Comments on: Best Buy “Bait and Switched” Me

By: tom

tom — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 01:44:53 +0000

Sounds like Best Buy uses that hillbilly marketing system that wally world uses, which means that if something sells like crazy, get rid of it! Keep those shelves empty. When you see that blue blazer that says “May I Help You”? on the back, it’s always running away from you. Seriously, most web sites are broken these days in one way or the other.

By: Shane

Shane — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:01:40 +0000

That’s called Marketing Fraud here in the U.S.
The only way the store can fix that is to issue an immediate recall and post a new flyer/magazine/advertisement with the number changed and a label pointing out the mistake.

By: TheDane

TheDane — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:24:43 +0000

Well this country has developed a lot of other ways to annoy and pester customers…

Kim:)

By: TheDane

TheDane — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:23:43 +0000

I am not sure they would get away with saying that, once they send something out they are bound to sell it at that price … I think that is the way it works in Denmark actually :)

Kim:)

By: TheDane

TheDane — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:22:35 +0000

That always helps :)

And last time you had an issue and posted about it a lot of good feedback came in from the shop itself…

Kim:)

By: Philip Robert

Philip Robert — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:26:56 +0000

Sounds like a great example of Best Buy’s ROWE (Results Only Work Environment). It’s quite unfortunate that these guys can get away with this. It would take a large majority of their customers to quit buying from them to solve the problem. That or a class action lawsuit. I’m not a big fan of lawsuits, but when a company is misbehaving… They should be punished. Perhaps you should send them an invoice for your time with a not in stock fee added on for your trouble. If only we could make that stick…

Reminds me of a stop at Burger King earlier this week. I wanted a steakhouse burger. “What size? Medium? Large? or Extra Large?” I said “small.” We don’t have small, only medium, large and extra-large… What do they do? lobotomize people? They call it price point marketing. I call it lying.

That’s what Best Buy did in this case. They lied.

By: John P.

John P. — Thu, 29 May 2008 06:17:51 +0000

Thanks for the sympathy anger Sarah. :-) I feel much better now that I got to whine about it…

John P.

By: RHB

RHB — Wed, 28 May 2008 10:13:26 +0000

Catch 22.5. :-) I am quite happy to live in a country that has not yet evolved the bait and switch to that level… yet.

By: Kirk (Brother of OMB)

Kirk (Brother of OMB) — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:40:30 +0000

One other little detail you might not know… When purchasing online for In-Store Pickup, you cannot return items to any other store outside of the original pickup store. Best Buy Online Sucks!

EX: You want the new TV, but its only available 20 miles away. You purchase it, pick it up from the 20-mile away store, and later, determin it doesn’t fit your needs. Even if there is a store a block from your house, you’ll have to take it to the store where it was originally picked-up!

By: Johnny

Johnny — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:32:21 +0000

Who told you this is not a Marketing strategy??
It happened to me at Elgiganten in Sweden, where they posted on their ads, a creative webcam for 59 sek ( around 12$) , and once I got into the store, they said, it was a printing mistake. The correct price was 590 sek :)
But they had a good excuse, not like urs..

By: Brandon

Brandon — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:04:05 +0000

I hate shopping at best buy, actually I dislike shopping at most big name box stores :(

By: Knut

Knut — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:06:26 +0000

Too bad. I like big LCD’s. Do you prefer LCD or plasma screens?

By: sarah

sarah — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:47:25 +0000

Sounds about right. This didn’t even happen to me and I’m pissed.

By: monogodo

monogodo — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:44:55 +0000

My wife purchased two DVDs online from them for in-store pickup for my birthday this year. She arrived well after the recommended time to be able to pick them up. Then she waited in the store for 30 minutes for someone from the pickup counter to help her, only to find out that they hadn’t even pulled the order yet. It would have been faster for her to have walked over and picked them out herself and paid like a normal customer.

By: Brent

Brent — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:34:17 +0000

I loved Best Buy years ago before I purchased a large HD TV in store. They delivered the display even though I paid full price for it. It didn’t even have the remote! They ended up making the sale right by giving me a new TV that was already sold from another store but the customer hadn’t picked up yet. I was happy just to have the TV and I have never bought an expensive product from those guys again.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:30:06 +0000

haha – Reading through this most made me smile, as it’s exactly what I go through every time I deal with a Thai company here in Thailand – Every time! It drives me mad, makes my grey hair grow faster and also makes my blood boil. Seriously, I get this from every business: telecoms, suprmarkets, ISP, furniture stores… the list could go on. I wonder how many wordwide company directors actually purchase something from their own store/shop to understand the process that their bread and butter have to go through? I don’t think it’s that many.