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.'"

Comments

I've seen it.

[pupstah]

I checked a price online last week, went in, and they checked and it was different.

Wait for the flood of OMG CORPORATIONS posts to follow...

Re:I've seen it.

[sequioa]

Wow...I saw this crap personally just today at my local Best Buy, ironically with the $150 discount. I was there last week and almost bought a cheap PC, but the $150 discount was running through today, so I decided to set aside my impulse buy. Went back today and another sales rep says the price is only good if I buy a $200+ display. I pointed out the discrepancy with my prior info and he said, in essence, tough luck, and walked away. Asked another rep who it turns out gave the first rep the info that I had to buy the $200 display but said he wasn't absolutely sure this was true and would have to check with a manager. Then, as I was waiting, a husband and wife walk up, hand the first sales rep a copy of some ad and say "You thought I was lying, but it says right here that the speakers are included in the package price." BTW, I decided to skip the purchase.

Enron 2.0?

[GrEp]

Best Buy has a modest contract with Accenture (old Author Anderson) helping them re-design their IT. Coincidence?

Re:Enron 2.0?

[j00r0m4nc3r]

You have just stumbled upon the greatest trick of deception. It's called "plausible deniability".

Re:Many tricks to price discriminate

[Anonymous Coward]

By this time, the customer has demonstrated his or her willingness to buy the product and invested the time and energy required to get to the store. At this point it's likely that they are willing to pay more than the online listed price, and buy the item anyway.

I had EXACTLY this situation happen to me with a certain home-theater-in-a-box. On their web site they listed it for a certain price that I found very reasonable compared to online vendors so I headed down to Best Buy and found it was $50 more in the store. When I confronted the customer service people about it they proclaimed that that was an online only deal (it didn't say anything about being online only) and offered me a "comparable", lower-quality home theater system instead. 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. Then I drove back after receiving the e-mail about my order being ready and walked over to the customer service desk and talked to the same exact girl I did an hour earlier. That's just stupid to make customers jump through hoops like that to make a quick buck.

Re:Interesting, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you went to a grocery store because you decided to buy some apples for $3 for a 3 pound bag because that was the price in the ad, then went to check out and the casher rang them up at $5 for a 3 pound bag, then showed you their copy of the grocery ad and claimed that that was the price all along and that you read your flier wrong, that's not illegal?

If it's not illegal, then I guess I'd sue them in small claims court for the cost of gas to drive there to listen to them lie.

CORRECTION Re:Enron 2.0?

[JasonEngel]

Accenture was formerly known as Andersen Consulting. Andersen Consulting was originally part of Arthur Andersen, then spun off as a sibling company in the 80's, in large part still tied to Arthur Andersen. In fact, there was a third company called Andersen Worldwide, which basically acted as a facilitator between the two main entities. Around '98 or early '99, AC managing partners got fed up with some of AA's business practices and partnership requirements, so they fully separated, severing all ties, and changed their name to Accenture.

So your comparison of Best Buy to Enron because of Enron's affiliation with Arthur Andersen (and BB's current affiliation with Accenture) is completely false.

Re:CORRECTION Re:Enron 2.0?

[jcr]

All of the spawn of AA shared a common corporate culture of sleaze. Andersen Consulting split off because the partners in the consulting side of the business didn't like paying their partners on the accounting side of the house what they were due under the terms of their operating agreements. The accountants were plently sleazy themselves (as the enron debacle demonstrates), but the consultants were willing to ignore the fact that the arthur andersen name is what got them in the door.

After seeing how AA fucked over McCaw Cellular in the mid-90's, I wouldn't let them within a hundred miles of any job I'm running.

-jcr

Re:CORRECTION Re:Enron 2.0?

[Dan Farina]

Actually they didn't like it (and won the suit) largely because Arthur Anderson had its own competing consulting practice -- effectively competing with the Anderson Consulting arm. This was found to be a breach of agreement and was how the divorce was finally settled. Wikipedia has (had?) all this information.

It was a fortuitous breaking off, too -- not long afterwards Anderson Consulting changed its name to Accenture did Arthur Anderson implode due to Enron.

Are people STUPID?

[Creepy Crawler]

Why do people continue to shop at a Retailer who is known for treating customers like E-Tards and continually abuses them and lies to them and most likely commits bait-n-switch?

Re:Are people STUPID?

[_xeno_]

Possibly because some people like buying things at a physical store, and, let's be honest: all the competition with Best Buy is about as bad.

I already refuse to shop at Circuit City. That leaves Best Buy and CompUSA, at least until CompUSA starts closing stores, at which point the closest CompUSA to me will be in another state. So you might argue that people should buy online or buy from other stores.

But, really, when it comes to the things that Best Buy sells, if you're set on getting them at a physical store, none of the competition is really any better.

Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

Having worked for these slimy bastards for a few months, I'm willing to bet that "not showing customers the lowest price" is the least of the shit that goes on.

I'd rather whore myself out to a thousand fat chicks for fifty bucks each than work there ever again. The whoring would pay a lot better, too.

Best Buy will Ho out Your Email

[queenb**ch]

I have a domain that I bought on ebay for a dollar. It's misspelled but it's also extremely handy. Each time I have to go register on a web site some where, I register as (nameofwebsite)@mydomain.com. Then if I start getting spam, I know who sold me out. I bought something on-line from Best Buy's web site and so of course I register as bestbuy@mydomain.com. Lo and behold, I start getting a ton of spam addressed to bestbuy@mydomain.com. My first missive was polite, asking why they're sending me these emails. When I contact them about it, I'm told that it can't possibly be coming from them.

When I write them the second time, I'm still polite and explain that they must be sending them because that's the only place I've used this particular email address. They write back and insist quite rudely that I must have used this email address to register somewhere else. Furthermore, they're quite rude in insisting that they're not spamming me and asked me why I was so stupid as to think that they were. "Surely you realize that a reputable company like Best Buy wouldn't spam you."

My third missive wasn't polite at all. I rather pointedly asked them if they were mentally deficient or inbred, since they seemed to be too slow to pick up on the fact that they were corresponding with me at the email address of bestbuy@mydomain.com. And as I pointed out to them, I am not likely to be using this anywhere else. It has be used in one place and one place only and that is their web site. I also tell them that they don't get my email address back from people that they have so rudely, and in violation of their own privacy policy, ho'd it out to, that I'll be doing some spamming of my own. Groups like the State Attorney General's office, FCC, UseNet, anyone and everyone else I can think of that might be remotely interested.

Finally I got a letter back from Best Buy claiming that a security breach had "liberated my email address". I called the person that sent me the letter. He was rather nicer than the nimrods I'd been dealing with. When I asked if they had filed the proper disclosure, which is required in several states in which Best Buy operates, I got a long awkward pause and he finally admitted that one of their employees had been busted selling email addresses harvested by the web site. When I asked if they were at least terminating the miscreant, I was told that they were not. That was the last time I ever purchased anything in a Best Buy.

2 cents,

QueenB.

Re:Best Buy will Ho out Your Email

[tm2b]

Careful, you can't be so certain.

Create some email addresses, and then don't use them, ever.

There's still a good chance you'll start getting spam, sooner or later. Having done this myself, I can only conclude that some spam list generators use dictionary attacks against MTAs, trying different usernames on known good domains until they find some userids where they don't get immediate bounces.

Even that aside, there's a difference from an employee selling your email address on the side (regrettably, very common), and corporate actions.

Sometimes BBY employees are BBY employees

[Dankling]

I remember when they first changed the intranet site to match in-store pricing only. It makes sense since the internet is going after a mostly different demographic and would have to make prices even lower to compete (which they STILL save money on because running a warehouse costs much less than shipping it to a store and have to pay salespersons wages).

Anyway, I was an employee at BBY when they started this switch, and, embarrasingly enough, I didn't notice the switch for over 2 months - and I was a customer service senior. They never even bothered to tell us!! (and i worked at Richfield, MN - just across the street from corporate HQ) - they were most probably thinking that we would deny the price match out of ignorance.

But, in my stores defense, once we found out of the switch we checked through the internet website and even went as far as printing it off if they had to go to another store to pick up the item.

Basically, with any corporation you will have great stores and horrible stores - it all depends on who the GM is. I've had good ones that make a great customer atmosphere and horrible GM's that make me deny price matches and basically be a bitch to the customer. But one thing I've found to be true no matter what GM I have is that the customer initiatives at the corporate level are in the right place - which is much more than I can say for most other Fortune 500 companies out there.

What the net is bringing back..

[jcr]

This is another great example of the resurgence of reputation as a means of social pressure. Before we had the web, advertising could completely drown out the occasional TV report from your local consumer affairs reporter. Today though, anyone who cares about getting what they pay for can trivially check up on the vendor in question.

-jcr

Circuit City = very cool

[gosand]

A customer sees a price online, but wants the item more quickly. So the customer heads to the local Best Buy, where the prices are supposed to be the same as what's online (unless specifically marked as an online-only special). By this time, the customer has demonstrated his or her willingness to buy the product and invested the time and energy required to get to the store. At this point it's likely that they are willing to pay more than the online listed price, and buy the item anyway.

I recently bought a DVD recorder... I did exactly this, and checked prices online. I wanted a specific model (Pye PY90DG) and Circuit City had it. When I got to the store, it was about $9 more. I asked the guy at the returns counter (nobody there) if they matched their online price, and he said they didn't because they were different systems (or something like that). For $9... I was just going to buy it and pay the extra, but he could see it wasn't sitting well with me. It was only $9, but the price was around $90. That is a considerable percentage! He took me over to one of their net-connected PCs, and let me order it online for in-store pickup. Then I went and took one off the shelf, walked it over to his register, and picked it up. He said they do it all the time, because their online prices are lower than the store prices quite often, and they didn't think that was very fair. I was very happy with my purchase, and would go back there for that reason.

My Best Buy service polemic

[xPsi]

I used to enjoy shopping at Best Buy because at least they had stuff I generally wanted and needed. Also, the stores were pretty ubiquitous and the prices were basically competitive. The customer service was all over the place, sometimes right on, sometimes not, but usually nothing special. But then I tried interacting with the morons at Geek Squad. They make some pretty heavy promises (which Best Buy sponsors) on the web site like "Geek Squad® Agents fix any PC problem anytime, anywhere" and "Service guarantee -- If you're not completely satisfied with our service, the problem is remedied fast and free". So I bring a computer into the store and tell the agent "My computer won't boot and I think its a problem with the power chain, the hard drive isn't getting any power. It may need a new power supply -- but probably its just a broken connection." In other words, I told them the problem and what to fix -- or at least a good starting point. I didn't have the time to deal with it myself, so since they can "fix anything" (their agent on the hotline told me it would be "no problem" to debug the power chain) I figured I had nothing to loose (and if they couldn't fix it, I could bank on the service guarantee). So the guy at the store tells me, "great, we'll do a $70 diagnostic and get back to you." A week later they call me to say "we tried to do a diagnostic, but the computer won't boot, so you need to take it to the manufacturer." Fix any computer problem indeed. So when I went to pick up the computer I told the "agent" I wasn't satisfied with the service and wanted my 70 bucks back. Why should I be satisfied? I spent money and waited a week for them to tell me what was written right on the trouble ticket in my own words. Needless to say, this sparked a little "philosophical" discussion between me, the "agent", and his manager about what "service guarantee" means and why it's on their website if they won't honor it. In the end, they openly accused me of trying to get something for nothing. They kept telling me that since they had already done the work "someone had to pay." I pointed out that their "service guarantee" implies that, as a customer, I can, after service is performed, assess my own degree of satisfaction based on my own (presumably reasonable) standards. If I am not, then I get my money back. Case closed. This is called "customer service." My (fairly reasonable) basis for dissatisfaction was their claim to be able to "fix any computer problem" but yet charging me $70 just to tell me my computer wouldn't boot -- the very reason I brought it in to begin with. So I wrote a nice letter to Best Buy Corporate and ccd Geek Squad. Not an email, an actual formal, professional letter. I received a formal, professional response letter back from Best Buy "customer service" about two weeks later stating simply (in goofy corporate jargon) that, while they valued me as a customer, they were not in the business of reimbursing dissatisfied customers for work already performed on computers. Never mind the "service guarantee" paradox that "satisfaction", by definition, must be assessed after the work was performed.

Needless to say, I'm not a big fan of Best Buy, so am glad someone is calling them publicly on this intranet pricing thing (potential scam).

Anti-consumer, but not the way you think

[Anonymous Coward]

Each division in Best Buy functions effectively as a eparate business. bestbuy.com has to fight Best Buy stores for sales. Store advertising space on bestbuy.com is sold to the highest bidding department. In-store pickups involve commissions between .com and stores.

Stores have to spend money to drive people through their doors They'll be damned if they advertise their bestbuy.com "competitors" on in-store computer systems and let them get the sale.

Add complexity to your site-specific reg. addr

[quokkapox]

On the other hand, I have a Yahoo! email account of the form xx2000xxx@yahoo.com and I have never received a single spam in that account whatsoever. It was registered in 2000 and used for communicating with a certain well-known online auction site.

Never received a single spam in my inbox or in my junk email folder. So I have concluded that 1) nobody's doing dictionary spamming that complex, and also 2) ebay hasn't shared their customer email list with spammers (yet).

So if you really want to be sure, register as bestbuy2007@example.com and you probably can be sure when they start spamming you that somehow, that address got onto the spammers' lists.

Interesting Anecdote...

[SpectreBlofeld]

I work for a Verizon Wireless retailer.

Once had a customer come in and accuse us of selling his (physical) address information to spammers. Every time he applies for a service, he uses a different middle initial for his name, and keeps a record of what initial he used for what service. Said he used the middle initial 'K' when applying for our service, and soon starting receiving junk mail (of the snail variety) addressed to "John" K. "Doe."

As you may or may not know, customer privacy is something Verizon takes very seriously (being one of the only wireless providers that didn't hand over call records to the NSA, for instance). Every customer is automatically enrolled in the Do Not Call registry, etc.

Well, we investigated the matter, and eventually found out what happened.

The handsets we sold at the time used vendor-issued mail-in rebates, which, of course, require you to fill out and mail in a form with your name and address... and, naturally, this guy used the same middle initial for the rebate submission as he did when he established wireless service, not making a distinction between the two (can't blame him). Investigation found the vendor (or the rebate company they employed) was the one "sharing" the customer info.

We have since abandoned vendor rebates and now Verizon handles the rebates in-house.

A piece of advice: Use a unique e-mail or middle initial for any rebates you submit than you do for making a purchase or establishing service. The responsible party may not be who you think it is, nor may they be aware it's even happening.

Neither apply in this case

[Nymz]

In fact, it is very common for businesses to charge different amounts based on location, age, sex, and willingness to pay.

-Many websites require you to locate yourself before presenting different prices for your area.
-DVDs are region coded, and are priced differently based where you buy them.
-Gas prices are based on what the locals are willing to pay.
-Public transportation charges lower prices for old rich people, and higher prices for the young and poor.

Sometimes it's just economics, and sometimes it's just unfair, but it's not illegal due to special intrest groups that can "convince" (kickback, bigotry, ...) legislators to exempt and shield them.

Re:Many tricks to price discriminate

[Nova1313]

fyi best buy the store doesn't get the money from webdeals that you buy online. If online offers something cheaper for some reason and it's below what the store has listed in cost (or the manager says no) order it online and pick it up. The store gets no money from that. I think thats where everyone thinking that online and brick and morter are the same. Disclaimer: I was (past tense) a customer service employee at a best buy, I've heard it all and been bitched at by tons of customers. If you read all the paperwork they give you it's all spelled out. People don't read.

Geek Solution

[abb3w]

1. Use the kiosk to go pretty much ANYWHERE on the BestBuy website. Click the link to "careers", near the bottom of the webpage. Appropriately, we're only going into the career to get somewhere better as fast as we can. Clicking this opens a pop-up IE rendered Kiosk window (still without an address bar, the standard browser buttons, or the standard "File/Edit" toolbar of every windows program) at the Best Buy career site.
2. Click the "about Minneapolis" link on the right; think of your own "want to get somewhere better" jokes from now on, it's only getting worse.
3. Click the "www.state.mn.us" link towards the bottom.
4. Click the "Education" link near the top.
5. Under "Quick Links" off to the right, click "Minnesota State Colleges and Universities".
6. To the left, click the state's picture to select a campus.
7. Click for the "A-Z Institution List"
8. Under the two year colleges, click "Lake Superior College".
9. Ooooh -- a Google Search form! Toggle to seach Google instead of locally, and go to the real Google website, BestBuy.com, or CircuitCity.com, as you prefer.

A shorter path exists, using the search function on the www.state.mn.us website, but might change. Bonus points for anyone who (using this starting point) figures out how to get (a) a full fledged IE window with address bar (b) a command prompt (c) system level privileges and/or (d) a way to reinstall the hard drive with Linux from the kiosk environment. Changing the kiosk webbrowser home to CircuitCity.com would be another nice hack in several senses of the word.