Getting shafted at blockbuster
02-21-04, 04:13 PM
#26
DVD Talk Godfather
Originally posted by madcougar
The couple of times this has happened, I have put up the biggest freaking fight until I get my way. Basically I refuse to back down, demanding to speak with everyone and their mother and just being an overall dick. At some point the management will just bend in order to shut me out.
By the way, this has happened to me a couple of times at Best Buy, and they usually don't even argue about it. They just give me the marked price.
The couple of times this has happened, I have put up the biggest freaking fight until I get my way. Basically I refuse to back down, demanding to speak with everyone and their mother and just being an overall dick. At some point the management will just bend in order to shut me out.
By the way, this has happened to me a couple of times at Best Buy, and they usually don't even argue about it. They just give me the marked price.
02-21-04, 04:52 PM
#27
Member
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 146
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Originally posted by Dave C
Until someone sites a statute that makes it clear that if some high school kid working in my store makes a mistake using a price gun I have to honor it I'll go with common sense.
Until someone sites a statute that makes it clear that if some high school kid working in my store makes a mistake using a price gun I have to honor it I'll go with common sense.
445.354
(2) It shall be prima facie evidence of a violation of this section if a price charged or attempted to be charged as a result of electronic identification or calculation by an automatic checkout system exceeds the price required to be indicated pursuant to section 3.
A law is broken, more or less, the moment that item scans incorrectly. It doesn't matter how the prices came to differ. However, the law does not appear to compel one to sell a mispriced item.
03-01-04, 02:16 AM
#28
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 561
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I think the problem was this: There is a multiple disc version of West Side Story that retails for $29.99 and a single disc version that retails for $12.99. Whoever priced it must have checked the computer and saw the wrong version and priced it accordingly.
03-02-04, 07:45 PM
#30
Originally posted by groovrbaby
I think the problem was this: There is a multiple disc version of West Side Story that retails for $29.99 and a single disc version that retails for $12.99. Whoever priced it must have checked the computer and saw the wrong version and priced it accordingly.
I think the problem was this: There is a multiple disc version of West Side Story that retails for $29.99 and a single disc version that retails for $12.99. Whoever priced it must have checked the computer and saw the wrong version and priced it accordingly.
When they get in DVDs, they have no idea what to price them other than what the computer tells them the price is. So the employee will scan each new DVD they get in by the UPC code. That will bring up a screen that has three prices-the MSRP, the price Blockbuster sells it for brand new, and the price Blockbuster sells it for previously viewed. And EVERY DVD has a previously viewed price in their system, even if there isn't a snowball's chance in hell they will sell that unit previously viewed (like season sets of shows, they tend to sell them indiviually by disc, not by the set.) And common previously viewed prices are 12.99 and sometimes 9.99. Once in a while, you get some idiot who is not paying close enough attention to what they are doing an they slap the wrong price sticker on there. I would almost guarantee you that West Side Story SE is 12.99 previously viewed in their system, and the employee just marked it wrong.
Blockbuster certainly would never have sold that for 12.99 the day it came out. The reason is they don't use new DVDs as loss leaders. Contrary to common misconception, a new DVD that is MSRP for 21.99 and sells for 12.99 brand new at Best Buy is losing Best Buy money; they use that DVD as a loss leader and take a loss on each unit sold, hoping you buy other things while you are in their store that will make up for that loss and make them a profit. Blockbuster doesn't sell new DVDs for a lower price the week they come out, and only make about a dollar or so off of each new DVD.
I do disagree with their not honoring the price, though. They should have taken it off. I've taken off discounts on new product we misprice at our store before. The only time I didn't when a previously viewed sticker for 9.99 wound up on a brand new box set (back in the day of VHS). I apologized for the mistake, and didn't blame the person outright for doing the sticker change, but I suspected they did, but that was a rare case where I honestly felt the customer took a sticker off of one of our other products and put it on the one they wanted.
03-03-04, 01:21 AM
#31
DVD Talk Special Edition
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 1,923
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Originally posted by calhoun07
I would almost guarantee you that West Side Story SE is 12.99 previously viewed in their system, and the employee just marked it wrong.
I would almost guarantee you that West Side Story SE is 12.99 previously viewed in their system, and the employee just marked it wrong.
