Here’s something that’s not just annoying, it’s also definitely illegal: Best Buy uses a different internal website than the public one, and their internal website is used as proof of a products price.

This doesn’t seem like such a big deal at first. I’m sure many retailers have internal websites for such things as inventory. The problem is that if you see a product being sold for a certain price on their website, you can go to your local Best Buy store and buy it for that price. People have reported doing this and finding that the price on Best Buy computers is sometimes higher than the price they saw. Many Best Buy employees do not even realize that they are seeing a website not available to the public, so when they look at it they consider it “proof” of the website price.

This is a high-tech version of the classic bait-and-switch scam. Best Buy offers something for a certain price on their website, which drives customers to the stores. They then claim that the price they saw on the website never existed. Customers will often buy the item anyway, or buy some other items while they’re already in the store.

Technorati Tags: best, buy, website, scam

As you can see from the picture, COMPUSA has decided to give away a free iTunes gift card with each Zune purchase. Perhaps someone should notify the store that iTunes music will not work on the Zune. Or maybe not, this is kind of funny.

compstupid.jpg (JPEG Image, 522×242 pixels)

Technorati Tags: zune, itunes, compusa

I just discovered this very Web 2.0ish site that provides very useful tools for anyone buying and selling on eBay. Basically, they mash up all sorts of data on various products, so you know how much certain items should sell for. You could probably use this site in combination with Fatfingers to find some pretty great deals and possibly even an arbitrage opportunity.

Although the site is aimed at sellers, I think it can be just as useful for buyers. You’ll almost never overpay for an item when you buy it on eBay, but now you can make sure you don’t even overpay the average “ebay price” for an item.

Technorati Tags: wipbox, ebay, shopping