesn't mean it's not the worst buy. In fact, it guarantees it.
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
He'd done nothing wrong, so they never should have cuffed him in the first place. It's one thing for the police to cuff someone who actually committed a crime, but it's quite another for them to cuff and publicly arrest an upstanding citizen who's done nothing wrong.
That said, the police were just doing their job--however, the Best Buy manager should never have made that false report in the first place. It should never have happened. It's that simple.
I have had problems with that store as well. That manager, in fact. They must be desparate for ANYONE to work there as a manager to keep that bozo.
I was also accused of attempting to defraud them when I tried to return som RAM that wouldn't work in an IBM Aptiva. (Picky box, Crucial ram worked fine). He told me they didn't even sell the brand I was returning. I had purchased it less than 30 minutes earlier! When I tried to get him to look in the locked case where the ram is so he could SEE THE SAME BRAND, he ordered me out of the store.
I am no longer a customer. I will not EVER be customer again. I go out of my way to tell anyone who will listen to my story just how crappy of a store Best Buy, and the Tucker store in particular is.
I vote for quality business with my money. Best Buy would eventually go out of business if it were not for the hourdes of people willing to tolerate crap for service where they shop.
It might be a typo if the online catalog was automatically generated, and the $200-off was activated by a checkbox. I don't use BestBuy, but some online sites do sometimes have identical discounts on multiple items...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Then you can add in fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, and RICO.
Fight Spammers!
Contact your local TV station. Most have customer help people and love to make examples of companies over the 6:00 newscast. It's great for the because they get a free news story, look good helping the embattled little guy, and can sell a feel-good story in the in-news-advertising. That, and they usually get you just what you wanted.
What is your Slash Rating?
They have been doing this bait and switch for years. Nothing new here.
Personally this spring was the final straw of why I will not do business with them.
They had memory advertised cheap plus a mail in rebate. Bought the memory, and sent in the rebate. Low and behold they "lost or never received" two rebate forms (one for me, one for my fiance) Interesting thing was that was right before memory prices decided to go back up again. So I am "out" $80 because of these thiefs.
Bottom line, Worst Buy is a company to stay far, far away from, and it makes me feel dam good to hear negative publicity against them.
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
These are the two things I keep hearing over and over in the retail business. Store policies are so common now that people think these things are law. They are not.
1) You can return most goods to the store for a full refund (sometimes with stipulations about whether or not it's been opened, unpacked, etc)
- This is false. A merchant is under no obligation to return your money and take back an item, even if it's unopened. A sale is a sale. No law requires this. Stores have policies allowing such returns for good customer relations, not for the law.
The only exception to this is if the goods are sold under false pretenses, or are defective. If it's not what the store said it was, or doens't do what they said it would do, the sale is fraudulent, and they have to return your money.
2) Stores have to honor advertised prices, or mis-labeled prices on items.
No, they do not. Again, most stores do this as a matter of good customer relations, but they are not required to by law. Fraudulent advertising IS illegal, and if you can show they are deliberately doing false advertising, then they can be sued (but that doesn't necessarily mean they have to honor the price)
A grocery store honoring a dollar-too-low advertised price on a pack of noodles may lose some money over the week, but its'a small margin business, and customer loyalty is very important. A couple bucks loss per customer for a day or two is no big deal, and worth it to keep the customer who shops in your store every week for 10 years straight.
A $200 loss per customer IS a big deal, especially in a business with little customer loyalty.
(there, your reputation has now been damaged - feel free to sue Best Buy for false arrest and damaging your reputation)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I have a number of bad experiences with best buy from refusing to honor any kind of warranty of defective goods to bait & switch scams with sales. And even on thanksgiving trying to avoid giving me the sale price on an item because the 45 minuts I spent in line took me past the end of the sale (at noon). The attitude of the management seems to be "Yes we know we're wrong - but you don't have the time or money to sue us".
As always, this does not consitiute formal legal advice, get a lawyer in your jurisdiction for advice.
First off, get a lawyer. Once of the nice ambulence chasing kind. If they like the case, and they probably will, they should do it for a split of the settlement. Of course nothing is ever sure in the court system, but juries are generally sympathetic to cases of consumers suing big corperations for being assholes.
Next, I would talk to your DA about possable criminal charges against the manager. It sounds like he knowling lied to the police to have you arrested, and that's illegal.
Finally continue to do what you are doing now, which is to spread the word. Bad press hurts the company immensly.
It makes it harder to swallow, but it is still concievable that it was a data entry typo. If the prices on the flyer/website were driven from a database, including a "$SAVINGS = $PRICE - $SALEPRICE" calculation, a single typo on the sale price could be the root cause.
The thing is that this would be the perfect opportunity *not* to settle and to get a trial judgement on them.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
A few years back, buy.com advertised a 19" monitor for sale at a price of $169 (list at the time was in the mid $400s). I saw the ad and ordered a monitor, thinking it was a great deal.
Well, word aparrently got out and buy.com got flooded with orders for the monitor. Buy.com sent out a couple e-mails explaining the typo. They decided the only fair way to award their stock of monitors, was by taking a random pick of all purchasers. I did not end up with a monitor. Buy.com apologised profusely, and for the most part was very responsible in the matter. It was not like the bait and switch that BBY is known to do in the past (don't think for a second that this is the first time they've tried to pull this trick).
I was not really upset over the matter. I was not really looking for a monitor at the time, but the big size and low price appealed to me. Granted, I would not probably order from buy.com ever again, but I was not furious. It's not as if I was charged for a product I did not recieve.
Fast foreward a year and a half. I recieved a letter from a law firm that was handling a class action lawsuit against buy.com in the monitor mishap. The judge in the case found that buy.com was responsible for their typo and awarded the suit a large settlement. Well, after legal feeds were subtracted, each customer in the suit gained somewhere around $300. IANAL, but wouldn't this set some kind of legal presecent to force Best Buy to honor their online price, typo or not?
This comment is brought to you by the drug caffiene, and the number 5.
Have you ever ordered anything online? With all the orders I've placed, I've never gotten the receipt at the time of the sale, it always came with the item. And they should never charge the card until they're ready to ship. You don't own squat just because you've placed an order. And an order confirmation is not a receipt. I think the receipts he is showing on the websites are from people who went to the store and got BB to pricematch.
It looks like somebody might have hit the jackpot. Especially the guy who got arrested. INAL, but lying to the police to get somebody arrested doesn't sound good. All that damage to his reputation, emotional distress, etc.. Talk to some attorneys--fast--and before saying another word to anyone else.
And everyone, please help prevent this sort of thing happening again by reporting your experience to the on-line rating services. Best Buy, if that's the right company has an 8.2 out of 10 rating at BizRate.COM. 2,000 angry customers can fix that. Although at Reseller Ratings they're already at 1.54 out of 10. Not much fixing needed there. For more info, take a look at:
BizRate: Best Buy Rating 8.2
Reseller Ratings: Best Buy Rating 1.54
There are more rating services, but that's a start.
Based on script interpretation of contract law you are right. However most jurisdictions criminal codes prohibit advertising of false prices. It is very hard in this case for best buy to escape liability because of a mistake as they confirmed the price to many people before changing their mind.
No, it sounds like they copied the price from the wrong product. Still a legitimate mistake. And I say that as one of the folks that got ordered one of those puppies at $129.00. The law is flexible enough that merchants won't get hammered for mistakes like this. Now, if I had placed the order and paid $129.00, I would be howling for a lawyer. Best Buy screwed up, and they tried to make it right with a bajillion $30 gift certificates. As a consumer, I don't think I have a legitimate complaint about that. Of course, none of this has anything to do with the behavior of Mr. Hill, which I find inexcusable.
The fun part is in states where there are laws regarding the price tag on the product.
they HAVE to sell you at an advertised or priced amount whatever is lower. this is enforceable by law in Michigan along with several other consumer protection laws. (like if they dont take your $50.00 or $100.00 for payment you DONT HAVE TO PAY as it is refusal of payment.. that works great at gas stations.)
you need to lobby your state government to adopt consumer protection laws that make it illegal for scumbag businesses like best buy to play the bait and switch game (This obviousally is bait and switch)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If this happened to me, I'd have a lawyer on their ass so fast it'd make your head spin. Get statements from the arresting officer AND the detective that can be used in court QUICK. You have a well documented story and this should be a no-brainer to win, and a creative lawyer should be able to do a hell of a lot better than "damage to reputation".
Best Buy should get their name in lights for eternity on the web for this. It's a disgrace, and that manager should be arrested for making false claims to the police.
..don't panic
Wow, that's a scary story!
I worked for BestBuy for about 60 days many years ago, and was told on a Saturday evening to be sure to bring a white shirt to work on Sunday.
Sunday morning I was given a micro-cassette recorder and was told to change into the white shirt and head off to a local competitor (H.H. Gregg's) to record all the prices on equipment that we sold at BestBuy as well.
Then when I got back, I had to fill out a form of all the items I had seen, compare our prices to their prices, and if necessary print up new signs with prices that matched our competitor.
Kind of sad that they would arrest someone for doing something that they pay their employees to do!
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
"In addition, if it's a typo, then you don't honor it."
That may be how things work on the internet, but not in the real world. Heck, it wasn't too long ago that I got a Gravis Xperience gamepad at a Best Buy for the price of a Gamepad Pro because the demo was mispriced. See, in the real world saying "Oh, that was a typo, pay up" is a quick way to lose customers.
It's kind of funny that after having trouble with this in the past, Buy.com has a "Price Mistake Of The Day" special on their front page everyday.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Excuse me for posting as an AC. but I already modded some and do not want those points to be wasted.
Here is the follow-up on the Bets Buy comparative shopping story. Mr. Kahlow sued and lost. Not sure if he appealed the verdict or not. And anyone knows if Best Buy's policy regarding comparative shooping has been changed or not?
Annamite
In my experience, Best Buy has really gone downhill over the last year, absolutely terrible service they have these days.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
You know, I was wonder how to spend this fine Wednesday evening. I believe the 30 minute drive to Tucker would be time well spent...
Top 10 things to do before shopping at a Best Buys:
10. Put on your running shoes.
9. Contact a bail bondsman
8. Change the batteries in your mini recorder.
7. Program your attorney's phone number into cell phone
6. Change your underwear (it gets nasty after a weekend in jail)
5. Practice being white
.... Ok, I only had 6....
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
I'm with the guy who suggested that they arrest the manager for falsifying a police report.
customer goes to store, politely asks that best buy honor their binding-by-state-law contractual agreement.
best buy tries to weasel out of their binding-by-state-law obligation.
customer stands their legal ground.
best buy lies to the police to get customer arrested.
best buy lies to the police for a second time when confronted by the police with the fact they have no basis for charges.
best buy is later warned by the police to stop their behaviour.
Here's another data point to consider, a story about how Best Buy gave a customer a hard time, apparently, for buying something besides their top-of-the-line sattelite system.
I know it's going to be years before I make a purchase from Best Buy again...they're going to have go to a very long way to recover my confidence as a customer. Issuing a formal apology to their customers would be a start.
Finding God in a Dog
Back when 8X burners had just entered the market a friend notified me of an outstanding deal in the Sunday paper for a Smart and Friendly 8x SCSI (with card) burner for something like $150 from CompUSA. We knew that they should be around $400 or so, and armed with the flyer marked $150 we hurried to our nearest CompUSA indeed saw that the sticker price was around $400 ($375 or somesuch).
;)
CompUSA honored the flyer price and we walked out of there with 5 8x CD-Rs. Now there's integrity! We checked the paper a week later and noticed the corrected price.
Granted, we only purchased 5 CD-Rs and their markup probably covered their losses for those 5. I bet if we tried to buy 2,000 (like in this case) they'd be less willing to lose a TON of money.
Thanks,
--
Matt
Best Buy advertised the VisionTek Xtasy GeForce4 Ti4600 for preorder at the price of $129.99 (plus applicable sales tax) on their website (bestbuy.com) on Wednesday, February 6, 2002.
Over 2,000 customers placed orders for the card at this special price.
These customers were greeted with confirmation web pages, confirmation e-mail messages, issued order numbers, and some even received backorder confirmation e-mail messages (some even received multiple backorder confirmations).
Within hours, Best Buy pulled the offer, and "corrected" what they later called a "pricing error."
Cancellation e-mails were sent out, and cited a "systems error" for the mistake.
Best Buy issued a press released (only published at news.com) which blamed "human error" for the mistake.
Customers who called Best Buy to inquire about the order cancellation were told that VisionTek would not allow Best Buy to sell the cards at the originally agreed-upon price (Best Buy was falsely accusing VisionTek of illegal price-fixing tactics).
Best Buy does have a disclaimer on their web site in the form of their Terms of Service Agreement.
At no point during the account-creation or order-placing processes are customers required to read or actively agree to these terms (see Specht vs. Netscape; also see the FTC's Advertising and Marketing on the Internet: Rules of the Road).
Best Buy has actually changed their Terms of Service since this entire fiasco began.
Best Buy's Terms of Service do not supercede federal, state, and local consumer protection laws, which (in many cases) specifically outlaw this type of activity.
Best Buy's Terms of Service exist for the sole purpose of tricking customers into surrendering their consumer rights. The way consumer law is written, customers must exercise their rights; if they surrender them, the company in question is not required to adhere to these laws.
"E-tailers" are subject to the same rules, regulations, and laws that apply to their brick-and-mortar cousins. (See the FTC's Dot Com Disclosures)
Best Buy has stated that absolutely no one will be receiving the card at the previously agreed-upon price, yet well over 140 customers have already done so.
Best Buy is ignoring its customers at this point. E-mails go unanswered, and phone calls are greeted with a promise to escalate the call, but the customer must wait for someone to contact them; this, of course, never happens.
At least one person has already taken this to Small Claims Court. He had his first hearing a couple of weeks ago, but Best Buy requested a continuance, which was granted.
A class action lawsuit is still an option, and one that may be used.
There are more facts that are pertinent, but these are the most commonly misunderstood or ignored pieces of information.
But it IS possible for a company to accept returns on games. The trick is to track how many games a customer returns, using scanned receipt numbers, etc. Have a policy that you don't accept more than 2 game returns over two months, and you have a reasonably working system. My local Electonics Botique had a system running like that, and it worked wonderfully - they even gave cash back on games, and charged the vendor a penalty for the return.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Sure. But you've got to choose between honoring it for everybody who chose to buy based on that price, or refusing to honor it for everybody who chose to buy at that price.
You don't get to honor the typo price for some folks and refuse to honor it for others. Of course, what you're actually going to choose depends on your cost/benefit analysis; honoring a price on a TV that's $10 below cost, for 4 people who are standing in your store waving ads is a no-brainer. Honoring a price on a video card that's $100 below your cost for 3,000 people who saw an ad on the net is less clear.
They do this at EB, too - there's a rack of demo games, generally for a couple bucks each. However, they aren't clearly labeled as demos, I had to ask a sales rep what they were and why they were so cheap.
Yup. If you didn't sign anything to gain admission to the store, they have no legal ability to search you, unless they press theft charges. And feel free to laugh at any signs that say things like 'we reserve the right to search all bags, purses, blah blah blah' becuase, well, it's REALLY REALLY hard to reserve a right that one never had in the first place. And if they try to stop you, threaten to call the cops, just pull your cell phone and calmly announce that you're calling 911, in an attempt to stop a threatened assault. If they want to search your clothes, even a jacket, tack the word 'sexual' on there.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
You gotta wonder where Best Buy's management is at with all this. Do they:
1. Briskly rub their hands with glee, chortling "mwa-ha-ha-ha! we got away with another misleading advert, and topped it off with a customer in the clink!"
2. Scratch their heads and wonder about that store manager down yonder.
3. Call their attorneys and ask, "Bernie, do ya got us covered on this one? Yeup, no publicity, just make sure we don't sell those units below cost. And prosecute that damned injun kid."
If I were managing that empire, sure I'd be concerned about losing money, but not on one piece of bad advertising. I'd be firing the idiot who made the mistake, offering apologies and a free computer to the kid that got arrested, firing the store manager, and reassuring my other customers that they won't get arrested for asserting their rights under the law.
Best of luck to Abraham Cherian, and contact the ACLU or somebody to burn Best Buy back!
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
While I think Best Buy has been an utter incompetent at handling this situation, I have no sympathy for the people trying to get something for nothing either.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Several states, counties, and municipalities have item-pricing laws that give consumers certain rights when the price charged doesn't match the price displayed. In Michigan, for example, "the seller must give you: (1) the difference between the amount charged and the affixed price, plus (2) additional compensation of ten times the difference, with a minimum of $1.00 and a maximum of $5.00 for each different item for which you are overcharged or be subject to a lawsuit. If the seller refuses your request, you may bring a lawsuit to recover actual damages or $250.00, whichever is greater, and reasonable attorney fees not to exceed $300.00. Similar protections can be found in Albany County, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Similarly, the finality of a sales contract varies from place to place. Certain transactions are subject to a "buyer's remorse" period during which the buyer can return the item for a refund. Most auto sales are subject to this protection, for example.
Bottom line: as usual, if lawyers get involved, the situation gets complicated.
-- We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of other people. La Rochefoucauld
In the "Worse than Fry's" contest.
Combine this with their backing of access controlled "silver disks with music" (to use Phillip's term), and we have a new Evil Retailer(tm).
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
People who never paid for this "special" pre-order don't have the same rights; they can't force BestBuy to honor the mistake (legally speaking).
and if I had a disclaimer saying I was not resposible for anybody I killed that was wearing a blue shirt, would it be legal?
Plus they honored it, for some people, and had a guy arrested for bogus reasons.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm not a big ZD fan anymore, but is this really their fault? With the WWW, and the plethora (oh how I love to use words like 'plethora') of small stores selling cheap stuff online, Computer Shopper was made irrelevant.
Still, it was cool. Such a big magazine. It was fun to buy because you seemed to be getting a lot for the money. And I too found some good deals. A few hard drives from HDI (now Insight), a couple of PCs from Quantex (who went under and screwed a lot of people), and a logitech hand scanner I barely ever used.
Out of curiosity, the linked article seems to think (on the basis of no evidence they mention) that your ethnicity played a role on this. You don't mention any such thing here. Any idea where that insinuation came from?
Anyway, while I know there are two sides to every story, you seem like a class act and it sounds like you were really treated shabbily. I wouldn't blame you if you sued the pants off Best Buy.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Northlake Ga (Store #513)
4145 Lavista Rd northlake Square
Tucker, GA 30084
Phone: 770-939-7660
Hours: Mon-Sat 10:00am-9:00pm
Sun 11:00am-6:00pm
Those of us whom weren't affected can speak our voice directly! yay!
Because Best Buy owns Musicland, they support the CBDTPA.
Another reason to avoid shopping there.
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
Maybe a little O/T, but everyone please notice that the police in this instance behaved completely properly throughout the situation, to the point of empathizing with this gentleman.
With the cops, when they fsck up, everyone's on their back. Nobody notices when the system works, and it appears to be working well here.
As for Best Buy, get a good lawyer who'll work for a split of the rewards for such harrassing behavior, and drain them dry.
Make sure you get your GeForce4 out of it, too. Make that manager hand it to you himself.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
Best Buy not only gave a verbal confirmation of the price, they accepted the order and CHARGED IT to the credit card. IANAL, but I can't imagine any twist to law where this _wasn't_ a valid contract. Generally, a sales contract is made when one party makes an offer to buy or sell at a certain price and the other accepts. More generally, contracts are made when there is "a meeting of minds". The advertising wasn't a valid offer (too many ways advertising can get screwed up, OTOH if there are a lot of such "errors" the state AG should conclude that they weren't errors and prosecute for bait-and-switch). The verbal confirmation of price was an offer, although it might not be possible to prove it really happened. But all that doesn't matter, because if the seller didn't make an offer, then placing the order for such and such at $129 was an offer by the _buyer_, and the seller accepted it by taking the order and the money. About the only way out of that is to claim that it is impossible to fulfill the order due to circumstances beyond your control (you don't have stock, and can't get it), and pretty clearly this isn't the case when stores all over the country have the item...
;-)
So what is BB's real defense here? Maybe, "there couldn't have been a meeting of minds because we are mindless"?
Read the report.
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
The lifetime warranty only applies to hand tools, non-powered tools like wrenches and screwdrivers. The Craftsman power drills, saws, sanders, etc. all have a limited warranty- don't remember how long but it's pretty standard.
Of course, I don't abuse my power tools, but break enough screwdrivers to make buying at Sears worthwhile.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
A disclaimer is a statement of the rights and reponsibilities the company believes it has & doesn't have. It is not a statement of law. Just because a person or institution claims they have a right to do something doesn't mean they have the right to do it. I could "reserve the right" to kill anyone who steps on my property on sight, but I'm still a murderer liable to be punished if I actually do it.
In pretty much all states there are laws against false advertising. Exceptions have been made for "obvious mistakes", but as has been shown by other info here, Best Buy was not commiting an error, but trying to backtrack on a special offer that got a little too much attention. It appears they probably did mean to honor this deal, but had changed their minds when it got too pricey for them.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
When you call, say, Best Buy.com's customer service number, you're talking to employees of Best Buy, right?
*WRONG*!!! You're calling employees of a contracted customer service provider. These people are sitting in a tiny cubicle in a call center in Phoenix, Arizona or Gary, Indiana and provide sales and customer service for several different companies. They are provided with scripts and access to the advertising copy and price database for each company they're supporting. If you ask them a question about a price on the advertising copy, guess what they do -- they read it right off the web site right back at you! At least, until somebody notices that hey, we're getting a lot of inquiries about this product, it's time to push this inquiry upstream to actual Best Buy employees.
Now, of course this is shitty customer service. The fact that it is standard industry practice doesn't make it any less shitty. Frankly, I do not buy from Best Buy, and in fact have a one-sentence statement on my web site saying, "Shopping at Worst Buy is the worst thing you can do". But the point is that an employee of a 3rd party contract firm reading mistaken advertising copy back to you does not make the mistaken advertising copy any less mistaken.
And yes, if I'm going by the nearby Krispy Kreme and see them advertising a dozen donuts for 12 cents, I'll go in and ask them about it. If they sell me the donuts for 12 cents, great. If they say, "Whoops! Bad sign!" and hurriedly rush out and change it to say "$1.20", I'd happily pay $1.20 for a dozen Krispy Kremes (of course, the real price is more like $6 for a dozen of those sinful but utterly delicious things, but that's another story :-( ).
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Contact Best Buy NOW
and let them know what you think of them. Tell them you read it on
Years ago, I sent 10 letters to every address I could find at Intuit to complain about their crappy software and customer service, 6 months later I received a handwritten letter of apology and a free copy of the software. I bet many people got their ass whipped for not giving a shit before it got the the Prez of Customer Service...
there's no place like ~
Yet more cause not to shop at Best Buy -- the literacy of their employees.
Okay... that's mean... flamebait. But christ!!! That's impossibly bad spelling. The grammar is acceptable but I just couldn't read that with efficiency.
but I do believe the price listed was made in error
What about the phone conversations with actual humans confirming the price? Error?
obviously they wouldn't sell the card below cost
Obviously you don't know what you're talking about.
Keep in mind this was back ~1993-1997, so equations may have changed since then, but here's some personal experience:
We frequently sold computers and selected peripherals at below cost. Margin was so thin on computers anyway, the store would pocket maybe $30 on a $2,000 computer. If you could get the guy in the store by selling a computer $100 below cost, and then sell him a $60 surge protector, $30 worth of floppy disks, a $5 mouse pad, a $50 game to play on it, and a $99 4-year extended warranty, you'd be well well ahead compared to having him sit at home and ignore your ad advertising your computer at a price that was $20 above cost.
Problem is, the legal system tends to assume you're guilty until proven innocent if accused of certain things. Being racist is one of them.
Yes, the race card is a cheap way to put another zero on your settlement, but it's proven to be effective. I fully expect the guy to take Best Buy *and* the police to court for harrassment, false arrest because he's [fill in ethnicity here.]
It is then on Best Buy to prove that they haven't treated him any differentally than other customers (but have they had any Whites arrested?)
And you know as soon as someone starts calling for various ethnic groups to boycott Best Buy due to their racist treatment, things are REALLY going to get bad for Best Buy...
Besides, there is one other thing to consider here...people have PAID for the card at that price. Even if it were a honest typo, Best Buy (or any other company) is obliged to give the option to either use the money towards the proper purchase price, give a refund or give store credit. They only have rights to your money in exchange for goods or services rendered.
In fact, it's easy to argue that regardless of the price itself being a mistake initially, when Best Buy took the money for promising to ship the item, their action validated that price and bound them to complete their end of the bargain. They are bound to deliver the item, and if they choose not to or try to alter the terms of the sale, are in a highly actionable position under the law.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
I have been screwed by these folks, but never as badly as this fellow. But just to add to the friendly Best-Buy bashing going on, here's the short version of my worst Best Buy experience:
1. Purchased open-box Viewsonic PF700 at a $150 savings. Lovely monitor, and there was a big sticker on the box that says Best Buy will uphold the manufacturer's warranty since the box was open.
2. 3 months later, monitor fails. Looks really awful-- blurry, hand-sized dark splotches, distortion.
3. Take monitor to Best Buy for warranty service/replacement-- am asked if I degaussed the monitor. I say "yes, several times" but am ignored. Monitor is degaussed in my presence once with degauss button (no help) and once with external degaussing tool. (also no help-- big surprise)
4. Best Buy tells me they don't service these monitors, and to go pick out a replacement.
5. I go to monitor section, but apparently BB does not carry this monitor anymore. In fact, they don't carry ANY MONITORS at this time that meet the PF790's dot pitch/resolution/refresh rate specs. NONE.
6. I ask for a refund.
7. Denied. Store credit only.
8. I email corporate and ask for a refund.
9. Denied.
10. Repeat steps 8 and 9 several times.
11. Took home KDS monitor that is best equivalent. Now I'm out the price of the monitor and have an inferior product thanks to the wonderful customer service of best buy.
At the time, I was in college and could not afford a lawsuit. I do not shop their anymore-- but I do hope that another person screwed by their awful service sues them and wins.
It's interesting you bring this story up!
I had a situation happen to me some years back that's similar. When the v.90 56K modems were brand new, I went to the local Best Buy store and purchased a Zoom internal.
After I got home and opened it (shrink-wrapped and all), I found a no-name brand 2400 baud internal modem in the box.
I immediately went back to the store and complained to customer service. Of course, everyone acted like I was making it up, trying to scam them out of a new modem. Finally, the store manager agreed to give me another modem - but I was treated like a criminal the whole time. Even as I walked out the door, everyone behind the counter was glaring at me and whispering things to each other.
I called corporate HQ and complained about my situation and treatment, but the lady on the phone actually laughed at me - and obviously blew me off.
At least I got a little satisfaction eventually, because not too long after this happened to me, that store got shut down by corporate. (It was a store located in Florissant, Missouri - and it made the national news when they became the subject of a fraud investigation. Turns out almost all the employees were working together to steal products from the store over a 1 year + period of time. They had to fire everyone and bring in new employees from corporate to run the place for a while, until it was shut down.)
I don't know what math you use, but in my math, 129 + 200 = 329 and 399 - 200 = 199.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Do you seriously consider a pricing mistake to be the equivalent of murder?
Weird.
You need a civil suit against Best Buy, and you might be able to file charges against the manager.
A couple of years ago a similar thing happned at United Airlines.
4 0. html
Basically, a technical glitch in the United Airlines internet reservation system is reported to have allowed 120 customers to obtain round-trip tickets between Chicago and Bombay for between USD$139 and USD$179. The tickets would usually have cost more than USD$999.
After bitching about it for a while, United gave in to customer demands. That's what I call a good fair company!
http://news.airwise.com/stories/2001/08/9985673
IOException - Can't Speak
Go here to send a note to Best Buy .com.
Go here to send a note to Best Buy stores.
Adding a link or a sample of the stories told here might not be a bad idea.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
"Every time goods are bought and sold, a sales contract is created: the buyer agrees to pay, and the seller agrees to accept, a certain price in exchange for a certain item or number of items." ...
t m
"Implied warranties come in two general types: merchantability and fitness. An implied warranty of merchantability is an unwritten and unspoken guarantee to the buyer that goods purchased conform to ordinary standards of care and that they are of the same average grade, quality, and value as similar goods sold under similar circumstances. In other words, merchantable goods are goods fit for the ordinary purposes for which they are to be used. "
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to apply to software.
See:
http://www.wld.com/conbus/weal/wimpwarr.h
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
Rep's first name is [XXXXX]'ed out. Otherwise, this is untouched;
----------
Thank you for contacting Best Buy about this store shopping experience. I'm
[XXXX] with Customer Care.
We understand that hearing a statement like this can be difficult.
To accurately respond to your e-mail, we have forwarded your message to the
Best Buy Consumer Relations department. Our Consumer Relations
Representatives are specially trained to resolve any questions or concerns
you may have about shopping at a Best Buy retail store along with many of
the services Best Buy offers. You may expect to receive a response from your
Consumer Relations Representative shortly.
Thank you for sharing your comments with Best Buy. Please do not hesitate to
contact us with additional questions or concerns.
Best wishes from Best Buy,
[xxxx] and the Customer Care Team
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
So what? By that time the manager who thinks it's cool to detain people (false arrest) and file false police reports will have been arrested himself, fired "for cause," and basically be greeted with "oh, you're THAT guy? Are you gonna have us arrested if we don't give you this job? Get the hell out of my office!" during every job interview for the next decade or so.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
The store manager actually mislead the police and had the guy arrested claiming his online receipt was false. This is an absolute outrage. On top of this he got done for criminal trespass for being in a store! This is sickening. I hope this guy get's a good lawyer and sues the store and the manager. How low can a company sink?
If they do what this store did, there would be an excellent case against the store for wrongful imprisonment - courts (and juries) tend to award huge damages for that - tens of thousands of dollars and more.
The wrongful imprisonment here appears to be present in two places - it looks like the store held the guy for a while, and it looks like they pressured the cops to take him downtown (you can still sue the store for this even though it's not the store doing it, if they pressured the cops to do it)
IANALY,TINLA
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
I already said that under certain circumstances they have to take the item back, meaning exactly this.
If it's not fit for sale or up to standard or sold under false preteses, they must take the item back.
This is NOT the kind of return I meant. A great many people think they have some legal right to return anything for any reason if it's unopened or otherwise recently purchased, just because they don't like it, or the color doesn't match, or whatever. That's what I was talking about.
I had a similar Problem with Buy.COM and there was a class action lawsuit and 3 years later I got a $60 coupon for my troubles. I would have liked to have gotten a $50 Hitachi monitor for th $163 dollars they promised it for.
& th=5c9f98e92d07422b&seekm=36C0A7EF.7AF4%40uclink4. berkeley.edu#link1
:
i teria=item_criteria_here]
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1 . tml Worst Buy Highway Robbery Inc. Trying to give only $30 bucks for mistake.
s tbuy_gf4deal.html
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3 .
It has been committed in history FORVER, here:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&frame=right
I have had horrible experience with them as well. I won't even go into it, but they tried to do something fraudulent and were obstinate about owning up to it.
The worst part of this all is that the "new" price of $399 is horrible.
Here are a few links to show you how to find a deal on this card, Vision Tek part number 30001522
Pricewatch Search for 30001522
Tip on searching Pricewatch (my favorite); the url format is: [http://brook.pricewatch.com/search/search.asp?cr
Streetprices Search for 30001522
Pricegrabber Search, I don't like Price-grabber, but its here to show that even a crappy Shylock engine is better than Worst Buy ©(TM)®.
BEST BUY charged with FRAUD:
Best Buy & HRS Credit Insurance Fraud to their customers. Big Ripoff Scam!
Story also covered here:
http://www.theinquirer.net/10020202.htm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/24005.htm
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/19176/
http://courses.wcupa.edu/jredingt/BestBuy.htm
http://www.hardocp.com/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/2404
http://hypothermia.gamershardware.com/
http://hypothermia.gamershardware.com/articles/be
http://hypothermia.gamershardware.com/articles/bb
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/24/11357/303
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
It would be abuse of process, malicious prosecution, and defamation.
Uh, excuse me? They had a man fucking arrested for showing a receipt to a clerk. Ever been arrested before? It sucks, even if you actually did something to deserve it. When you're falsely arrested, it's humiliating and infuriating. I think they should sue the police for arresting a citizen with no evidence or warrant while they're at it.
Also, there's no such thing as "malicious prosecution" in a civil case. And, by "abuse of process" do you mean barratry? IANAL, but I sure hope you aren't either.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
Imagine if I'm setting up a web site for a car dealership and I accidently put down "$147.50" instead of "$14,750.00" for a brand new car. Yes, but if I walk in and hand you $147.50 for the new Ford Escort AND YOU TAKE IT, you just made a sale. I made an offer, and you accepted it. That's all that is needed to create a contract. Hand me the keys or you're in breach...
Since BB were taking the orders, and charging the credit cards in many cases, same principle.
Now, I wouldn't expect to actually get the car unless the business owner himself took the money and signed a receipt, because $147.50 is so low for a new car that it's obviously an error and not a proper "exchange of consideration", and the car dealer could reasonably claim that a salesman who made that deal exceeded his authority. However, considering the deep discounts we often see in web and mail order stores, $129 for a $329 or $400 card is not clearly an error or lack of consideration, and Best Buy would have a hell of a job claiming that their sales people weren't authorized to sell the card at this price after their computers accepted the order and billed the credit card. The only way they could get away with this is if people don't find it worthwhile taking them to court. And that doesn't work when enough people join the class action suit.
Although it might be more fun for each of those several thousand people to go into small claims court instead, forcing bestbuy.com to send a representative to each and every hearing...
Some posts have claimed that BB has made pricing "errors" like this in their printed and online catalogs quite often. That would make a case that the "errors" are indeed intentional, and also subject BB to prosecution for bait and switch.
Disclaimer: IANAL, etc.
Correct.
An ad constitutes a solicitation for offers.
An order is an offer.
Charging (or delivery, btw) of the goods constitues acceptance of that offer.
I'm running out of places to shop. I haven't shopped at Circuit City since the DivX fiasco. It wasn't just because of the fact that it was a horrible product, but because their salespeople actually flat-out lied to me about the product. Now, after this bullshit that Best Buy is pulling, I won't shop there either. Not unless they honor the price they advertised and pay some restitution to the guy they had arrested. Guess I'll have to be shopping online only now. There aren't any other similar stores in my city, so I don't have much choice.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
If the police now agree that he not only commited no crime, but that the manager shouldn't have called them in to arrest him for fraud, then when was the manager arrested for making a false police report and false arrest? (The manager's detainment of the individual, not the police taking custody.)
Talk is cheap. If they really think the manager was totally out of line, they should arrest the asshole to send a clear message to the other managers in town that detaining a shoplifter is one thing, detaining someone asking difficult questions is an entirely different thing.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I was curious about this so I decided to call Best Buy.
First I called 1-888-BESTBUY and connected to customer relations. I told her I have a news mailing list and was interested in a comment with regards to this. I asked her about the incident and she said she didn't know anything. She suggested I call the store or corporate headquarters's PR department.
I called corporate headquarters, 952-947-2000. They closed at 5PM CDT.
I called the store at 770-939-7660 and connected to customer service. I mentioned my mailing list and the arrest and she asked if I wanted background information and I said yes. She came back in a minute and told me that she couldn't comment and that I'd have to call corporate PR.
With the store directing people to corporate PR, and customer relations not knowing anything, I guess people interested in writing news items about this will have to wait until tomorrow morning to get a response from Best Buy's corporate PR department.
Have they already decided not to press forward with fraud/trespass charges? I guess I'll find out tomorrow.
I dunno about you but I am furious about this. These bast#rds actually changed their charge from fraud or trespass after the fact. So they have him arrested telling the cops he has a fraudulent receipt, then they later have the charge changed to trespass claiming he refused to leave, which is a transparent fabrication.
Buy from best buy and have them throw a series of trumped up charges at you. God I hope this guy gets a good lawyer and sues them for false arrest. Damn, I'm FURIOUS at this, the dirty SOBs, I hope they arrest the damned store manager for perjury and perverting the course of justice.
hmmm.. i thought it meant "Errors & Omissions Excepting".
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
A big problem with the web is that a company can make a quick change of a web page, and claim it was that way all along. I've seen this happen before- a web special being offered, which then mysteriously disappears. Or a change in some fine print, a cutomer agreement, a license, terms of service, etc.
I'm not sure what we can do to protect ourselves against this. Saving web pages? Having third parties (like Alexa) keep archives of corporate sites? It's an interesting problem.
False arrest is if the police arrests you with no basis (wrong person, or they were pissed off). It is hard charge to bring against the police as much of it is discressionary and you have to show an abuse of discression.
See the definition for for malicious prosection. Then read a piece from the Colorado bar on litigating an abuse of process claim.
And no, I am not a lawyer, but I am obviously better versed in the law than you.
Fight Spammers!
They put a 200$ motherboard up for 21 bucks on monday.
Dual P3 with built in RAID.
I jumped on it, and got one. After I ordered, the price was put back up to 229.00. Luckily, the good people at Insight held up their end of it, and shipped the board. These people will be getting a LOT more business from me. This is the kind of customer service that really shows they value me, even when I get the better of them. Goodbye Best Buy, Hello Insight!
-------------------------------------------------
Rod Hill, Store Manager for Best Buy... informed police that Abraham Cherian, an Indian American, was trying to rip off the store...
Indian American? What race was the store manager? Or do we not need to know that for some reason?
Now, some have claimed that Best Buy did this on purpose in order to get more people to shop there. This is indeed an illegal bait and switch, but only if you can show that they did it intentionally. Hope this clears things up.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Basically, it is impossible to legislate when lying "should" be illegal. I would rather have people be forced to be more skeptical, than limit speech.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Opposite situation: buyer misinterprets the true features of the product and purchases it for more than he would have spent had he been informed. Sure, the store may have a return policy, but I don't believe it is required to. I have definitely bought new products "as is" (RAM, e.g.). AFAIK, Best Buy doesn't require its customers to give it a product-back guarantee or anything, so assuming the customers didn't decide out of the goodness of their hearts (or to beat out competing customers?) to give the store some kind of warranty, I don't see how Best Buy has a leg to stand on.
Lesson to retailers: precharging is evil. Don't do it. And if you do, be prepared to deal with it when you fuck up.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
When I got home, I checked in the store ads and online, and found that the speaker set and reciever were NOT not supposed to be sold together, and that I should have paid double for what I got in total.
I wonder how Best Buy stays in business when the employees are complete morons like I dealt with. I'm not saying ALL Best Buy employees are morons, but it seems like quite a few don't really care about anything except selling the extended warranty from what I've experienced, and what I've heard from others.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Perhaps this is off the topic of Best Buy... but it deals with corporate shenanigans nevertheless.
Two years ago, when I had AOL, I subscribed under the Bring Your Own Access $10/mo. plan. When I received one of the very last bills from them, my statement reflected a change that I did not want.... I had been moved to the $10/5hrs/month plan. My original plan was unlimited, the new only allowed for 5 hours of usage a month. You can probably see where this is leading.
The total for the previous month came to a whopping $160, which I knew must be a mistake. Hoping to clear it up with AOL, I called and explained the situation.
Unfortunately, they didn't think of it as a problem.
I talked to three regular-level customer support reps, plus a supervisor, all with the same result... being stuck paying $160 for a change that I had not initiated.
AOL persistently insisted that I had changed the information myself, and their fraud department refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing.
Frustrated, I called my credit card company and explained the situation... I was not going to let AOL essentially steal $150 from me ($160 - $10 = $150.)
To my avail, the credit card company promptly shut down my old card/account plus blocked any attempts for AOL to charge against it. They then established a new card/account, and finally prohibited AOL from charging to the new in the case that they obtained my new information!
Say what you want about me having AOL at the time, but I stress two things: first, it was not my primary ISP. Second, more importantly, they tried to screw me. With the help of my bank, I fought back.
My DDR Ram story
Here is my story. I was putting off getting a couple sticks of DDR RAM until after the MPX motherboards were ready to ship. Prices started to skyrocket - thinking they would come down again I waited another week. That next week, Best Buy ran an add for 256 stick of crucial DDR RAM for $25 (after $10 rebate on one) when the market was closer to $50. I went to the store and sure enough, it was stripped clean. On-line, however, it showed in stock so I picked up some for in-store pickup.
Order Date: Dec 10, 2001
In-store Pick-up Items:
Crucial Technologies 256MB PC2 --- 2 $34.99 $69.
It looked good. No problems. The store was near by, so I stopped in and checked. We should have another shipment any day now.... Then the email...
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001
From: onlinestore@bestbuy.com
To: xxx
Subject: BestBuy.com Order Cancellation Notice
Dear (sucker-my-name-here),
Thank you for shopping at BestBuy.com.
One or more of the items that you've recently ordered have cancelled. Please take a moment
to contact our Customer Care representatives by replying to this e-mail or by calling us
toll-free at 1-888-BEST BUY (1-888-237-8289) for further assistance.
I called the customer service people, and they said that if the item was offered again, they would honor the price. Early January, I saw the RAM was listed on the website again. I called the CS department before I ordered and asked for the details. They said if the item was exactly the same skew number, they would honor the price and ship it to me free this time. Call back with the order number. I ordered, called with the info, and got the item....
Order Date: Jan 10, 2002
Shipped Items:
Crucial Technology 256MB PC210 --- 2 $89.99 $179.98 Shipped on Jan 11,
2002
As one may guess, getting the credit was less than easy. Turns out after I took shipment they tell me - ah, well the credit is not automatic. OK... They will forward it to another department for review.. Gha! Well, after many phone calls and showing up in person (something about working a few blocks away may help) they relented and gave me the full credit promised. The email was not clear, but eventually the credits came.
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002
From: BestBuy.com Customer Care
Subject: Shipping Credit Applied
Greetings from BestBuy.Com,
This email is regarding the recent order you placed on www.BestBuy.com for
In-Store Pick-up. Because our store did not have the product(s) you ordered
in-stock, we are providing you with free shipping to your home.
Your credit card statement will show that you were charged the price of the
product(s) plus applicable taxes and shipping costs. The billing statement
will also show a credit to your account that reflects the cost of shipping
and handling. There may also be a credit for any applicable tax difference
and difference in the price of the product(s). Your credit card bank will
receive notice of this credit within the next 24-48 hours, however, it may
take up to 2-3 billing cycles for the credit to appear on your billing
statement. If you have questions regarding this credit please contact your
credit card bank for more information.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you and we hope that you
will continue to shop www.BestBuy.com for all of your future entertainment
needs.
It gets worse.... One of my friends ordered for normal delivery. They decided not to give her the credit, but were gracious enough to take the unopened package back and refund all the cost involved. The lameness filter here sucks - but the twists and turns it took to do both were insane.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
When I lived in NYC, I went to both EB and Toys'R'Us to buy a DreamCast when they came out.
Toys'R'Us would sell me one for the declared retail price of USD199 (IIRC), but EB stated that they could only sell one to me for USD229 - a price which included an EB extended warranty. Even better, they argued that this was mandated by Sega, and that it was not possible to buy a DreamCast without it.
Needless to say, I bought the DC from TRU... but went back in to the EB on Broadway (to buy a game that TRU didn't have) and loudly gave the manager a hard time about it, on a packed Saturday afternoon.
This sig left unintentionally blank.
Ah, but they did treat him differently then other customers. Ten days earlier, that same store chose to honor the same price to another customer. I hope Rod Hill liked owning his own house.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
To add to that, the Future Shops (the larger ones that is) will become Best Buys and Best Buy will be opening locations in various parts of the country.
The smaller Future Shops are either going to be closed or they're going to remain as Future Shop.
For the last time.. The agreement you agreed to when you registered for their site clearly explains that they reserve the right to cancel any order for any reason they want. Furthermore it explicity stated that prices are subject to change without notification.
Duh. If it's too good to be true, it's probably not true. Besides.. IT'S A DAMNED VIDEO CARD. If it was life saving surgery, or a flying car, it might be worth getting pissed over. But as long as you got your money back, then it's certainly not worth getting pissed over.
If you don't buy the extended warranties, then Best Buy didn't lose anything at all by you going to another store to buy your merchandise. Profits are scraped to the bone, often to negative, on actual merchandise, and recovered in the extended warranty, which is what all the employees are trained to sell you.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Be sure you are accompanied by some friends. A lot of friends. A lot of big friends. We don't need to know what race they are.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I don't know whether to be sick or thoroughly pissed off. The man ought to be suing for more than 90k over that BS. Just like Cherian should be suing the crap out of them over his abuse at their hands.
I've been following the whole sordid GeForce debacle because a close friend of mine was one of the thousands that they've screwed. The more I see, the more apalled I am at them, and the "Better Business Bureau".
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
The card has a normal retail price of $399.99. But it's not unusual for discounters, like Best Buy often claims to be, to offer something that retails for $399.99 at a price of $339.99 regularly (and this at $129.99 at a $200 super savings). I very often see hardware discounted like this and sometimes buy. Then occaisionally some equipment is on sale for really awesome prices. Several years ago I saw a Philips brand SCSI CD-R recorder which normally sold for $349.95 on sale for $109.something (they often have some weird pennies in the prices and I think it's a code of some sort) at CompUSA. No rebate required. So I bought one (of 4 in stock) and took it home to make sure it would work in Linux. It worked fine. I went back the next day to buy another for a friend. All were sold, though the price sticker was still there. I asked a clerk when more would be in. He called the manager who said that was just a sale to get rid of stock that wasn't selling. Well, that's believable; I had no reason to question him on it, even though I'd never seen the product in the store before (and regularly visited every 3 or 4 weeks). I've also seen ultra low prices on some products just to get people into the store. I would believe that someone actually decided to sell the card at that ultra low price, and someone else later may have found that they had a contractual obligation to NOT discount that product or brand, perhaps not so deeply (such pricing often gives the impression the product isn't moving, or is about to be replaced, which stalls sales elsewhere that it isn't deeply discounted).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
...when the veracity of the individual comes into question. I know I'd be at least inclined to throw that one out if accused of trying to steal things, i.e. I'm trying to defraud them. At that stage, yes, it's not much good, but there's often times little to salvage at that point.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Is anyom^Hne getting tri^H^Hired of this crap^H^H^H^H over use of a stupid^H^H^H^H^H^H once was funny joke? Damn, give it a rest... it's not *THAT* amusing. Seems like half of the posts and repeated^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H stories these days use it.
NO!!!!!!!!
Don't send him THERE! I don't want to keep getting screwed over by not getting enough pickles or just a yellow dot for mustard, while he's trying to convince me to buy the fries. Why ruin a half-way decent fast food joint with that shithead.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Settling out of court can be OK ... IF you refuse to sign any agreement containing a non-disclosure clause ... and if the amount is sufficient to sting. Remember, they are trying to save their reputation and legal expenses. You should get a portion of that. A BIG portion. This case could easily cost THEM $500,000 if it goes all the way to court.
And definitely do not agree to any change of jurisdiction. Keep it right there in Georgia.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
There are different types of fraud. I was specifically refering to "fradulent use of financial instrument," e.g., using stolen checks. Depending on your state you may hit a felony at $100-500, with a 5- or even 10-year prison sentence. If it's a "three-strikes" state that doesn't specify violent felonies, you may be talking about a life sentence without parole.
The store manager filing a false police report isn't usually considered "fraud" since the purpose is clearly to harass another person, not to get unwarranted financial compensation.
(But IANAL - we're talking about fine enough details here that you should consult a local attorney, etc.)
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Nope, what you're talking about is basic "agency" and the original party *is* usually responsible for the misstatements of its agents. (It also has an obligation to monitor the agent's work, has the authority to terminate the agent if it's not doing an acceptable job, etc.) If the original party doesn't like it, it can't back out of contracts due to the action of its agent, it has to seek compensation from its agents.
As a concrete example, imagine that you are selling your house. You know that it is an old house that has some lead-based paint, and you tell your real estate agent that. But the agent lies to the buyers, and they're legitimately pissed to have a huge bill to make the house safe for their very young children. They sue you, and they'll win. You have to sue your real estate agent (or his employer) for damages caused by their misrepresentation.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Fry's Electronics does this too.
Every motherboard I have ever purchased there has been used, and is usually broken.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Back to the situational morality. I guess it's apparently ok in your mind if a big company gets screwed. What if this was a small family owned business that sells on the web? A mistake like this could easily wipe out their business, throwing them into bankruptcy and wiping out their life savings. Would if bo ok in that situation too?
Even when Best Buy gets screwed, the losses are passed on to other people. Retail stores aren't doing that well in the current economy. To absorb this loss along with the weak sales they may raise prices on other items some, but that doesn't work well in a bad economy. That means they're likely to lay people off, or just not hire people to fill positions as people leave. This means normal, average people don't have jobs. Maybe they don't have to lay people off. Maybe things are better than I think and they can just reduce their dividends to their shareholders. Of course those shareholders include a lot of retirement plans, so it's taking money from people's parents and gradnparents who are relying on the money to get them through their later years. The situational morality crap only justifies itself if you don't think about it too hard.
IIRC, the federal law is that they can charge if the order will be shipped within 30 days. I don't quite see the logic behind that -- since 99% of mail & internet order businesses don't control the manufacturing of their products, the only way they can be _sure_ they'll be able to ship in 30 days is if the product is already in their hands -- so they'll be shipping immediately. If you don't charge until the shipment is in the box, then you don't get into screw-ups like this, or the much more common screw-up of charging the card, then finding out that you're out of stock.
Well, we all know why the law is tilted towards businesses over consumers. Consumers just vote, businesses pay b^r^i^b^e^s^campaign contributions. What I don't understand is why so many businesses adopt policies sure to result in p-o-ed customers? Now and then you can inflate the profits for a quarter by screwing your customers, go through a merger based on the inflated stock price, and then try to repeat the process under a new name, but how many times can this work?
Here's the catch....
Make them refuse your 50, have them call the police. the police informs the moron behind the counter.. they grumble and accept your 50 anyways to avoid giving you free gas... and you promise the clerk that you will do this forever, and "see you next week!"
It doesn't get you free gas, but it teaches a lesson to the idiots that run gas stations... they HAVE TO BY LAW accept legal tender. (Money)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Should anyone working for one of these companies read this, please forward to the appropriate parties.
www.eFax.com are spammers
gee, too bad. every motherboard i bought from Fry's has rocked.
"Population 1,656"
I'm not suggesting you subsidize anyone. If you don't like Best Buy, don't buy from them.
and bestbuy is one of them.
- no w - I had dsl through them that was so broken and so down that I smashed the modem to bits and called them up to tell them to stop billing me. I refuse to consider dsl from them ever again and am hesitant to ever use dsl again - it worked great for a few months, then broke heavily, and they refused to do anything about it (and had a min of 3 hour wait times for customer service - then when you spoke with them, they were too stupid to know what to do, so they would claim an issue on my end... right)
one of my friends went through a two month ordeal with them over a large sony wega and finally got it all resolved and has vowed to never shop there again. I refuse to even go to the website and/or step foot in their store. although I do currently use netflix even though they sell their videos via a link to bestbuy, but I never buy them, just rent them.
other bad companies on my list:
Sprint (PCS wireless - the worst cell phone service I've ever experienced, and truly the worst customer service ever)
AT&T (any division - they lie about bills - are getting sued over that know - they pad bills, then remove it later, they them randomly charge you for things - and then if you confront them on any of this, they deny it all and if you refuse to pay it, they send you to a collection agency - I had to "settle" it with them where instead of the $200 they wanted from me - even though I had three customer service people tell me that I was all paid up in the computer - they would just take $30 and call it even - I paid the $30 and now refuse to use anything they are invovled in... although mediaone getting bought out by them threw a wrench into that here in Cambridge/Somerville.)
buy.com (you would think I or they would have taken away some lesson from my 15 failed orders with them earlier on in the process - their customer service is incredibly stupid as well)
MBNA (credit card company - they repeatedly charge me for a service that I never signed up for and repeatedly specifically asked to be removed from - their shopper's advantage program at a $60 a year fee)
mindspring/earthlink/whatever-the-hell-they-are
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
To go along with this, while I don't use a credit card for these purchases, I do use my Visa Check Card from my bank. It's a check card with Visa protection. Find a bank that offers such a card because it will afford you all the protections that come along with the Visa symbol and it will work like a credit card.
I think the idea is that almost always, the company can count on being able to ship within 30 days. The few times when they're wrong, they pay a nominal fee ($2 or something) to refund the customer's credit card. So businesses that regularly precharge are ones to whom the immediate availability of capital is more beneficial than a few extra dollars would be. It's not surprising that this practice is more common in smaller Internet stores that are looking for growth than in larger, established businesses.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Of course, if you notice it, they are happy to give you the right price. The Tower situation is absurd and unprofessional, but, as you say, what can you do.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
I suppose you are right that retailers are not required to honor a price that was misprinted. Legally anyway.
However practilly, most retailers will honor the listed price if possibal. I know several people who got a $60 phone for $30 when a $40 phone was on sale, but they put the wrong picture in the ad. Just the picture of the more epensive phone (the text listed the model # and features of the cheaper phone) was enough that they would take the loss on the more expensive phone.
False arrest is ALSO when someone calls the cops and intentional makes false accusations to mislead the cops to arresting you.
He should take them to Judge Mathis. I know there's only a $5000 limit, but Judge Mathis is one sneeky Mofo who knows how to get the truth out of people.
Don't let his Ghetto Justice fool you, Judge Mathis is a brilliant man.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Why did you not tell this guy to go screw? Or was it an off-duty cop in uniform or something?
And those Windows users that don't have full Acrobat can do this for free by creating a PostScript printer on FILE:. That's what I do when I want a copy of a web receipt but don't want to defeat the purpose of shopping electronically by generating ten sheets of paper in the process.