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- Calen, on 10/12/2007, -12/+220Those Bastards!
- beelz, on 10/12/2007, -40/+221They killed Kenny!
Wait... - hgelpke, on 10/12/2007, -4/+153I had heard about this a few hours before I went to the Best Buy in West Hollywoodto buy an ipod and knowing that the secret site was real helped me out a lot. Bestbuy.com was having a sale on the 80gb video ipod where it was about $15 dollars cheaper than the store. Naturally I assumed that the discount would carry over when I got to the counter it did not. When I brought it to the employees attention, he showed me the secret website. Guess what? No discount to be found. Luckily, in Best Buy's attempt to show off the new Intel macs, they had created a whole kiosk with an internet connection and all. Thankfully I was able to find a useful employee who I brought over to the the mac and showed him the actual bestbuy.com site. After about an hour, I had the ipod for the right price but that never should have needed to be my initiative. So I guess the moral of the story is that you should never trust BB. They will try to screw you.
- 98acura, on 10/12/2007, -4/+105This is a website that appears to customers that are in store as bestbuy.com... When you ask about an internet price, they bring up this site, so it appears to you as if they fixed the price..
I hate best buy, my only problem is, I hate circuit city more.. - ToastPop, on 04/17/2009, -2/+58I think you've totally missed the point.
This isn't for employee discounts, this is so when their actual website advertises a low price, they can pull up their website in store with a higher price website that says "sorry, that's not what the site says"
EDIT: And 3 people correct you by the time I finish replying... - Hickeroar, on 10/12/2007, -5/+61I actually had them use this on me once. There was a sale listed for an HDTV on the web and when i asked about it in the store the sale was mysteriously gone...
I ignorantly ended up purchasing something else. - devilbody, on 10/12/2007, -3/+58http://digg.com/tech_news/Best_Buy_Secret_Employee_Only_Website_Shows_Different_Prices_From_Real_Site
If anyone wants to read about where this all came about. - VeganG, on 10/12/2007, -7/+50@hgelpke
Meanwhile, you spent an hour of your precious free time arguing in Best Buy, to save $15. You should've taken your business elsewhere, anyway. If you know that they do things like this, you shouldn't reward them with your money. You didn't "stick it to them" by going ahead and managing to get the ipod at their sale price. - ngmcs8203, on 10/12/2007, -7/+42Finally! Justification for my uber-pda-nerdiness. I'll walk in to the stores with their Web site on my phone to compare prices from online to in store, but now I have another reason.
FYI, I've had various Best Buy employees tell me that in-store prices actually vary from store to store on big consumer products like TVs and what not. I called 6 Best Buys in my area and found that the one a few miles further was selling the same TV for $300 cheaper and they were willing to honor a 12% discount on top of that. - Szandor, on 10/12/2007, -3/+37Had to throw "girlfriend" in there, didn't you?
- fuzZzy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+28"That last sentence seems to indicate that Best Buy, which is supposed to be staffed by tech-savvy employees, is putting the blame on memory lapses: that employees have somehow forgotten how to access BestBuy.com from the store."
Oh how true... - The_Red_Monkey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27Its not an internal site for the employees to buy stuff. Its the "Internets" kiosks that allow customers in store to get to the BBY website to order out of stock items. Its there as a convenience. I am a BBY employee and have been with the company a while and I had no idea it was any different then the www site. It appalls me. What a BS tactic.
- FieldAnonymouse, on 10/12/2007, -7/+31@ l0tharnt
"why didn't they just order it online when they were looking at it at home?"
Sometimes products are available in store, but not on the web site.
-or-
Going to the store is a hell of a lot faster than ordering online for many things. - TheKricket, on 10/12/2007, -3/+25@l0tharnt
you seem to be completely missing the point - sure, you can order it online and pick it up at the store - but what bestbuy is doing is LYING to their customers by saying, "no, thats not the price online - the online price is the same as the in-store price" and then they show them a bogus intranet site versus the actual price as shown online
i first discovered this a couple of years ago when i went in to buy an ink cartridge - the difference was only $5 but i asked the cashier about it - she just said "oh, we dont match our online price" - ?!?!? - a few months later, a buddy of mine called me from the store and asked me to hop online to check the price of an amp-wiring kit that he SWORE he saw cheaper on bestbuy.com - the difference was $35 and the store REFUSED to honor the online price for him!
best buy is a company run by morons - i can say this with some certainty - i worked there between the ages of 16-18 and knew even then that it didnt take much brainpower to become a store, district, or even regional manager (turns out the higher-ups have a few screws loose as well)... - digduggler, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21Must be all those devil customers that 'forced' them to do this...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21I can confirm, from being an ex-employee at Circuit City, that Circuit City as well has a intranet website just like Best Buy. Discounted prices range from tv's to home entertainment from Onkyo and lower laptop/desktop prices as well.
- slapded, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21sweet. maybe ill get a $5.00 check out of this in 2010 from a class action lawsuit
- shanimal, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20@l0tharnt:
I hope you never work Customer Service. Anywhere.
I'm not agreeing with the "Customer is always right" motto, although if I'm a customer it happens to work out in my favor. BUT, I think it's despicable of a store franchise to go completely out of their way to deceive the customer out of a couple hundred dollars. - dyslexicsUNTIED, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20Tech-Savvy? Around here they need to focus on getting employees who can form a coherent sentence in English....
- ch28kid, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18Ya those bastards...
I was one of the people who got screw for buying something advertise cheap but later turn out expensive
I even print out the ad for Battlefield 2142 for 29.99 but when I got there I was 49.99 according to their stupid INTRANET website. The original price was 59.99 so I got it knowing I got 10 bucks off.
Those ***** ass... - jlawson1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14last week I went into a Best Buy in Lexington, KY, they simply told me that they do not honor their own website deals.
- ToastPop, on 04/17/2009, -4/+17You're missing the point again...
They aren't just matching any old website price, it is THEIR website. A business is supposed to match their advertised price, whether it be on their website or in a flyer. - quiks48, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16I got shafted because of their "secret" intranet site and all i can say is ***** best buy. simple as that.
- spookyttws, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13This really has nothing to do with buying stuff online, so stop bringing up the "Why not buy it online and pick it up?" point. It's about false advertising and deceptive business practices. Plus most people will find something they like online, then go into the store to make sure it's everything they want before throwing a couple hundred dollars at it.
- AlKo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12I too have heard from Best Buy employees that they do not honor their website prices as "they are not the same company"
- MasteRR, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Newegg, yes.
Tiger Direct NO NO NO. TD is no better than Best Buy, if not worse, with the bait and switch. - Koskun, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14What Best Buy has been doing (as was brought up on Digg earlier) is a customer comes in to the store with an advertised price off the BestBuy.com website, and while in the store itself the employee(s) will pull up their private website which does not have the sale price listed to "prove" that item is not on sale, and thus they (Best Buy) get more money.
- emanpa68, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15I worked for that company for 6 months, and then couldnt take living with myself knowing what I was doing to customers... after a while I started to tell people to order the parts online or find an independant techs because BB was screwing them... they greatly appreciated it, and it would make me feel better... Best Buy is scum, makes me sick knowing I helped them screw ppl with all their bait and switch tactics
- jlrolin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Lost my partonage.. even though it was small. Looks like I'll stick with online retailers or print the damn page off.
- flipzmode, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Well to anyone who actually cares to know why the site exists.........
It's not some "secret intranet" site. It is setup through the store's ordering system. If you order from it while in the store (or an employee orders for you) then it goes towards that store's sales, and shows up as a sale inside that store. So rather than showing up as just another bestbuy.com order, it is credited directly to the store. It's understandable that because we have different prices in store and online, that online only sales will NOT show up on the internal system.
With that said, we have gotten messages from corporate over the past week or so NOTING the price differences between bestbuy.com and the internal site, and to keep an eye out for it. So it's not some big secret, but maybe a lot of employees didn't realize it was different. - elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13He does use the iPod with his hand, obviously.
- windowsrookie, on 10/12/2007, -6/+17Makes you wish you went to CompUSA. Wait...
- insomniacal, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Best "Buy" ... or Best SELL?
Take THAT, all you who defended Best Buy the last time this allegation hit the Digg front page.
And I repeat: while you're at it, why not PAY ME ALL THOSE REBATES YOU STILL OWE ME - hollywoodphony, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12When I bought a 30 gig iPod video for my girlfriend, I saw that it was discounted on the website, though not for that much less, so I did in-store pickup. Even though I ended up waiting about 20-25 minutes (another issue with that place), I did notice that they were selling for full price in the store. I did this precisely because I had read these stories about their mysterious "second website" which I'm sure they would have pulled up to show me that I was crazy if I had asked about the lower price.
- bairy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10"why are you guys digging down devilbody?"
I suspect most people saw the digg url, assumed he was going to scream dupe and clicked the thumb down without reading any further. - kooft, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13From the article:
"State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal ordered the investigation into Best Buy's practices on Feb. 9 after my column 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."
"Blumenthal said Wednesday that Best Buy has also confirmed to his office the existence of the intranet site, but has so far failed to give clear answers about its purpose and use." - totorototoro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Last time these allegations hit DIGG, several "Best Buy employees" posted that it was *****, and there was no secret intranet.
- offspring06, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10What a shady thing for a large company to do.
- Cerebral, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I can say from my working with CompUSA that an Intranet site is very useful for information purposes only. It is a lot faster and we had local quantity from all brick and mortar stores listed on the intranet. The difference between the BB and the one we had was that ours looked nothing like our real site (no graphics save for a picture of the item) and there was no price listed on the page. It appears to me that Best Buy was attempting to be sneaky here with this considering that you needed to jump through hoops to get to the normal website anyway as well as making the Intranet site look just like the authentic site.
I hope they get in big trouble. - dickeytk, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11why are you guys digging down devilbody? this is a followup story to the one he posted, and I'm glad he put it in the comments
- cmdrNacho, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7the point is they were deceptive about it. Many stores do not offer their online prices within the store ex. Fry's . But they have to tell you if its a web -only deal. For them to say they will match it in store, and then when you get there show a website that says its not that price anymore is very deceptive.
Also working within the software field its not that hard to update the intranet and external site at the same time. Unless there technical staff is completely incompetent like the rest of the people they hire. - pmichaelson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Best Buy has had shady selling habits for years. I know more than a few people who've purchased their in-house warranties after being given the impression that it covered "anything", when it really just extends the manufacturer's warranty. I personally bought an iPaq there a few years ago and had the salesman tell me that if I bought their extended coverage warranty that I could take the thing outside, smash it on the ground, and bring it back in to get a new one. Yeah, right. They told my wife the same thing when she bought a thousand-dollar camera there. This is why it's SO important to be savvy consumers and take the time to read the fine print. Unless you're cool with throwing your money away.
Personally, when I see a deal online, I either print it out or pull it up on my PPC phone. - loudestnoise, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7well those employees are either trying to lie or are dumb. because there is. i would know.
- mythicflux, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9As someone who used to work for BestBuy as Geek Squad Agent (have a real tech job now) I can say I'm kind of surprised, but mostly not. Though I had no idea that the site's were different and no one in my store ever discussed the possibility. I'm sure the system started out as a cache of the main web site until someone realized that if they "forgot" to properly sync the sites then they could generate more money.
Kind of like the idea that if Geek Squad outsources most of it's Geek Squad repairs to a remote desktop connection service (named Agent Johnny Utah, just ask any Geek Squad agent about it), they can reduce the need for technicians who repair things in store and focus on hiring glorified salesmen who vaguely say they will repair your machine. - MDrake, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I cannot tell you how many times I have unknowingly said, "Oh, it seems it isn't on sale anymore" fully believing it was a live website. It took the 'peon' level employees in our store at least a year to figure it out. Now we always tell people to bring a printout when they call saying they've seen a sale online.
- Anidzuki, on 10/12/2007, -6/+12I think you misread the website. The site unaccessable "does not" have the discounted prices on them. Although I bet it's probably used for item information checking(since they'll hire any idiot off the street) cause it'll be faster than connecting through the internet.
- Cerebral, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Sorry you get no sympathy from me. Software sales are FINAL. That is stated all over in the return policy at EVERY STORE and I am not talking about just Best Buy.
There are piracy concerns and such. I know it sucks but that is the truth and has been for years. That is why you always rent before purchasing and this is also what Gamestop/EB prey on. - aydoubleyou, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6why use bestbuy? we have newegg.com
- zeazzz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5When will everyone just realize that BestBuy.com has it's own prices, and each store is unique with their own prices. This is because of stock differentiation..if you are SMART and simply print out the ad on BestBuy.com they will match it no problem.
Just be human, and stop being pack-rats. - czeman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Probably some attempt to inflate executive salary.
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