Best Buy ‘Price Match Guarantee’ Is a Bait-and-Switch Tactic, Class Action Alleges

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A proposed class action lawsuit claims Best Buy has failed to honor its own “Price Match Guarantee” when a consumer requests that the retailer match a certain competitor’s lower price.

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The 11-page lawsuit says that Best Buy, despite prior litigation, maintains an “unstated policy” of refusing to satisfy its “Price Match Guarantee” and instead uses the assurance as a way to bait and switch consumers into buying products from Best Buy.

“In other words, [Best Buy] is not a magnanimous retail seller doing right by its customers as a result of matching designated online and/or local competitor’s prices; and instead, [Best Buy] is just still trying to make the proverbial extra buck through specious trade practices,” the suit charges.

The case claims that Best Buy “learned nothing” from a 2008 lawsuit that concerned the company’s allegedly “misleading, deceptive and unfair” conduct with regard to its “Price Match Guarantee.” Under this guarantee, a consumer who informs the company of the difference between Best Buy’s price and a designated online or local competitor’s price for a particular product, and who then purchases the item from Best Buy, will promptly receive emailed instructions on how to claim a price differential refund, the complaint explains. According to the filing, one competitor covered under Best Buy’s “Price Match Guarantee” was an online company called TigerDirect.

The plaintiff, a New York resident, saw in early February of this year that an Apple iPad Pro was listed on TigerDirect’s website for $555.99 and that the same product was priced at $1,099 on Best Buy’s page, the lawsuit relays. The man contacted Best Buy to initiate a price match under the company’s guarantee, and upon confirmation of the match, the plaintiff purchased two Apple iPad Pros from Best Buy, the suit describes.

As the case tells it, when the plaintiff visited a Best Buy retail store the same day to pick up the iPads and purchase a third under the same guarantee, he was told that the Best Buy location would not honor the “Price Match Guarantee” for any of the three products. The man traveled to numerous other locations and sought to take advantage of the guarantee, but each Best Buy store refused to comply, the complaint claims.

The filing adds that soon after the plaintiff requested that Best Buy match TigerDirect’s price, TigerDirect was “curiously” removed from the list of designated competitors whose prices the defendant promised to match.

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone who was denied the monetary benefits of Best Buy’s “Price Match Guarantee” in New York, involving specific designated online and/or local competitors listed by Best Buy, since April 6, 2020.

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