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360 Bundles Lead To Best Buy Housecleaning
Groo Wanderer writes "At the launch of the XBox 360, there were reports of forced and unwanted bundling by several companies, most notably Best Buy. There were things said back and forth, and the usual corporate banter. They have followed through, this time, and a good number of people lost their jobs." From the article: "We are told a manager that started the procedure is no longer employed at Best Buy. At least one senior district manager is no longer employed, and some of the nailings are rumored to have gone even higher. The big yellow inquisition did not stop there, and several other managers and assorted white collar workers were given an escorted walk to the parking lot."
It wouldn't be wrong, except for the fact they advertised that you could buy a basic unit for a specific price, and then wouldn't sell you just that unit at that price. It's false advertising. If they hadn't advertised the basic unit by itself, that would have been honest and ethical. But since they did advertise it, they had a moral obligation to provide it as long as it was physically possible to do so.
The problem with bundling is Bestbuy advertised the systems at the regular price - but then some locations did not honour this. They *ONLY* sold the systems as a part of a bundle - and only told people of this after they had lined up for hours.
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