The electronics chain is facing a class-action lawsuit that alleges Best Buy trained personnel to deny price-matches and even paid bonuses to execs who shut them down. The suit also claims staff were trained to find ways out of price-match requests.
Today, a New York lawsuit — first reported by HDGuru.com — has been granted class action status: Plaintiff Thomas Jermyn is alleging Best Buy stores have a secret “anti-price matching policy.” The suit claims Best Buy trains its staff to deny as many price-match requests as possible, even giving employees bonuses for stiff-arming those consumer requests.
Jermyn writes in the suit that Best Buy uses the “price match guarantee policy as a ploy, to lure unsuspecting consumers into its stores and to induce them to purchase its merchandise.”
Best Buy’s price match policy states the store will match any price of its product found at a competitor, as long as the unit is the exact same model.
Two ex-Best Buy employees were quoted in the suit — Juan Ortiz worked as a Best Buy supervisor in Connecticut and confirmed Best Buy’s “anti-price matching policy” came from corporate headquarters. He also said Best Buy denied more than 100 proper price match requests per store per week.
The suit alleges: “The policy mandated that store management deny the request if a price match request caused a product to be sold at less than 5% above cost.”
The attorney wrote in the lawsuit that he is also looking for New York state residents with similar complaints against Best Buy’s price-match policy.
