Best Buy Cancels Your Order As You Stand There Shouting "Stop!"

Best Buy didn't want to honor the sale price of the 2GB flash drive Matt ordered through their website, so when Matt arrived to pick-up his purchase, the store's assistant manager called customer service and, pretending to be Matt, asked to cancel the order. Let's read Matt's story and see how it violates Massachusetts law, inside...

Matt writes:

Today Best Buy had a PNY 2GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive SKU# 8202045 onsale for $2.49. I purchased 5 online for instore pickup, order was placed, charged and picked. I recieved both emails from Best Buy saying that the order was ready to pick up.

When I get to the store in Milford, Ma to pick them up I am told that the order was canceled do to a pricing mistake and that I was informed by email. My order was never canceled and when I inquired about this email that I never recieved, I was told the the Manager Josh sent them out to everyone but somehow he missed me. I told the assistant manager who was treating me like I was in the wrong that the order was placed, it was never cancelled and that I am still being charged for the items. The Flash Drives are right behind the counter and the assistant manager, Brian or bill i believe his name was, told me that he would not let me leave the store with my order.

To top it all off, he then takes my printed receipts from my emails and calls 1-800-Best Buy from the store and tells the CRS that "I" wanted to cancel my order and that it shouldn't have been picked. After 30 minutes of arguing with this person, while he is on the phone I tell him that I wanted to talk to the CSR and he refused to let me speak. I wanted to tell the CSR that I did not want my order cancelled and that I expected my order to be honored. He gets off the phone and tells me that my CC would be credited immediately and that they would send me out a new gift card to replenish the one I used with my order. Needless to say I left that store very irate and went right home to call Customer Service and Customer Relations to complain about how I was treated.

I explain my situation to Customer Service and they tell me there is nothing they can do with my order since it has already been cancelled and to make matters worse they tell me that if it wasnt cancelled they would have been able to ship my order out to me with free shipping since the pricing mistake was on thier end. I dont understand how a company can cancel my order without even speaking to me in the first place.

I then asked to get transfered to Customer Relations to complain about how I have been treated by this store, the assistant manager and how that the store manager Josh wouldnt even come out to talk to me and just had his assistant deal with my problems. Their way of solving this Is to offer to send me out a $15 Giftcard for my inconvenience and that nothing will come of the fact that this assistant manager cancelled my online order without my consent and has the charges returned to my credit card and a new giftcard issued to me.

I feel totaly ignored by this company and that no matter how rudely I was treated it just didnt matter to them one bit and these people will still have a job come next week. Not to mention the fact that Brian took it on to himself to handle my personal finances while just pushing me aside like I wasnt even in the store. I have never been so mad as I am at this very moment.

I hope that maybe this story can get posted on your site and maybe I can get some kind of advice on how to just get my order honored. The item has been pulled off of Best Buy's site now I notice and CSR's are unable to even pull it up by the SKU #

Matt's story falls under a little thing governing retail advertising called 940 CMR 6.13 (2).

6.13: Corrections

(2) It is an unfair or deceptive act for a seller, manufacturer, franchisor or distributor who discovers a material error in an advertisement subsequent to the submission date of the advertisement to fail to either honor the terms of the advertisement or to promptly correct any material misrepresentation by clearly and conspicuously disclosing the information necessary to eliminate such misrepresentation in the same advertisement or, if not feasible, in the same advertising medium, if reasonable, and as close thereto in both proximity and time as reasonably possible. Examples of misrepresentations requiring correction include, but are not limited to, information relating to prices, product descriptions or availability of products.

Best Buy had two choices: honor the deal, or, in the same medium, tell Matt that the mistake was an error. "Whoops you didn't get our email" isn't sufficient. Best Buy must honor the terms of the deal.

Since they did not, Matt should call Best Buy corporate and tell them he's going to small claims court, where he's entitled to triple damages:

If the court finds for the petitioner, recovery shall be in the amount of actual damages; or up to three, but not less than two, times such amount if the court finds that the use or employment of the method of competition or the act or practice was a willful or knowing violation of said section two.

The actual damage here was $16. With five drives and triple damages, that works out to $240. Call it the cost of terrible customer service. Wouldn't it have been so much easier if the assistant manager simply honored the deal?

940 CMR 6.13 [The Attorney General of Massachusetts]
Chapter 93A: Section 11. Persons engaged in business; actions for unfair trade practices; class actions; damages; injunction; costs [The General Laws of Massachusetts]

Original here

Goldman, Morgan Switch To Bank-Holding Firms

The Federal Reserve says it has granted a request by the country's last two major investment banks—Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley—to change their status to bank holding companies.

The Fed announced late Sunday that it had approved the request of Goldman [GS 117.30 -3.48 (-2.88%) ] and Morgan [MS 26.22 -0.87 (-3.21%) ].

The change in status will allow them to create commercial banks that will be able to take deposits, bolstering the resources of both institutions.

It also will put them directly under the regulatory supervision of the U.S. central bank.

To provide increased liquidity to the companies, the Fed agreed to lend to the firms' broker-dealer subsidiaries on the the same terms as the Fed discount window for banks and the central bank's Primary Dealer Credit Facility lending window for investment banks.

It said it was making the same collateral deals available to the broker-dealer subsidiary of Merrill Lynch [MER 27.22 -0.83 (-2.96%) ].

The change continued the biggest restructuring on Wall Street since the Great Depression.

Because of the change, Morgan Stanley is unlikely to do some kind of deal with Wachovia [WB 15.00 0.19 (+1.28%) ] or even get a cash infusion from the Chinese government.

Shares of both institutions had come under pressure ever since the bankruptcy filing last week by investment bank Lehman Brothers [LEH 0.14 -0.045 (-24.32%) ] and the forced sale of investment bank Merrill Lynch to Bank of America [BOFA Unavailable () ].

Investors feared that the last remaining independent investment banks would not be able to survive in their current form.

There had been speculation that both institutions would be acquired by commercial banks, whose ability to take deposits would give them a stable source of funding.

The decision by the two giants of finance to get approval from the Fed to change their own status represented another dramatic development in one of the most turbulent periods in Wall Street history.

In the surprise announcement late Sunday, the central bank said that to provide increase funding support to the two institutions during the transition period, they would be allowed to get short-term loans from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York against various types of collateral.

The Fed said its action would take final effect after a five-day waiting period required under law.

The decision means that the Goldman and Morgan Stanley will be able not only to set up commercial bank subsidiaries to take deposits, giving them a major resource base, but they will also have the same access as other commercial banks to the Fed's emergency loan program.

After the collapse of Bear Stearns and its forced sale to JP Morgan Chase last March, the Fed used powers it had been granted during the Great Depression to extend its emergency loans to investment banks as well as commercial banks.

However, that extension was granted on a temporary basis.

But as commercial banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will have permanent access to emergency loans from the Fed, the same privilege that other commercial banks enjoy.

The action by the Fed's board of governors in Washington came on a day when the Bush administration continued to campaign for quick congressional approval of its request for authority to use $700 billion to purchase a mountain of bad mortgage debt held by financial companies.

The effort represented the boldest action yet aimed at stabilizing chaotic financial markets.

Democrats in Congress said they would demand provisions in the bailout measure to protect people in danger of losing their homes as well as seeking to cap executive compensation at firms who get to unload their bad mortgages debt onto the government.

But the proposal was expected to win quick congressional passage because both parties are concerned about the adverse reaction in financial markets should the measure look like it was being delayed.

Original here

$39 billion: The Wall Street bonuses for the big five investment banks last year.

ABC News reports:

In 2007, Wall Street’s five biggest firms — Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley — paid a record $39 billion in bonuses to themselves.

That’s $10 billion more than the $29 billion loan taxpayers are making to J.P. Morgan to save Bear Stearns.

Those 2007 bonuses were paid even though the shareholders in those firms last year collectively lost about $74 billion in stock declines — their worst year since 2002.

These company executives are still fiercely fighting to protect their pay. Politico notes that the Bush Treasury Department is “resisting efforts” by House Democrats “to impose pay limits on Wall Street executives and bankers.”

Original here