In their Sunday advertisement (1/4/09) in the Virginian Pilot newspaper on page 3 of their ad circular, they are advertising the Samsung LN46A650 HDTV for a sale price of $1449. I went to the Chesapeake Square store (Chesapeake, VA - Store #766) with my only intent to buy that TV.
I spoke with a very helpful gentleman in that department. According to what he told me and showed me on their computer, there hasn't been one sold from that store, they have not had them in stock, not a single store in the whole region has them in stock, and neither does their warehouse! He also told me that they could order it via "green screen" or "green & blue" (or something like that) which he explained that they would be ordering it from an outside company but not available until February 6th (over one month from now). That also tells me that there were absolutely none available anywhere.
He even agreed that it is something that should never have been done and when I said that it is "playing dirty pool" he said "Yes it is, and I apologize for it." When their own employees agree on their corporate tactics, that doesn't say very much at all.
That ad should never have been run in the first place and is a blatant act of "bait & switch" - the worst that I have ever seen, since they never even had any in any of the stores or the warehouse.
I had stopped purchasing from Best Buy back in the early 90s because of similar incidents that I saw firsthand (I worked at a competitor), but have since gone back and have shopped there for the last 10 years or so because I was under the impression that upper management had eliminated such practices. I can see that is clearly not the case.
I also wonder if they'll hear from the other two customers (that were asking about the same model) who were also a bit more than just irritated at that stunt.
Unreal. Is it even legal to do something like that? I didn't think so, but...
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