How's this for f**king stupid?

lain21us

lain21us

Banned
I went to my favorite Best Buy yesterday. I've spent upwards of four thousand dollars there this year alone. I brought them a fry's ad with DDR MAX for PS2 at 19.99. I told them I wanted to PM it, so they called Fry's and confirmed the price and said OK. Then I busted out the gamer's gift card and told them I wanted to use the coupon. The girl tells me I can't use both. She tells me it's like "double-dipping," and that the coupon says "not valid with any other offers." I explained that this is not "double-dipping," that she misunderstood the purpose of a price match, and that I have done this on over a hundred items at that Best Buy alone.

So I tell her to go ask her manager and he says no. I told her I wanted to speak with him, and she gets this other manager to come over. This lady has a big attitude and acts like I'm trying to scam them or something. I told her I've done this before, and she says that I won't be able to do it in the future at that store. I explained that if Fry's had a gamer's gift card, I could do it. She apparently couldn't see the point I was trying to make, and she still didn't budge. She had this real bad attitude and acted like I was wasting her time by trying to pull some crap that was "obviously" a scam.

I could just go to another Best Buy (I have 3), but this really is the best one, and closest to me. I know a lot of the people there, and I don't really want to have to shop at another store because of something so ridiculous.

So, my question is, has anyone else ever had this problem? How did you resolve it, or did you just let it go? I'm thinking about sending a letter to Best Buy corporate. Any thoughts?
 
Unfortunately yes, and the way I saw it there was nothing I could do. I was always told that it couldn't be done, and someone even tried once and after the pricematch the GGC wouldn't scan....ya know I would love to be able to have a pricematch and use the GGC but if they say they won't do it they won't do it. Your only recourse would probably to be to contact corporate like you said. And my guess is that they will tell you that the policy is not to let someone use the GGC with a pricematch...either that or that it's at the manager's disgression. As bizare as it is, you having done it all that long, if it wasn't the official policy you never know when things will change. Pricematching is similar....I was 1/2 at both circuit city and bestbuy last week matching stuff that was sold out at another store.....one CSR at each store followed strict procedure, phoned the other store to check stock, and rejected my pricematch....another at each store did it right away no problem....absoloutely everything is really YMMV.

[quote name='lain21us']I went to my favorite Best Buy yesterday. I've spent upwards of four thousand dollars there this year alone. I brought them a fry's ad with DDR MAX for PS2 at 19.99. I told them I wanted to PM it, so they called Fry's and confirmed the price and said OK. Then I busted out the gamer's gift card and told them I wanted to use the coupon. The girl tells me I can't use both. She tells me it's like "double-dipping," and that the coupon says "not valid with any other offers." I explained that this is not "double-dipping," that she misunderstood the purpose of a price match, and that I have done this on over a hundred items at that Best Buy alone.

So I tell her to go ask her manager and he says no. I told her I wanted to speak with him, and she gets this other manager to come over. This lady has a big attitude and acts like I'm trying to scam them or something. I told her I've done this before, and she says that I won't be able to do it in the future at that store. I explained that if Fry's had a gamer's gift card, I could do it. She apparently couldn't see the point I was trying to make, and she still didn't budge. She had this real bad attitude and acted like I was wasting her time by trying to pull some crap that was "obviously" a scam.

I could just go to another Best Buy (I have 3), but this really is the best one, and closest to me. I know a lot of the people there, and I don't really want to have to shop at another store because of something so ridiculous.

So, my question is, has anyone else ever had this problem? How did you resolve it, or did you just let it go? I'm thinking about sending a letter to Best Buy corporate. Any thoughts?[/quote]
 
[quote name='lain21us']So, my question is, has anyone else ever had this problem? How did you resolve it, or did you just let it go? I'm thinking about sending a letter to Best Buy corporate. Any thoughts?[/quote]

I really don't see the problem. The price match is discounting Best Buy's price to match Fry's, the GGC states you can't use it with any other offers (sales, discounts, etc.) so where's the problem? You can always try another Best Buy where they don't read the fine print on the card and just knock of the $5 manually, but the logic behind the argument works.
 
Sounds like this girl busted you trying to run the oldest scam in the book. You should be ashamed. I'm kidding of course.

I think your best bet is just try to avoid having her ring you up for a while. I hate dealing with clerks who aren't even familiar with their own store's policy, like when they look at a GGC like they've never seen one before and start examining it like they think you printed it off on your computer at home or something. For five lousy bucks!

A letter to Best Buy corporate may get you an apologetic reply, and possibly store coupons. Maybe if they say anything about how you should have been able to use a GGC on a PMed item, you could bring the letter with you next time in case the problem comes up again. It can't hurt to write to BB, even if nothing comes of it at all. Just make sure your letter is clear, concise, and by all means- polite.
 
"So, my question is, has anyone else ever had this problem? How did you resolve it, or did you just let it go? I'm thinking about sending a letter to Best Buy corporate. Any thoughts? "

There is no point in sending it to corporate. Best Buy's policy is that you cannot double dip. If you price match at Best Buy you are technically not able to use any other discount with the price match. That means if you price match you cannot use the GGC, special finanicing, etc. It's either/or not both.

Some stores let customers do both even though they are not supposed to. Its like the other guy said, some stores follow their rules to the letter of the law while others are more laid back.

If it is that important to you, go to another BB and see if they let you slide there.
 
Post this in the right forum next time. How hard is "IF YOU AREN'T POSTING A SPECIFIC GAMING DEAL, IT DOESN'T BELONG HERE" to understand?

Moved.

I cant blame them for not letting you do that. They dont like coupon/discount stacking
 
If you've spent 'upwards of four thousand dollars there this year alone,' what's your problem? If you have that kind of cash, five dollars shouldn't matter that much, especially if they're already PM for only $19.99. CAGer or rich snob?
 
There is a fine line between Cheap Ass and Cheap Bastard. At the very least, this situation toes that line.
 
I agree that the problem is that these stupid store people give you a different answer everytime your there. Then you have to deal with the frustration and crap that they give you because they dont feel like giveing you the deal. (like the moneys coming out of their pocket anyway). Unfortunatly these days nobody in these stores knows what their doing anymore so every day you'll get a different answer from them.
 
Double dipping is against their policy, so if you have done it "over a hundred times", you should really consider yourself very lucky, instead of being pissed about not being able to do it now. You saved over $500 that you otherwise would not have. Some stores will take competitor coupons (When games are on sale at CC, I go there and use the GGC coupon instead of trying to PM and use the coupon at BB, because it is just using one offer (coupon matching) which is a lot easier, generally). I don't have Fry's anywhere near me :x, so I don't know if they match coupons or not.
 
Personally, I've tried this once and it worked for me. But it does seem to be YMMV.

Personally, if they refused I would either just pay the 'extra' $5 or just politely explain that I don't want the game in that case and leave. After I'd already gone through the trouble of a PM I think I'd generally just buy the game.

And as for the coupon not scanning after a PM, those coupons never scan. (At least at the BBs I've been to) they always have to manually enter $5 off.

It would be nice if they had a clear policy on using a coupon with a PM, but I'm pretty sure if they spelled it out clearly they would specifically exclude that, so all in all it's probably better to just be able to try it and see if you get lucky :lol:
 
I have to agree with Brolly on this one. If you got the GGC in addition to the PM before, it was probably due to a mistake. No, the money isn't coming out of the cashier's pocket, but going against store policy could very well cost them their job. Rude, yes. Shaq Fu stupid, no.

You could write to Corporate but I doubt anything would come out of it.

EDIT: Nothing wrong with being a cheap bastard. Especially if you say it in a Scottish accent... Cheap Bahstarrrdd
 
Corporate probably won't care. I wrote a letter to Best Buy corporate after the store refused to honor a $5 off any Interact accessory coupon that was a Best Buy store coupon. I picked up a $3 GBA case and tried to use the coupon on it. The manager said I couldn't use it on that item because the picture on the coupon showed a GBA Link Cable and the manager claimed the coupon only worked on that item even though the coupon said ANY Interact accessory. I wrote a letter to corporate and what was their answer?

If the manager said I couldn't use the coupon, his decision was final.
 
I don't know how to use quotes, so I can't pull up specific ones. For those of you who say this is a scam, or "double-dipping," you obviously don't understand the purpose of a price match. A price match is not a "discount." It's supposed to be a temporary price drop, which the store offers as an incentive to purchase at their store. There's a big difference between a price match and a discount. Price matching and using a coupon is pretty common practice. If you go over to FW you can find enormous threads where people do this all the time with Circuit City.

For those of you talking about cashiers losing their jobs, it's not cashiers, but customer service who did this for me, and the dozen or so I've dealt with in the past never seemed to think it was a problem. My friend was a manager at Circuit City and he says it's legit, too.

Oh, and for all you a**holes, no, I'm not a "cheap bastard" or a "rich snob." I'm not rich at all. I run a games club at my school, and we sell games to raise money. I get reimbursed. I also bought some electronics for my business, which earns me about $1200 a month. So don't get down on me for trying to price match and use a GGC, which any of you who read the deals posts regularly know is pretty standard. In any case, my income has nothing to do with whether this is correct practice.

Yeah, it would be nice if they had a clear policy. I've done this so many times at so many stores that I never even guessed it could be a problem.

I guess I'll try writing to corporate. Maybe they'll try to make it right somehow, since I've bought so many things from them in the past. In the meantime I guess I'll just shop at one of my other Best Buys.
 
[quote name='jeffreyjrose']If you've spent 'upwards of four thousand dollars there this year alone,' what's your problem? If you have that kind of cash, five dollars shouldn't matter that much, especially if they're already PM for only $19.99. CAGer or rich snob?[/quote]

This is exactly what I was thinking.
 
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