My father purchased a digital camera from Best Buy for $249.99, a week later, we were at the Office Depot next door on Cedar Hills Blvd and saw that Office Depot was selling it for $159.99. It was a $110.00 price difference. I told my dad to not worry because Best Buy has a price guarantee policy and we would be able to get a 110% refund of the price difference.
This wasn't the case. We went to Best Buy with our camera and receipt a few days later (we were still within the 14 day return limit) on March 7 at 11am and the customer service representative called Office Depot and told us that because the Office Depot next door was out of stock of the particular model, the price they have posted at their store is invalid and so they won't refund us the difference.
We were stunned. So we called another Office Depot three miles away (3.5 miles to be exact) and found that they had inventory of the same camera, and with the same price, $159.99. We asked the customer service rep at Best Buy if she would honor this given that it is less than five miles away and has a Best Buy store across the street from it as well. She said no, because she did not consider it local.
My father and I were flabbergasted. It was underhanded enough that they didn't honor their price guarantee policy because the store next door was out of stock, but when we demonstrated that an Office Depot located just 4 miles away also had the same prices and had stock of the camera, they also refuse to honor it still because it was not next door to them.
None of this makes sense to us because Best Buy's return policy is country-wide and so whether the store is 10 miles or 100 miles away is a moot point.
My father and I, worried that we might surpass the 14 day return policy, returned the camera, paid the $40 restocking fee (15% of the purchase price), and drove to an Office Depot and bought the same camera there.
Best Buy promises its consumers that they will price match their products with their competitors. But they overpriced our camera by $110 and refused to honor their guarantee. On top of this, we paid a $40 restocking fee to return the camera, which would have been fine with us had the circumstances been different; we had no option but to return the camera because we were afraid the option to do so would run out if we dispute over this. If we did not return the camera, we would have been cheated by Best Buy for a product sold for elsewhere for $110 less, more than a 40% difference.
0 comments