Went to Best Buy on Us 19 and Gulf to Bay in Clearwater. Went in to Purchase the 16gb 1st generation Ipod on sale in their add today. Was the first customer in the store. They brought up the 8gb Ipod and a manager attempted to substitute this for the 16 gb. I pod. When I expressed my displeasure and told them I was not interested, I was informed that the item I came to purchase was a discontinued item and unavailable. AT MY INSISTANCE, I had a sales associate look availability up online either at another location or on bestbuy.com. I was told since it was "discontinued" it would not be available at the other locations. He then placed the online order for me. Imagine my surprise when I came home and found out it had been available at 5 other Best Buy locations in my area and we could have done the in store pick up as I had asked.
Called Best Buy Consumer Relations to express my concern about possible Bate and Switch tactics. They apologized and seemed surprised since
a) No substitutions were to be allowed (especially one technically worth $50 less)
B) They were showing that store had recieved 6 of the 16gb ipods specifically for this sale.
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