Deceptive Best Buy practice

[synack]

Just as an FYI:

If you buy something from Best Buy and are presented with "free issues" of Entertainment Weekly or some other mag, you probably want to say no...unless you really really like those magazines.

Turns out, you get like 8 issues for free, and then they automaticly bill your credit/debit card $25-$30 for a full subscription. Of course, the teenage schlep at the register fails to mention this.

I got nailed for the EW subscription for $25. Funny thing is that the 6 month EW sub is $19.95 on their website. I'm sure BestBuy is heavily profitting on these magazines. This irked me so bad I will take my business elsewhere from now on.

[McGary911]

Lots of the "free" magazine offers use the exact same trick, at similarly inflated rates. I kinda beat them one time tho. I got Rolling Stone free for 6 months......they still took my credit card # of course. I knew that i was getting rid of that card in 2 weeks anyway, so i gave it to them. There was no way for them to bill me. After my free trial ran out, i got an offer from the magazine itself for a lifetime subscription, which is like 25 issues \ year.....for about $45....Score 1 for the good guys :)

[RedDog]

I bought a computer from Circuit City. Without knowing it, they gave me a 3 months free AOL account that automatically converted to automatic bill to my bank account debit card. I had paid for 3 months before DonziDeb caught it. I raised hell with AOL and got a refund. It wasn't until later that I figured out that Circuit City was to blame.

[HallJ]

I've been fooled by them already.

He mentioned the free part and then I signed the credit card thing twice.
Right after I signed it the second time I realized what I had just signed.
I called to cancel the subscription about a week later and was never billed.

I really really hate that crap!!!
I've never been back since!


Jeff

[gold-n-rod]

Best Buy is rapidly becoming the WalMart of Consumer Electronics (bottom of the bottom of the barrel).

We had a situation here where a BB sold a digi-cam to a man who discovered he'd bought an empty box. BB said they weren't responsible and that the man should have known the box was empty. Turns out, the sales person handled the box from beginning to end and the buyer had no opportunity to even touch it until he was handed the bag after the transaction was complete.

BB sux.