Connecticut Attorney General And Best Buy Settle Claims Over Online And In-Store Price Differences
Last week, Best Buy, Inc. settled a lawsuit filed in 2007 by Connecticut’s Attorney General alleging that the retailer engaged in an “Internet bait-and-switch” resulting from how it advertised low prices for some products on the Bestbuy.com website and then charged higher prices for those same items in Best Buy stores. Consumers complained that they had been drawn into the stores after seeing the advertised deals online. At the stores, consumers used electronic kiosks where they were prompted to click a tab labeled “Bestbuy.com.” That tab, however, did not bring consumers to the actual Bestbuy.com site, but rather to a lookalike internal site that was identical, except that the prices displayed were the higher in-store prices rather than the lower prices that they had seen online for the same items. The Attorney General charged that consumers were deceived because they were under the false impression that the online pricing was no longer available, and therefore paid higher prices in the stores than they would have by purchasing online.
As part of the settlement, Best Buy agreed to pay Connecticut $399,000 and to pay restitution to affected consumers in the amount of the difference between the online prices and the in-store prices that they were charged. Best Buy did not admit any wrongdoing under the settlement.