Best Buy & Geek Squad Policies

[blufirexxx]

I bought an HDTV just under 2 months ago.   A few weeks after I bought it I saw in the price match policy online (for the store, not bestbuy.com's policy) that HDTVs bought after July 1, 2008 (or some such similar date) were priced matched for 90 days.  Now the price match policy doesn't say anything of the sort.  What happened?  Is the policy a secret now? Even from your employees who seem to have no knowledge of it?

[hibestbuy]

I hear you! I bought my TV around Labor day and just tried to do a price match yesterday. I printed out the 90 days guarantee from bestbuy.com when I bought the TV.

Guess what, the store wouldn't honor it. Reason? "Our software won't allow it". Oh, and he told me he has NEVER heard of 90 days guarantee and told me the guarantee I printed out maybe a mistake!

The manager asked me to call best buy myself. I called and they told me to go back to the store!

What can I do now?

[blufirexxx]

Here's the response I got today.  Though I'm not sure where the customer service rep came up with 10/7 as my purchase date.  I guess that was their way of avoiding answering the question.  I purchased my TV on 9/29/2008.

I wish I had kept the print out of the 90 day price match, but unfortunately I thew it out a few weeks ago.

"Thank you for contacting Best Buy.  I would be happy to help you with this.
We do have a price matching policy for HDTV's that can vary depending on when the TV was purchased.  It can be between 30-90 days.
You had purchased the TV on 10-7-08, the price matching timeframe for this particular date would have been 30 days."

Follow up email:

"Do you still have the receipt that you say the TV was purchased on, for 9-29?  If you do, in that case, the TV would have a 60 day price matching policy. 
You would need to bring your receipt into the store for the match and the sale would need to be a current sale and price as well as the product being in stock at Best Buy or another local retailer.  Our full price matching policy and guidelines can also be viewed by visiting and clicking on the small link at the bottom of the page titled Low Price Guarantee."

Though the policy on the website still says nothing about the 60 day guarentee.  I'll take a print out of the email and check with the store.

Message Edited by blufirexxx on 11-24-2008 02:22 PM

Message Edited by blufirexxx on 11-24-2008 02:24 PM

[hibestbuy]

blufire, try to call best buy hotline and ask to be transfer to customer relationships.

I got a wonder customer service rep, who put me in touch with a customer relationships lady. She has a system that can view prior store ads!

In my case, she said it's likely that bestbuy.com did make a mistake on the 90 days price guarantee thing. However, she said they will honor it and she will send me a gift card for the price difference.

Good luck!

[blufirexxx]

I took a copy of the email, my receipt (both receipts, I had already price matched once), and a print out of the better price to the store.  They first tried to tell me they just got an email today saying that the price match policy wasn't good...I stopped her mid sentence to say I just got my email today saying it was good.

The first associate couldn't get the price match to go through, so she called someone over, who then took my receipt and ran to the back.  After quite a while she came back and said she had to check it wasn't a 'fire sale item', whatever that is.  Then she tried to put it through and couldn't. 

So another manager was called over and they had to do a no receipt return and put the difference on a gift card.  In the end they did honor the policy, sort of. 

Hope this helps someone else so they can arm themselves before going in.

[Aaron-GS Community Connector · Accepted solution]

Hey blufirexxx,

Like the e-mail you received mentioned, Best Buy’s in-store price match policy on HDTV’s has slightly differed depending on when you purchased your TV. Here’s a brief overview of the price match policy’s history:

• Prior to 11/26/2005: 30 days from date of purchase

• 11/26/2005 – 02/05/2007: 60 days from date of purchase

• 02/06/2007 – 06/02/2007: 30 days from date of purchase

• 06/03/2007 – 01/12/2008: 60 days from date of purchase

• 01/13/2008 – 03/01/2008: 90 days from date of purchase

• 03/02/2008 – 10/04/2008: 60 days from date of purchase

• 10/05/2008 to Present: 30 days from date of purchase

There was, however, previously a notice on BestBuy.com that incorrectly listed the price match period for HDTV’s purchased between 07/27/2008 and 09/27/2008 as being 90 days; during this same time, some BestBuy.com pages did also correctly list it as 60 days. As shown above, the correct timeframe is 60 days. A correction notice has since been made and our stores have been notified of the situation.

Please remember through that you are only able to obtain price matches within the listed timeframes. That means that if you purchased an HDTV on 03/01/2008, the last day you could have obtained a price match would have been 05/30/2008!

Hope this helps you out!

Agent Aaron
Geek Squad® Community Connector
Go Ahead. Use Us.