Why I hate Best Buy’s Email Advertising
This morning I was very close to canceling my email relationship with Best Buy Canada. Why would I do this? Well for months now Best Buy Canada has been very close to misleading their “valued” customers. In a time when everyone is going back to school and looking for a deal, Best Buy has the audacity to use “Computers starting at 299.99” as the title of the email. You then look at the email and in very LARGE neatly scribbled electronic hand writing it says “We’ll hook you up for school “ARROW” Computers starting at $299.99.
Well needless to say when you click on that wording (or for that manner anywhere in the email) you will never be taken to the page on which these so called “$299.99” computers exist. In fact if you go through the site looking for the mythical “$299.99” computer I am sure you will come to the same outcome that I came to. They don’t exist!
This has happened so many times in Best Buy email flyers that I think I might actually take this complaint to the BBB. I can’t stand it when companies advertise a special and then either the store only has 1 of them in stock, or the inventory is so buried on their website that my time is worth more money then looking for it.
Best Buy Canada, If you are listening this is pissing me off and I am not the only one. I made a point of talking with everyone in the staff room this morning about it. From the talk around the “round table” I am not the only one (in my opinion) that is sick of the “false” type advertising.
See below for screen shots:
This is what I see first thing this morning in my email:
Open the email:
Before I show you the flyer I just want to comment on a few things. There is 2 red boxes below. The box represents the hyperlink area. As you can see there is only two sections. If you click on the works “We’ll Hook you up for school –> Computers” you will be taken to the 14” laptop that is being sold for $599.99. If you click on “Starting at “$299”“ you will be taken to the laptop that is on sale for $799.99. As I said before I went through the website and I could not find the mythical $299 laptop. Here what the flyer looked like:
There is also a web version you can check out and decide for yourself to see if you can find the mythical “$299.99” computer.
Best Buy then has the audacity to want me to “share on Facebook, Digg or email”. I think not! You know what I am going to do: I am going to twitter this post, I am going to put it on Facebook, I am going to put it on Digg. I think I might even email it out. I think it’s time that corporations start realizing when they use underhanded dirty tactics people are going to talk. In today’s age of Twitter bad new can spread really fast. 
Just submitted this story to BBB Manitoba. This is the first time I’ve ever put in a complaint to them. I will let you know what becomes of this.