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Best Buy's got some 'splaining to do. Connecticut's Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has launched an investigation into allegations that Best Buy is intentionally employing a 21st Century bait-and-switch model, enticing customers with sale prices on the store Website and then jacking up the price once they get to the store itself.

Best Buy, of course, denies any such charlatanistic practices.

The investigation is the result of some good old-fashioned investigative reporting on the part of Hartford Courant's Consumer Watchdog George Gombossy, who, upon a tip from a reader, discovered that Best Buy has two digitized faces.

Here's the way it works (the sinister version):

The consumer researches a product on Best Buy's Website, notes the excellent sale price, and runs down to the store for a more tactile buying experience. The in-store price, he notes, is significantly higher than the price listed on the Internet site. He questions the salesperson about this discrepancy and the salesperson pulls up that product page on store computers, showing that the either the customer is mistaken or too late – the sale is over.

Only, that wasn't an Internet site. It was from the store's intranet page, identical in look and feel to the public page, but with higher store-matching prices. Ha ha, fooled you, now pay up.

While some Best Buy apologists say such occurrences are at worst, an abuse perpetrated by lower-level sales employees, Best Buy PR says it's more lack of awareness in the store. The company admits there is an "intra-store web site" for store operations, and they are "reminding" their employees how to access the external site. So, it's a lack of retention matter.

Though commentators at TechDirt have shared similar-veined horror stories, an apparent (I say "apparent" because there's no real way to corroborate that "Robert" is what he says he is) Best Buy employee says the company has been distributing a memo to its staff for "three weeks running":

"BestBuy.com Store Kiosk Prices Vary From Web BestBuy.com Prices

Have you ever had a customer come in with a BestBuy.com printout that reflected one price on a product, but when you looked it up on your in-store kiosk it was another price? That’s because the BestBuy.com kiosk in your store reflects your store’s pricing, not necessarily the online BestBuy.com offers.  

[Instructions on how to access promotional prices and external Web]

Be aware of these differences so you can price match the price the customer sees on BestBuy.com and avoid confusing the customer."

The "three weeks running" comment is important for timing reasons: that's about when a nosy journalist tipped off the attorney general, after it was relatively clear store employees were clueless that two sites existed.

The Consumerist.com, as is normal, is hopping mad about it:

"Regardless of current legality, we think maintaining an identical website with different prices is a deceptive practice and should be investigated. The State's Attorney will also be investigating other chain stores to see if the practice is common."

This should be an interesting story to watch develop, as, if applied on a more national scale, the outcome could have significant impact on retailers that have both an online and brick-and-mortar presence, as well as policy transparency.

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