CompUSA.com

Full review
BEWARE:
Most online dealers with brick and mortar stores, like Circuit City and Best Buy, allow you to buy on-line and have store pick up. Well COMPUSA's policy is very different from Circuit City and Best Buy and is exploited as Bait and Switch.

I went to the Compusa site and arranged to purchase a laptop at a listed price. You give all your information and "reserve" the item at a given price. so I schlep over to the local compusa with my "receipt" and they tell me that even though the web site accepted my order, that the order showed in-stock at the store and "reserved" for me, they had none in stock and expected none. I then got high pressure to buy a less capable laptop that the store assured me was "on sale" but that I suspected was not a value at all. When I just left with no machine I checked the price of that laptop and compusa was trying to sell me it for Best Buy and Circuit City's normal price! When I got home out of curiousity I checked the compusa site again, again it showed in stock in that store!

Over the past year or two I have bought about a dozen items from Circuit City and Best Buy, going to their sites and purchasing for in-store pick up. I never ever had a problem. Yet Compusa -- even though you give your card and agree to an amount -- apparently doesn't actually process a transaction until you get at the store. Many of Compusa's advertised comptative online prices are "in store only." Yet even after making what looks like a purchase for in-store pick-up you have no gaurantee it is in stock as they claim it sold out before you get there (even the same day!).

I can understand them using the web to drive people into stores for additional impulse buying etc, that's ok, but to use it and not have the item you thought you bought so some kid who knows nothing can try and pressure you into buying less for more is BAIT AND SWITCH.