Best Buy admits to keeping fake rip-off site

(From Boing Boing)

Best Buy admits to keeping fake rip-off site
Best Buy has admitted to maintaining a fake version of its website for internal use at its stores. This is part of a scam where Best Buy lists cheap prices online and invites customers to come to the store to take advantage of them. When the customer gets there, a dirtbag salesman loads up the fake website and shows them that the price has "gone up" while the customer was driving over to the store and offers to sell the item for the new price.

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.

Link to full article

The crazy thing is I've actually been hit by this crap. When we were getting our video camera we checked the prices online at a few different locations, and went to Best Buy b/c it was coming up as the cheapest - only to find out that the sticker in the store was a good deal higher. When we mentioned seeing the price on the web page THAT MORNING, before coming to the store, they pulled up the web site on one of the computers there, completely identical to the one we'd seen at home EXCEPT for a higher price (the same price shown in-store).

While I admit I would've fallen for their garbage, Amy & my mom stuck to their guns, and the dude finally gave in and said if we could show a print-out of the web page we'd seen, they'd "price match" - so we printed THEIR OWN WEBSITE and brought in the proof to get the better price. But how many people wouldn't have taken the extra step?