BestBuy.com

[bobby0081]

I have a screen shot from ebay from a few minutes ago where a person literally has their order confirmation page listed as their product photo for the new NVIDIA RTX 4090 Founders Edition Graphics card. They have already sold 3 and the last one available was listed for $2500. Why does Best Buy make it harder for a TotalTech Member/My Best Buy Elite member to create an account on this forum than to buy and scalp products that real consumers want? I am about to the point to where I am going to shop somewhere else that appreciates their loyal customers who spend money in store and online regularly and not scalpers who buy up all the new stuff to resell it and make a huge profit. Best Buy should be ashamed.

[JEzra-BBY]

Hello, bobby0081,

Thank you for reaching out to us here on Forums. Making a purchase should be a quick and easy process but can be tricky sometimes. I have had some delays buying graphics cards myself so I can understand how you might be feeling. I would like to see if I can assist in any way. To start could you send me a private message with you full name, phone number, and email to start. To send a private message simply click the blue button to the left of my signature. 

Thanks, 

[Cien]

The exact same thing happened with the 30 series of cards as well. Bots and scalpers snapped up the cards and they went immediately to eBay. The fact there was not a single way to preorder or guarantee a card is asinine. Even console lanuches, games, and other things you can oreorder, but you are basically screwed for any piece of computer tech.

This is the third time I have been massively disappointed at Best Buy and how they handle this. The fact that someone can waltz in through a backdoor URL and buy multiple cards to flip on release day is asinine. But Best Buy are making sales, so I doubt this is a problem. System is working as intended for them. After all. A sale is a sale.

[JEzra-BBY]

I completely understand. We always welcome feedback from our customers as we are always trying to improve. You can always post any ideas or concerns you may have at http://www.Bestbuy.com, at the bottom right corner and click “give feedback" comments posted there do get reviewed and considered. Thank you for your time to reach out and please enjoy your day and have a blessed week. 

Thanks, 

[Cien]

JEzra, thank you for taking the time to respond. 

Honestly, I am not even sure giving feedback will be taken into account. Even with the 30 Series launch, people were asking for better ways to be able to purchase cards. Even something as simple as a basic captcha would go a long way to combating the bots/scalpers. 

Or how about not getting your employees give out backdoor URLs that wipe out the stock milliseconds after the product goes live. Unless you are part of some secret scalper club (which your employees DO take part in), you have absolutely no chance of obtaining a card. I am sure MANY people have made their grievances known about this, and to employ SOMETHING, ANYTHING other than what is being done right now. 

Every time a 30 series card was in stock, it was gone in literal seconds by bots. A potential customer would click the yellow button, after mashing F5 on their browser or refreshing the app, only for it to be sold out and removed from their cart immediately after. This happened before, it is happening now, and as I mentioned in my previous post, I doubt anything will change because Best Buy has their sales. Whether it goes into the hands of an actual person, or a bot to scalp the card really is not relevant. 1600 dollars is 1600 dollars regardless where it came from. Because of that, I do not see any reason why whoever makes the decisions will change the way stock is handled. 

JEzra, this ire is not aimed at you, as I am sure you had nothing to do with the stock situation, but filling out a feedback form will most likely not accomplish anything, as this has been a problem for literally YEARS now. If the people in charge wanted to change it, they would have done so by now. I put my faith in BB and hoped this round might have been different. Nothing has changed.

[BradleyS]

Yes, Best Buy could resolve the bot issue by adding a Captcha to the checkout process and/or a code requirement sent by email.  The cards were sold out in literally 1 minute or less.  I have no doubt that 95% or more of the cards were sold to scalpers / botters.  Best Buy needs to do something as they are the only retailer you can buy the founder's edition 4090.

[Chrisdfx]

There's an article online right now that shows a discord screenshot of literally dozens of Best Buy confirmation emails to the same scalper, all for 4090FE. The person used the URL hack which bypassed the number of cards you could buy as well. The picture shows about 50 or 60 confirmation emails all sent 1 to 2 mins after they released. It's extremely frustrating Best Buy won't stop this from happening which they obviously could if they wanted to. The decision to take them out of the store and make them online only is another stupid idea.

[MikeS1970]

For what it's worth, a Captcha would not help; they know how to bypass these with various AI tools.

[kidmasters]

Same here. I too am a Total Tech member and have spent thousands of dollars at my local Best Buy. Having the installation free allowed to to spend more than I probably should have on amps and speakers for my car. Plus the discount was nice when I bought my iPad Pro a few months back. I've been looking to get an Nvidia 4090 Founder's Edition for some time as it is the only one that will fit in my case (I guess they don't call it "Founder's Edition" anymore, but the one made by Nvidia).

I thought it would be different form the 30xx launch this time around since Jensen Huang said there would be plenty of stock, and crypto mining is all but dead. For this reason, I didn't go to the store on launch day and stupidly thought that there would be enough stock for me to buy online. however it is the same old story. Scalpers scooped up most of the stock. One person being able to buy 50 cards within minutes of launch is insane. The system is broken.

I miss the days when there were no online sales and you had to line up to wait for the store to open on launch day. Without stock dedicated to online sales, there would be more available for in-store purchase on day 1 and if you were in line but couldn't get one, you'd get a "rain-check" and they'd call you first when the item was restocked.

Microcenter simply doensn't sell these products online, which does help with scalpers, but there isn't even one in my state (I'm not naive and some probably were scapled though). Plus, I really like my local Best Buy. There must be some solution that doesn't leave online shoppers out to dry.

[kidmasters]

Sry for double post. I read an article where a Japanese retailer is carving the buyer's name into the box of PS5s in an attempt to disuade scalpers, as well as the ppl who buy scalped items. It's a valiant effort. I know if I bought something labeled "New in Box" on eBay and the retail box that arrived in was carved with "Sold To: Scalper's Name", I'd want a refund. Plus the scalper probably doesn't want his identity out there in the wild.