Best bait-and-switch?
TEXT OF STORY
SCOTT JAGOW: If you shop at Best Buy, you probably know about the “price guarantee.” Best Buy says it’ll match the price of any competitor. But some customers say Best Buy doesn’t even match its own prices. The attorney general of Connecticut is looking into this. More now from Pat Loeb.
PAT LOEB: Best Buy has a public website and a private, internal intranet site. The two sites look nearly identical, but the internal site sometimes shows higher prices.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says some customers went to Best Buy stores looking for sale prices advertised on the public website, but employees showed them the intranet site and told them they were mistaken about the sale.
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL: Putting the burden on consumers to insist on the Internet sales price certainly seems to be a misleading and potentially illegal practice.
Best Buy says the employees simply made a mistake and the company has reminded them always to use the prices on the public website.
Consumer reporter Bob Sullivan says listing different prices in different places is part of a trend in the retail industry.
BOB SULLIVAN: Companies are doing their best to confuse the issue, because confused customers are more profitable customers.
I’m Pat Loeb for Marketplace.
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