Beware the Best Buy boy.  The massive electronics “big box” chain is on the wrong end of a lawsuit this morning, the result of allegations that the store used an imitation web site to deceive customers and reap higher profits for its wares.  The Connecticut attorney general has called Best Buy’s activity “a bait-and-switch-plus scheme”.

The legal action is taking place in Connecticut civil court, brought on by the state’s attorney general Richard Blumenthal.  The prosecution hopes to both punish Best Buy and dissuade other retailers from pulling the same stunt – conning customers via phony in-store web site.

The scam itself is surprisingly complex for a corporate company spread so wide across North America.  According to Blumenthal, Best Buy employees approached by customers demanding lower prices found on the company’s web site turn to a fake site that nicely confuses customers.

Here’s how it might shake down:

Customer: “Excuse me, I’d like to receive the price on this digital camera you’ve advertised on the website.”

Best Buy employee: “Uh, I’ll have to take a look…”

<Accesses internal file server displaying higher prices>

Best Buy employee: “As you can see, ma’am, you’re clearly incorrect.”

As expected, the retail chain is vehemently denying the allegations.  Spokesperson Susan Busch has assured the public that stores “used the same Web site platform for these in-store kiosks as we did for our national Web site.”

Unfortunately for Best Buy, Blumenthal and a few disgruntled digital photography fans aren’t the only ones complaining.  The bulk of the case against the chain comes from an investigation launched by the attorney general but documented by a reporter for the Hartford Courant newspaper.  According to that publication, there’s evidence of at least one example where a local man cited BestBuy.com’s price of $729.99 for a laptop computer, only to be shown a much higher price, $879.99, by an employee in-store.

Although Best Buy denies a consolidated scheme to rip off customers, it has admitted that they may not always get the best price between the online and in-store environment. 

Sounds like getting ripped off is just one of Best Buy’s “Thousands of Possibilities.”