Best Buy appears to be running a fire sale on the Palm Pre Touchstone Charges: Buy One, Get One Free!
You have to order online, from the link below, and use in-store pickup (they are backordered for online sales).
We cannot confirm if this is a price mistake or not. As such, you may want to head over to the store as soon as you get pickup confirmation.
Palm Pre Touchstone Charger 2-Pack – Best Buy
Update: Best Buy’s site is being hammered. Copy 9317214 into your web browser, then click the link above. Finally, paste 9317214 into the item number field in the top-right corner. This is the most reliable way of getting the page to load.
Update 2: The item number has been vaporized from BestBuy.com. It appears that this was indeed a mistaken disclosure of an upcoming, tweaked Palm Touchstone Charger offering. It’s not clear if Palm is planning to ship to Best Buy their two-pack with international charger accessory. One thing is for sure… the Palm model number reverted back to normal as well, confirming was not merely a typo.
Its a sham!!!!!!! Went to the store after ordering online and given the approval to pick up, and then I was told that it was only for one touchstone. I guess its a gimmick to get you to the store…. to see if you buy anything else.
You can try to challenge it. I know in California the Department of Weights & Measures has really cracked down on Best Buy. In California, they are required to honor the lowest posted ad price… even if it’s on a web order for in-store pickup.
Of course, getting them to actualize where the law stands is another manner entirely. I’ve gotten into arguments only for them to claim that the stock magically vanished, or was “given to another customer.”
They got particularly mad one time, when I made them honor the price for that customer… and played watchdog through the checkout process. They were getting ready to tell me to not come back, when I re-re-reminded them that I was just upholding the law… and the consequences for intentionally interfering with that process.
Barring that, you can also file complaints with the BBB, and state agencies (in California, the department of consumer affairs, and the attorney general, as well as your local department of weights and measures). It only takes a few people in each area doing that, to “re-educate” Best Buy about where the law stands on bait and switches.
This is totally FALSE. I ordered it on line got my confirmation, went to Best Buy 30 miles away from my home just to be told it was only for ONE not TWO chargers as stated in the add. I was told that the person who enters items in the computer for their adds entered the wrong SKU #. Needless to say I am not happy about this.
Did you have the store pull the SKU up on their web site? That should make it pretty clear that the computer only lists one item, and it’s the BOGO offer. There is no “single Touchstone” SKU at Best Buy right now.
It could be a price mistake, we don’t know yet.
Yes Christopher in answer to your question. My husband and I did in fact ask the customer service woman to look it up online and she did admit that the SKU was the same as the add online. She even asked another co-worker to look it up on his computer and he confirmed the same thing. I now have a printed copy of the best buy add and I think they should honor their mistake. I have already been looking into other avenues.
I had same experience. BB tried to make up some lame answer that the device combined w/the charger included with the Pre makes it a 2pack. Fail.
I understand that the local dept manager can’t do any thing about what’s advertised on bestbuy.com. So I was polite and just returned it. Dept manager recommended I call 888-bestbuy & complain. Service dept also recommended that I leave a review on bestbuy.com.
I will do both. (I’m still @ store writing this from me Pre)
I was able to get this honored at my local BestBuy. I had purchased a Touchstone 2 days ago (so I’m not sure if this had any bearing on it or not).
Talked to the mobile guy (who wasn’t very bright, or friendly) and he told me it was a website error, or that the SKU was wrong and that they had no 2 pack.
I then talked to the manager. Told him that the website said it was for TWO and that I felt since I’d bought mine two days ago, it should be honored.
He told me he’d see what he could do, walked off, and came back 5 minutes later with another touchstone box. Told me he’d refund my original purchase, and then re-ring up two touchstones at 34.99 each (total of 69.99). So I walked out with a 2nd entire touchstone and back.
I asked the store if they would honor the 2 separate touchstones and I was told NO because they didn’t have the international power charger in stock said they didn’t carry it. I was not about to pay $69.99/charger that’s not what the ad said. I got my money back, my husband called the 800# as we were walking out the store, when we got home he left a comment on the BB website, he also sent them an email. You were lucky H, I hope BB headquarters does the right thing and honor their mistake.
The ad is still online today. I know it’s a saturday and its a holiday but with a mistake like this you would think someone would go in and remove it. So this tells me that maybe it’s not a mistake.
Yes, I did the same, Went online then went to store, they gave me a box with only one touchstone, I told them I am supposed to get two touchstones.. I did get my money back… WHAT A SCAM….
Same thing here. Went to BB in DC and all they had was the single touchstone with the touchstone cover and no charger. The manager could not explain this and gave me my money (but not my time back). I tried calling Corporate and they said try M-F.
This is the same thing Circuit City used to do and we know what happened to them.
same thing happened to me, i called corporate and threw California department of weight and measures around a few times and they refunded 50% of the 69.99 đŸ™‚
The stock number is still listed on the Best Buy site today. When I put it in, it said one was in stock at my local store. I called and the customer service rep confirmed stock and said they would hold one. I asked her to confirm that it was a 2-pack (as I hadn’t seen anything like that on my previous visit to the store). She said it was.
Went to the store… they had the touchstone “kit” held for me (touchstone and special back). I had the bestbuy.com item info printed out and they looked it up on line as well. The SKU on the “kit” box matched the “2-pack” descriptor on the web. Since the web is messed up, the Mobile manager rang up two “kits” at $34.99 each for me.
Here’s what I think is going on…
1) The $69 SKU is supposed to be the “kit” – touchstone and back for the phone.
2) The $49 SKU (item # 9319917) is just the touchstone itself (without the back).
Thus “two-pack” is supposed to reference that the item is the kit.
Whew… sorry about the long-winded-ness. I suspect they’ll get the language on the bestbuy.com site corrected pretty soon.
I think rwoody is correct and it was nice they did that for her/him, but note the website also mentioned the power cord which is not included in the touchstone/back kit. The two touchstone package comes with a power cord and one back if you get it from Palm.
Just got back from BB. Same thing here again but decided to play hard ball. It was my neighbor who actually ordered but I was with her when this came up. Same thing happened as with everyone else who posted. Rep started to get rude with her and I demanded a supervisor. The Sup came over and gave us the same song and dance even though we discussed the legalities of what they were trying to do and brought along the print out and was able to provide the same results online in store. After discussing with my friend we decided to contact the local Police department to send over an officer to take a report as proof we had done the right thing. After discussing the situation with the officer he confronted the supervisor with all the laws and civil codes they were violating. The supervisor proceeded to give the officer the same disrespect we had received as well as becoming loud and using profanities towards all of us. This obviously backfired as the officer demanded to speak directly to the store manager. He refused saying the officer had no right and he would not comply. At that point the officer requested for his dispatcher to find the managers contact information in there system and to make contact with them and have them respond to the store. About 25 minutes later the store manager showed up and after speaking at length with the officer he agreed that my friend was due what she ordered website mistake or not and the rep and supervisors attitude toward us as well as the officer were extremely uncalled for. The manager after everything we went through gave us the 2 for free and said that the rep was being suspended and the supervisor terminated as he not only disrespected us but he also did so to a police officer. It took 2 hours but what was right stood in the end.
I tried to pick up my order Sunday, but got the same response from the store as everyone else – that they weren’t going to honor the BestBuy.com order. So I called customer service to change the order to ship to my home, but while on the phone, the rep came on saying he received a memo that there was a problem with the SKU and it got escalated to corporate to fix. He said he could convert my order to a single Touchstone or cancel, I decided the latter.
Christopher, Palm already offers this package on their website. It is called the Dual Location Charging Kit ( http://store.palm.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3671708 ) for $139.99. Therefore the SKU was indeed the problem as the description from the original Best Buy listing matches Palm’s website. I had hopes that they would honor their pricing mistake and give me that for $69.99, but no such luck.
That’s basically what we were aiming at… Best Buy may have been planning to carry the dual SKU, and someone just got the two mixed up.
We have looked at the legal aspects, and they do have some wiggle room to get out of the legal situation. When you place an in-store order, your credit card is not charged until pickup. Since you’re not charged, Best Buy does have the right to cancel the transaction.
Of course, one could argue that Best Buy was aware of the price mistake for two days, and that it’s unconscionable to force countless customers to trek to stores… only to be denied. So, you may have a nuisance claim.
Do they have to offer you the chargers? At this point, we don’t think so.
Do you have a case against Best Buy? Shrugs. Unless you want to go crazy and tack on some four figure punitive nuisance claim… it’s probably not worth your time either.