Last week, we reviewed a case brought against Safeway for allegedly deceptive buy one, get one free offers. This week we examine a class action lawsuit claiming that Best Buy changed its price matching policy midway through one consumer’s claim.
This past February 4, a New York consumer with knowledge of Best Buy’s price matching policy, spotted an Apple iPad Pro for a great price ($555.99) at TigerDirect.com. But he wanted to buy it locally from Best Buy online where it was twice the price ($1099.99). He contacted Best Buy and was told to buy it online at the full price and then upon verification, they would credit back the difference under their price matching policy.
It was such a good deal, this consumer decided to buy another one online at Best Buy. He then traveled to his local store to pick them up. Tempted by the tremendous savings, he told the local store he would like to buy a third one too while he was there.
According to the complaint, the store refused to price match the third notebook as well as the first two. And other Best Buy stores he visited similarly refused.
At the time of his purchase, TigerDirect.com was one of the specifically enumerated online competitors that it would price match:
*MOUSE PRINT:
January 2023 screenshot*MOUSE PRINT:
And then, magically on February 6, 2023, Best Buy changed its price match guarantee on its website. What online retailer is now missing from the list? You guessed it, TigerDirect.
We don’t know if Best Buy has a reasonable explanation for their actions in denying the refunds to this consumer, but there probably is another side to this story.
Feel free to comment about your experience with price guarantees in the comments.
Next week we conclude our three-part series with one consumer suing a big supermarket chain for selling flushable wipes that really aren’t flushable.
I’ll be interested to see how this ends up working out. The layout of events is quite weird to me. I wonder if there is another aspect to this like maybe the Tiger Direct offer was from a reseller and not Tiger Direct directly or something to that effect and potentially the change to the price match is related, but only in that Best Buy changed it because they were tired of dealing with these 3rd party reseller type issues.
Apple has very tight controls over pricing and getting an $1100 iPad for half price seems to me that something is off there. That’s such an incredible deal it’s amazing there weren’t millions sold. Another possibility is the TD deal was for a refurbished iPad.
TigerDirect.com has been retired.
Yes and I thought TD closed up a long time ago. Too bad the author didn’t bother to check.
David… The original Tiger Direct closed in 2019, but like so many brands, the name was sold off, and it was back in business shortly thereafter. (Think of Bed, Bath & Beyond closing now, but in a few months the name will live on to replace another online store.) The “new” TigerDirect.com did not close until 2023.
I’m highly doubtful that a $555 iPad model listing concurrently for $1100 anywhere else could be a NEW one, which is what the price match policy required.
Theory 1: Consumer didn’t realize price-matching didn’t apply to clearance/refurbished/open box units. At half price, it had to be one of these.
Theory 2 (my money’s on this one): Consumer understood the price-match rules, but TigerDirect erroneously advertised the deeply discounted units as New. Hundreds or thousands of dubious price-match claims pour in at Best Buy stores, potentially costing them millions, and to stanch the flow, they respond by excluding TigerDirect entirely until they can sort out what was really going on.
My guess is it will turn out that TD did in fact erroneously advertise or label the units New, in which case I don’t think it would be fair to expect Best Buy to be responsible for paying for TD’s error. I also think the removal will be temporary until they figure out a way to guard against this in the future. The lawyers are surely working on the new language as we speak.
I’m going to take Best Buy’s side here, in removing Tiger Direct from the policy before too much damage could be done. It doesn’t seem to me like bad faith on Best Buy’s part refusing to honor an unreasonable (from their perspective) application of their price-match policy. There’s probably a bigger case to be had against TD if they improperly sold iPads as New.
I’m curious what the law requires, and I’m also curious if Best Buy has insurance for these claims, and if it is their insurer who is refusing to pay.