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Best Buy Confirms 'Secret' Version of its Website
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Mar 02, 2007 11:43 PM
from the probably-should-have-kept-that-under-wraps dept.
from the probably-should-have-kept-that-under-wraps dept.
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.'"
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News: Best Buy Accused of Overcharging 301 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Connecticut's Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has accused Best Buy of overcharging its customers. His accusation is that customers see one price on Best Buy's website, in stores salespeople would show them a different internal site from a kiosk. Best Buy denies the charges. 'Previously, the company confirmed that store employees have access to an internal Web site that looks nearly identical to the public BestBuy.com site, but the company's policy is always to offer customers the lowest quoted price unless it's specifically identified as a deal available only to online shoppers. Jerry Farrell Jr., Connecticut's consumer protection commissioner, said the lawsuit should be a warning to companies to be more transparent in their business practices.'"
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Well, at least competition from CompUSA should.... (Score:5, Funny)
GeekSquad (Score:3, Funny)
I've seen it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait for the flood of OMG CORPORATIONS posts to follow...
Re:I've seen it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems to me there are too good solutions for the customer:
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Re:I've seen it. (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:I've seen it. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I've seen it. (Score:5, Funny)
This is the real slashdot effect.
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Better option. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3)
I have had more problems going into bestbuy then any other store. I have had more run arounds then any other store. I can't even call ahead and have them place something on a shelf for me and send someone else after it without problems. Best buy sucks for all practicle purposes. The only real reason they stay in business is because people expect them to suck and don't get disapointed anymore and they are the only choice in a lot of smaller towns.
Re:I've seen it. (Score:5, Funny)
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Many tricks to price discriminate (Score:5, Informative)
Another possibility is just that Best Buy doesn't want to market online prices as "online only" and that people who walk into the store and pay a higher price won't notice unless they look for the same item online (which most presumably don't).
This reminds me of the whole amazon.com pricing PR disaster from a few years back. IIRC, it involved people who were logged in seeing a different price than those who were just surfing casually. By knowing your previous purchasing history, amazon.com could reasonably mark up items it thought you might be willing to pay more for. I don't know what happened to the program, I thought it just went away because of the PR nightmare.
It'd be interesting to know just what's legal and what's not with some of these new tactics. Not all price discrimination is illegal; consider "student" or "senior" discounts, for example. Of course, avoiding a PR mess is probably enough to keep most companies from trying legal but dirty tactics.
Re:Many tricks to price discriminate (Score:5, Informative)
Those are illegal, and will get you in big trouble with the FTC.
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Re:The price you see is an *offer price* (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Many tricks to price discriminate (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Many tricks to price discriminate (Score:5, Insightful)
It pissed you off enough that you purchased from bestbuy.com?
Man, that's sticking it to 'em.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
One thing that i
Circuit City = very cool (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Motive doesn't matter. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Many tricks to price discriminate (Score:5, Informative)
A quick Google search turned up this Slashdot article [slashdot.org]. I didn't realize it was almost 7 years old, though. I read about it here, and amongst people who heard about it, there was definitely some uproar.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In that case they should not be using the second website to verify online prices!
i remember that... (Score:3, Informative)
Honestly, I think it's not a management plan to rip people off, they just like to keep the internet best buy and store best buy separate so when a rep logs onto the computer you see your store's price... and reps' ignorance ends up screwing people over.
Anyway my $.02 to try and throw out some facts and before everyone replies I know it was/is still a bad idea just throwing the facts out as I heard them
Re:i remember that... (Score:4, Insightful)
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).
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
CC doesn't (Score:3, Informative)
Annoying though, and I hope they get a lot of heat for it (was also in CT btw)
Salespeople wouldn't be involved (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Salespeople wouldn't be involved (Score:4, Informative)
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Are people STUPID? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yet another reason... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Best Buy will Ho out Your Email (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re:Best Buy will Ho out Your Email (Score:4, Informative)
Had he sold out my SSN, Credit Card #, or some other bit of information, he would have likely committed a felony. As it is, he "just" sold out my email address. We're IT people. We handle and process data all the time. We are inherently in positions of trust. If you cannot be trusted, you should not be working. It's not a big leap to go from "just email address" to "just home addresses" to "just credit card #'s." I expect that a responsible and ethical company to have responsible and ethical employees. This person certainly didn't meet either of those criteria. The fact that they chose to keep him tells me that they lack a commitment to ethical behavior and enforcement of standards. You're comments here tell me the same about you.
2 cents,
QueenB.
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On-the fly unique email addresses (Score:5, Informative)
blah@gmail.com
I can also use:
blah+BestBuySucks@gmail.com
This works automatically. No setup is needed for gmail and many other email systems. Unfortunately, a lot of website developers think that "+" is invalid wherever it is used in an email address and will not allow such email addresses in registrations.
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Interesting Anecdote... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Best Buy isn't the only one making creative use (Score:3)
I found out the other day that my hosting company, DailyRazor.com, pulls a cute little trick - they have these offers that say you get x number of months of free hosting with y number of months pre-paid. So you buy the account thinking that as long as you've paid by the deadline, you're ok. It so happens that if you didn't enter a specific "coupon code" when you signed up, you forfeit the free hosting. At the bottom of their sign up form, it says, "Have a coupone? Enter it here..." - when I think of a "coupon" I think of a piece of paper that I might have received in the mail, or seen in a magazine. I didn't have either of these, so I didn't enter anything. I didn't give it a second thought until I saw that they issued my second invoice two months early. I have been going back and forth with them over this, and as of yet, they have refused to make any concessions. If you need servlet-based hosting, avoid the hassle and look for another company.
What the net is bringing back.. (Score:5, Interesting)
-jcr
Never chalk up to malice... (Score:5, Informative)
(CompUSA has a similar site, though in their case the customer (usually business account customers) can access it too -- http://compusabusiness.com/ [compusabusiness.com] )
Now, I'm interested in seeing what the result of the investigation is, but this doesn't seem to scream conspiracy. Maybe there was a discrepancy, and the employee pointed to that site because, well, that's the site he always uses. I make a best buy purchase every couple weeks, and always check the site first (mostly because best buy's stock sucks, and I have to figure out which of the 2 stores in town has what I need), and I have never seen a price discrepancy between bestbuy.com and in-store.
so inevitably.... (Score:4, Informative)
Couldn't be a BB employee. (Score:5, Funny)
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My Best Buy service polemic (Score:5, Interesting)
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).
Re:My Best Buy service polemic (Score:5, Informative)
1) You informed them that the machine won't boot on delivery
2) They agreed to fix it
3) They didn't
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The old addage... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Obligatory Simpsons Ref (Score:5, Funny)
"Oh crap. I shouldn't have said it was a website.
Oh crap! I shouldn't have said it was a secret!
Oh crap! I CERTAINLY shouldn't have said... it was ILLEGAL!"
Works Both Ways (Score:4, Informative)
That's because it lists the "in store" prices and there is a whole slew of anime DVDs for which the "in store" price is super-discounted compared to anywhere else, including the extranet version of the same website.
The common link seems to be that these anime dvds are either out of print or nearing out of print status. So even though the "in store" prices are really great, very few stores actually have them in stock. But, BBY's warehouse still has many of them in stock. So to exploit the situation, people have taken to using the in-store kiosks to place orders that are shipped directly from the warehouse to their home. If they were to place the same order using the BBY website from home, the cost would be 3x-4x as much.
For a while there I poked around BBY's DNS and neighboring IP numbers in the hope of finding a way to access the intranet version from the internet and thus skip the trip to the instore kiosk. I don't remember the specifics, but I think we were able to identify the ip address and name of the intranet server (somebody used an in-store system to resolve www.bestbuy.com and compared it to what it resolves to for everyone else on the regular internet), but even though it was pingable, and in the same class-c subnet as the main internet website, it would not accept connections coming in from the regular internet.
Re:Enron 2.0? (references) (Score:3, Informative)
Best Buy reassesses IT Needs [varbusiness.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Accenture [wikipedia.org] was formerly Andersen Consulting, which split from Arthur Andersen [wikipedia.org] in 1989, and it apparently wasn't exactly a friendly split. To my knowledge, most of the accounting problems regarding Enron and Arthur Andersen happened in the 1990s.
Re:Enron 2.0? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:CORRECTION Re:Enron 2.0? (Score:5, Interesting)
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
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Re:CORRECTION Re:Enron 2.0? (Score:5, Interesting)
It was a fortuitous breaking off, too -- not long afterwards Anderson Consulting changed its name to Accenture did Arthur Anderson implode due to Enron.
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Re:Interesting, but... (Score:4, Informative)
This is similar, except the low price draws customers to the store, and then...where's the low price? That's fraudulant. Also--it's especially bad because it involves deceiving the consumer: "You say you saw a lower price on the internet? Why don't we look at the site right now..." Outright deception is rarely legal.
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