There is a difference between, Joe, Bob and Sally down the street and a corporation. A corporation is like a giant powerful gang with an army of slaves.

Right. So if this group of slaves wrongs you in some way which slave-master do you sue for compensation? The head slave-master? Does he pay you with his own money or with the money of the corporation?

Just makes it easier to call the whole group one person and sue it.

What I mean, is a corporation has power. The average person does not. So what I like about Germany is that they have laws that protect those without power, the people. Here, in the US, it seems, the powerful only get protection. And it's also very hard for me to see that a corporation is made up of people, considering most people inside a corporation behave like sociopaths today. When I think of people, I just don't think of sociopath gangsters. Please notice, I said "most people". I'm sure there are some decent corporations out there but I doubt there are many.

And I would agree with you to a large extent I was just pointing out that corporations legally are people here which I think illustrates just how much of a hand money has in shaping our laws. Usually for the worse.

So yeah, just playing some semantics is all.

They are legally people but people with massive amounts of money. The average Joe doesn't have billions of dollars. So when it comes to a battle in court, the average Joe always loses.

Indeed. It's a damn shame but what are we going to do with our collective lack of money?

This country is overdue for some serious reforms, that much is certain.

Yeah but instead, all we get is drones to spy on us. :)

Just my 2 cents (or maybe *1* cent). Everyone seems to be under the impression that Best Buy is doing well financially. They're not. Now, I'm not going to get into some argument about corporate officers and CEOs and how much money they make and how right or wrong that is. What I will say is this. Those corporate officers/millionaires didn't make that mistake. Some poor goober living paycheck to paycheck did. If they honored this pricing mistake, he probably wouldn't have to worry about living paycheck to paycheck anymore and not in a good way. I don't know how many "mistakes" were sold, but it sounds pretty substantial. Best Buy is on the precipice of doing a "Circuit City". This type of situation couldn't help. Then, sure, all of those jerk CEO's and corporate officers would lose their pretty paychecks, but so would all of the cashiers and stock-room guys, etc. I just can't see how anyone could be upset that they weren't given a game for free (that's really what's happening here, one penny?) unintentionally. But I guess that's just me. Oh well, carry on.

Spare your love for Germany. Don't get me wrong, there are laws, but globalization takes it's toll here too. They deconstruct these laws piece by piece, not by big steps, but small ones. And I fear what TTIP brings...

We had something similar over here in the UK with Tesco's when the new IPad was released.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17357383

I can only hope that this was the revenge of a member of staff who was being sacked (hell only knows what damage I will cause when I get sacked).
If this was not revenge then the poor individual responsible will probably be out of a job by Monday anyway, and if the company is anything like those in the UK then they will probably be told by their bosses that this counts as "gross misconduct / negligence" or "lack of interest in a job they obviously no longer want".

Corporations rarely want to admit they have made a mistake. It is really quite rare to find places like GOG, who when they notice they have a screw-up they will actually admit they were at fault and merely state that those who got something at a drastically reduced price should be happy. At the same time they go around giving freebies to people who get overcharged or affected by screw-ups in some other way, rather then trying to pretend nothing happened.

I agree 100% with everything you've said. Frankly I don't want to see anyone lose their job over this error. However, if Best Buy is teetering on the precipice of bankruptcy, they mostly have themselves to blame. Granted plenty of external factors have pushed them closer to the edge but many other factors in their complete control have contributed to their impending demise.

Take customer service - BB has one of the worst track records in this regard. Take pricing - if you look on the first page of a Google search, you'll find that California state had to MAKE them fix how they deal with advertised/shelf pricing. I could go on but I won't.

Now I'm sure BB is doing everything they can to fix their image but it may be too little, too late. This latest "error" just goes to show that BB probably won't gain enough ground to keep them from going over the edge. And that is really too bad - they could be a GREAT company but sadly it appears that the status quo of their corporate culture remains firmly fixed in place. Take for example the changing of their online policy immediately AFTER this pricing error debacle - that kind of behavior spells out exactly BB's corporate strategy "Let's only fix problems after they become HUGE problems." BB isn't thinking outside of the box in terms of risk or how can we really improve customer service or how can we prevent damaged/defective merchandise, etc... It's a clear case of only closing the barn door after the cow has run away.

Ultimately I did not expect to nor did I want the one cent game - I really just do not want to see another huge employer go over the edge taking thousands of employees with them. And we DO need physical stores - not everyone can or wants to buy all of their electronics online. And one less retailer means less competition and increased prices at the few remaining stores plus less and less varied selection on the shelves.

Anyway, I find this whole thing to be really sad.

So if I bought a defective Breaking Bad blu-ray and Best Buy refused to replace it, I should write to the BBB about BB screwing up my BB BR?

All of it. That's how much money you deserve for this post.

I don't see many "average Joes" winning lawsuits against major coporations here in Germany, but maybe I'm wrong or I have the wrong perspective.

Anyway, I don't know this Best Buy thing and how they screw their customers before, but I just think that Best Buy should not take the blame in this thread.

What about "BIG %%% Savings" deals with a limited number?
Let's say the sell 255 copies of Metro for 0,01$ and then they are out of stock. Of course they haven't shown the pricetage or quantity of it properly on their store, but well that's a simple mistake and there is nothing wrong if you go to your local grocery store to buy your cheapest and most tasty bananas and he simple tells you something like: "Sorry, I know I still have the price tag here but I ran out of them a couple of hours ago"
I think most people are judging BestBuy by their bad reputation, not by this kinda stupid mistake.
On an almost completely unrelated note, if people order 1 gazillion of copies for 0.01$ that's okay, that's their decision. That's free market. AND that's why several stores (here even supermarkets do that) limit the purchase of such bargains to normal "average household quantities".

Here, we have law against the practice, at least for retail:

http://www.opc.gouv.qc.ca/en/consumer/topic/price-discount/store/advice/policy-accuracy/#.UeItim0__4Y

For retail, I think it's a fair law (I'd have to think about it more in the context of online orders).

Many customers, upon hearing that the price is different will nonetheless feel pressure to buy the product once at the cash in order not to look stingy. And let's not forget it's cheating customers who aren't vigilant about checking the bill. This law discourages retailers from taking advantage of both those things.

For a while, the Best Buy in my area made many pricing mistakes and I got at least a handful of DVDs free due to pricing mistakes. They learned and now, they don't make those mistakes anymore. Would they have learned if the law was not in place? I don't think so.