Best Buy is being scrutinized for allegedly maintaining an Intranet website that completely mirrors bestbuy.com but without the deals and with marked up prices. The use of this site was by store clerks who are confronted with a customer who states that they saw a better price online, and wants to enact Best Buy’s lowest price guarantee. The clerk will walk the customer to a terminal, pull up the Intranet site and show the customer that they are mistaken, the price online is actually the same or higher.

I can’t help but being a bit wowed by the amount of sophistication and care it takes to pull this ongoing ruse on the costumers, but that novelty reaction is quickly dwarfed by the ethical one, that this is horrific, and it is sweet justice to see that the curtain is being pulled back and Best Buy being held accountable for their devious actions.