LEGAL ? MORAL? What would you do?

[rickon66]

I was in a Best Buy store the other night and noticed that they had a new model of Mitsubishi 18.1 LCD monitor. It had analog and dvi connectors, a pretty high end monitor. There was no display or price tag out for it and I was curious about the price. After about 10 minutes of waiting, I finally got someone to do a price check on it. IT RANG UP AT $199.99!! The employee immediately grabbed it , said that is wrong and headed to the back of the store with it.

My question. If the mistake had not been noticed-would it have been legally wrong , morally wrong or both to have bought it at $199.99? What would you have done?

 

[MomAndSkoorbaby]

Morally...I don't know about legally. Then again, if you didn't know better, it wouldn't even be morally wrong!

 

[PsychoAndy]

Not only would I have demanded 10 on the spot and pocketed the tag for proof, but I would be more than likely dragged from the store kicking and screaming by police.

-PAB

 

[Jzero]

If it rung up at $199.99 and they said that was the correct price, then I'd not have given it a second thought. As for it being illegal, it's hardly illegal to buy something for the agreed upon price, even if the seller did screw up. It's not the same as switching a price tag. If I'm selling my car and you ask how much it is and I say "It's $5.00" and you say "I'll take it!" and I say "OK!" then nothing illegal has transpired.

Interestingly, if it had a price tag of $199.99, they would have been obligated to give it to you for that price. Last week I capitalized at Aeropostale when there was a bunch of $40 sweaters on a shelf with a sign that says "Sweaters: $10." I asked the girl if they were really $10. She rang them up, and they came up $40. I asked her what the sign on the shelf referred to since there were no other sweaters on the shelf...she went and looked and said "Oh well! I guess you get them for $10!"



Props for not pitching a fit when they grabbed it from you....there's a lot of people who would have cried about it.

 

[BD2003]

Gee, I wonder who's walking out with that monitor tonight. LOL, you got shafted.

 

[yakko]

The guy probably bought it for himself and put it on Ebay.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: yakko
The guy probably bought it for himself and put it on Ebay.

Ding Ding...we have a winner!

 

[bmacd]

at kmart, it may be corporate policy or just a service to the customer, but we'll honor the price for ONE item, then explain to them that it's a pricing error and they usually understand.

-=bmacd=-

 

[rickon66]

There was no price tag out for it, I asked for a price check. I thought the price would be somewhere in the $600-800 range.

 

[zerocomm]

I used to work at Best Buy, and when cashiers rung things up for the wrong amount, or a salesperson said a different amount, most of the time we would honor that. I would keep it at the price you got it- nobody in the store cares *(theyre not on commission)*, and its not like BBuy is a small business where a loss like that would matter.

 

[lilFajita]

It's definetly not illegal; rather, its the essence of capitalism. Morally is sticky...I guess it just depends on how nice you are, and how much you really care about the pocketbooks of Best Buy. I would feel bad about taking advantage of such a situation if I thought somebody would be punished for it directly (i.e the salesman), but in general, I'm pretty apathetic about being nice for the sake of corporate America.

Regardless, I think you could have gotten it for 199.99...generally, these retailers support a priced as marked policy...if something is marked wrong, you should get it (and only the one marked wrong) for that price. That employee screwed you.

 

[MrBond]

That's probably a $900 lcd monitor at BB's pricing. If that employee DID buy it, he got a hell of a deal.

That could be their policy too if there's a blatent price mistake. Take all of the items off the shelf so they can fix it before someone buys one, posts in HD about it, then people go expecting to get one for themselves and are arrested

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

What is legal depends on your state. If it is marked incorrectly, it MAY be that they are obliged to sell it at that price. You ought to have some consumer agency in your state you could ask. The morality issue is your decision though.

 

[murphy55d]

I'd have bought 10 as well.

Wal-Marts policy is that if an item is priced wrong(either by a wrong sign/label, or comes up wrong), then a CUSTOMER will get it for that price. An associate cannot.

I don't know if it would be morally wrong or not, but I'd still have bought 10 @ that price.

 

[WinkOsmosis]

I would have told him to slow his roll and sell me some monitors!

 

[CPA]

Looks like you may have actually found a Best Buy employee who knows something about computer hardware. That is probably rarer than the $199 monitor.

 

[Stark]

As long as you were sure they didn't ring up the wrong model, i don't think there's anything morally wrong with it.

$199 for 18" LCD with DVI... my dream monitor.

 

[dahunan]

I would be sure to go back and talk with the manager... find out if one sold for that price after you were in the store.. if yes... find out who to... if store employee who stopped you from buying it....stab him!<<really everything but the last part ..if the store employee bought it then MAKE A SCENE tell the manager if he does not fire that punk or give you the same deal that you will be sure to call the BestBuy corporate offices.

 

[guyver01]

Which one was it?

1
2

 

[rickon66]

It was #2. This all happened Saturday evening-and I did tell the salesman that I would take it at that price.

 

[WinkOsmosis]

If you said you would take it, take it. Don't take no for an answer.