http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/306365_bestbuy07.html

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Wednesday, March 7, 2007

 

Best Buy investigated over price discrepancies

 

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

 

MINNEAPOLIS -- Best Buy is under investigation by Connecticut's attorney general after consumers complained that they were denied deals found at the electronic retailer's Web site by store employees who pulled up a look-alike site that listed higher prices on some merchandise.

 

"The key question is whether consumers were advertised one price, and then denied that price when they got to the store," Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Tuesday.

 

Blumenthal said his office received at least 20 complaints after a columnist for The Hartford Courant reported the experience of one Connecticut man who found a laptop computer advertised for $729.99 on BestBuy.com, and then went to a Best Buy store where an employee who seemed to check the same Web site told him the price was actually $879.99.

 

Dawn Bryant, a spokeswoman for the Richfield, Minn.-based retailer, confirmed that store employees have access to an internal Web site that looks nearly identical to the public BestBuy.com site. But she said company policy is to always offer customers the lowest quoted price, unless it's specifically identified as a deal available only to online shoppers.

I've had this same thing happen to me. Whether it was a glitch or not I'm not sure. I wanted to buy a subwoofer for my home theater system. I saw online that it was on sale, got to the store and found the price was different. I had a sales rep pull up the site and it showed the regular price. 20 minutes later I went home and the price I saw was the same. I ended up printing out the webpage and taking it in. At first they wouldn't honor it, but after I talked with a manager and told him I'd be happy to take the print out to Circuit City he decided to honor it.