Comments on: Fire Sale: Palm Pre Touchstone Chargers – Buy One, Get One Free (Updated, New Touchstone Offering in Pipeline)

By: Christopher Price

Christopher Price — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:24:12 +0000

That’s basically what we were aiming at… Best Buy may have been planning to carry the dual SKU, and someone just got the two mixed up.

We have looked at the legal aspects, and they do have some wiggle room to get out of the legal situation. When you place an in-store order, your credit card is not charged until pickup. Since you’re not charged, Best Buy does have the right to cancel the transaction.

Of course, one could argue that Best Buy was aware of the price mistake for two days, and that it’s unconscionable to force countless customers to trek to stores… only to be denied. So, you may have a nuisance claim.

Do they have to offer you the chargers? At this point, we don’t think so.
Do you have a case against Best Buy? Shrugs. Unless you want to go crazy and tack on some four figure punitive nuisance claim… it’s probably not worth your time either.

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:10:43 +0000

I tried to pick up my order Sunday, but got the same response from the store as everyone else – that they weren’t going to honor the BestBuy.com order. So I called customer service to change the order to ship to my home, but while on the phone, the rep came on saying he received a memo that there was a problem with the SKU and it got escalated to corporate to fix. He said he could convert my order to a single Touchstone or cancel, I decided the latter.

Christopher, Palm already offers this package on their website. It is called the Dual Location Charging Kit ( http://store.palm.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3671708 ) for $139.99. Therefore the SKU was indeed the problem as the description from the original Best Buy listing matches Palm’s website. I had hopes that they would honor their pricing mistake and give me that for $69.99, but no such luck.

By: BB NightMare

BB NightMare — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 03:07:27 +0000

Just got back from BB. Same thing here again but decided to play hard ball. It was my neighbor who actually ordered but I was with her when this came up. Same thing happened as with everyone else who posted. Rep started to get rude with her and I demanded a supervisor. The Sup came over and gave us the same song and dance even though we discussed the legalities of what they were trying to do and brought along the print out and was able to provide the same results online in store. After discussing with my friend we decided to contact the local Police department to send over an officer to take a report as proof we had done the right thing. After discussing the situation with the officer he confronted the supervisor with all the laws and civil codes they were violating. The supervisor proceeded to give the officer the same disrespect we had received as well as becoming loud and using profanities towards all of us. This obviously backfired as the officer demanded to speak directly to the store manager. He refused saying the officer had no right and he would not comply. At that point the officer requested for his dispatcher to find the managers contact information in there system and to make contact with them and have them respond to the store. About 25 minutes later the store manager showed up and after speaking at length with the officer he agreed that my friend was due what she ordered website mistake or not and the rep and supervisors attitude toward us as well as the officer were extremely uncalled for. The manager after everything we went through gave us the 2 for free and said that the rep was being suspended and the supervisor terminated as he not only disrespected us but he also did so to a police officer. It took 2 hours but what was right stood in the end.

By: Roger

Roger — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 01:31:28 +0000

I think rwoody is correct and it was nice they did that for her/him, but note the website also mentioned the power cord which is not included in the touchstone/back kit. The two touchstone package comes with a power cord and one back if you get it from Palm.

By: rwoody

rwoody — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:06:12 +0000

The stock number is still listed on the Best Buy site today. When I put it in, it said one was in stock at my local store. I called and the customer service rep confirmed stock and said they would hold one. I asked her to confirm that it was a 2-pack (as I hadn’t seen anything like that on my previous visit to the store). She said it was.

Went to the store… they had the touchstone “kit” held for me (touchstone and special back). I had the bestbuy.com item info printed out and they looked it up on line as well. The SKU on the “kit” box matched the “2-pack” descriptor on the web. Since the web is messed up, the Mobile manager rang up two “kits” at $34.99 each for me.

Here’s what I think is going on…

1) The $69 SKU is supposed to be the “kit” – touchstone and back for the phone.

2) The $49 SKU (item # 9319917) is just the touchstone itself (without the back).

Thus “two-pack” is supposed to reference that the item is the kit.

Whew… sorry about the long-winded-ness. I suspect they’ll get the language on the bestbuy.com site corrected pretty soon.

By: Zachary Young

Zachary Young — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:46:02 +0000

same thing happened to me, i called corporate and threw California department of weight and measures around a few times and they refunded 50% of the 69.99

By: Roger

Roger — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:37:22 +0000

Same thing here. Went to BB in DC and all they had was the single touchstone with the touchstone cover and no charger. The manager could not explain this and gave me my money (but not my time back). I tried calling Corporate and they said try M-F.
This is the same thing Circuit City used to do and we know what happened to them.

By: Rich D

Rich D — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:30:08 +0000

Yes, I did the same, Went online then went to store, they gave me a box with only one touchstone, I told them I am supposed to get two touchstones.. I did get my money back… WHAT A SCAM….

By: Johnsy

Johnsy — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:01:47 +0000

The ad is still online today. I know it’s a saturday and its a holiday but with a mistake like this you would think someone would go in and remove it. So this tells me that maybe it’s not a mistake.

By: Johnsy

Johnsy — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:59:39 +0000

I asked the store if they would honor the 2 separate touchstones and I was told NO because they didn’t have the international power charger in stock said they didn’t carry it. I was not about to pay $69.99/charger that’s not what the ad said. I got my money back, my husband called the 800# as we were walking out the store, when we got home he left a comment on the BB website, he also sent them an email. You were lucky H, I hope BB headquarters does the right thing and honor their mistake.