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Best Buy Confirms 'Secret' Version of its Website
Iberian writes "The Courant site confirms an oft-rumoured possibility: Best Buy does indeed maintain a second website for what one could assume is for the purpose of defrauding its customers. State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal ordered the investigation into Best Buy's practices on Feb. 9 after columnist George Gombossy disclosed the website and showed how employees at two Connecticut stores used it to deny customers a $150 discount on a computer advertised on BestBuy.com. Says Gombossy, 'What is more troubling to me, and to some Best Buy customers, is that even when one informs a salesperson of the Internet price, customers have been shown the intranet site, which looks identical to the Internet site, but does not always show the lowest price. [State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal] said that because of the fuzzy responses from Best Buy, he has yet to figure out the real motivation behind the intranet site and whether sales people are encouraged to use it to cheat customers.'"
Seems to me there are too good solutions for the customer:
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
There has to be a better, faster interface for finding in-store prices than an exact mock-up of the bestbuy.com website. Not to mention that an intranet site could have more useful info like items in stock, when more are expected in that store, what section/aisle of the store it's located in (or whatever).
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
I highly doubt sales people would be in on such a conspiracy. A company like Best Buy has sales people coming and going all the time. If someone got pissed because they were fired, the first thing they'd do would be blow the whistle on this. If these price differences are even deliberate, it's done strictly by the people managing the two websites. The sales reps would be told to sell at the intranet website's price, and are probably unaware of the fact that there's a different version of bestbuy.com at work than there is at home, let alone that the prices are different in order to screw the consumer. It may be a conspiracy, but it's not involving every sales rep at every Best Buy in the country.
...to never shop at Best Buy.
It pissed me off enough that I actually walked out of the store, drove home, ordered it online and used the pick-up-in-store option.
It pissed you off enough that you purchased from bestbuy.com?
Man, that's sticking it to 'em.
In that case they should not be using the second website to verify online prices!
Better still...Carry ur Wi-fi enabled laptop and just simply beat them at their own game.
I bet there's no dark plot here. You really think they could purposefully implement systems requiring dozens of staff with deliberate fraudulent intent and not have someone blow the whistle??
I bet this is nothing more than just your standard run of the mill incompetence.
I imagine they have an intranet site which has some information which is for internal use mixed with information that is meant to be the same as the online content. Due to the incompetence of those implementing these systems their intranet and extra-net sites are getting out of sync with each other.
Guess what the result is?
Every time the price difference is to the advantage of the customer there's not a peep to be heard.
As soon as the price difference is to the customer's disadvantage! All hell breaks loose, they go into the store go "WHAT ITS NOT THAT MUCH". Pissed off, they refuse to buy it, go home, check the price again... boom major shit and fan action.
The old (for computers) addage goes: "The difference between a used car salesman and a computer salesman is that a used car salesman knows when he's lying".
I imagine, as far as most of the sales people goes, this is probably the case here. I doubt most of them even knew that the prices were different.
Honesty is honesty.
Reminds me of that movie, Miracle on 24th street (I think), where Santa -- the real Santa -- is employed as a Mall Santa. He sits in the mall, and kids come up and tell him what they want, and the management has given him a list of all the Macey's products that he's supposed to be pushing on the parents -- which he then ignores, and tells the parents where to find exactly what the kid wants, at the best price in town.
At first, the managers are enraged, but then they realize that they've just built up a shitload of customer loyalty. Moms are walking out with bags and bags of stuff, just because they love Macey's so much for having such a great Santa.
Now, of course, the Managers have the ulterior motive here, and Santa is pure. But does it really matter whether Santa is pure or not?
In fact, I honestly don't give a damn what's going through the salesman's head. If it actually does mean I'm getting a better deal, and if they consistently try to build brand loyalty in a way which actually benefits me, I win, whether it's out of the goodness of their hearts or because they're planning to rip me off sometime down the road.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Like Best Buy will let you on their network, or like bestbuy.com doesn't redirect to their intranet. Hell, if they really wanted to be jackasses, they could remap the IP on the networks to make it REALLY hard to get to the external site.
This happened to me, I argued to death with the sales rep, the manager, etc.... all claimed the price must have been updated from the time I left home until the time I got to the store... BS. They knew what they were doing.
Total derail to the actual topic at hand but next time, pay with a credit card, Amex is particularly fond of protecting their customers.
Dissatisfied? Can't get satisfaction? Chargeback the bill. If you've used all the usual means at getting a refund for crappy or completely non existent service, just reverse the charges.
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