Best Buy Fail on Pricing | Shot Across the Bow

Best Buy Big FAIL on Charging Higher than Suggested Retail Prices

Ok, so I have never been a huge fan of Best Buy. Their geek squad is much to be desired, I have never known them to actually fix anything, just reinstall, and their customer service absolutely stinks, called them checking on a geek squad order for a friend and they hung up on me twice meaning I had to go to the store and do a face to face, and now I am starting to see that Best Buy is charging higher than the manufacturer does.

Case in point, I purchased an Apple TV from Best Buy a few months ago. I normally go to Apple for that stuff, but I was there and I was getting a TV so why not, should be the same price Apple charges….ahhhhh, NO! They charged me $299, and Apple was charging $229…hmmmm. So I brought back my receipt and a copy of the apple site showing them that they charge alot more than Apple does and the Manager said “We can do that”. Well, yes you can or I am bringing this back and buying it from the manufacturer for less. Then the Manager told me, “Oh, thats a mistake on the shelf, it should be the same price that Apple sells it for and it should have rung up right…we will have that fixed today”.

Well, it never got fixed and from what I can tell, Best Buy is now charging basically $10 over manufacturer list. Don’t believe me, check this out http://bit.ly/5t7jLx and http://bit.ly/2VDB4V. There’s both Best Buys price and Apples price for the same product. Maybe this is a fluke, lets check another item….was looking for a receipt scanner, Neat makes one, lets look at this one by Neat http://bit.ly/13j9ks, now lets see what Best Buy charges for the same product http://bit.ly/5a4UV3. Well thats $20 more at best buy than the Manufacturer.

Now mind you, Best Buy does have sales where their prices are lower than the Manufacturer list price, but I have never known them to be higher than the Manufacturer. I guess the moral of the story is, be a smart shopper, do price comparison shopping, and make sure you go to the customer service department in the store and get a price match. I did, and I always will.