Following last week’s reports about Best Buy holding iPad 2s in stock without selling them to customers because of “an upcoming promotion”, a new story comes today from a CrunchGear reader that had to buy an additional Best Buy Service Plan in order to get one of the iPads held by the store. CrunchGear reports the guy initially asked for an iPad 2, but he was told they had none in stock. Upon further inspection of the store, he noticed 40 iPad boxes stacked on top of each other, and asked why they were there. An employee told him those iPads were sold, but later a manager confirmed he could get one if he agreed to pay $109 for a Service Plan (not required by Apple).
I said that doesn’t seem right. He then told to try and find one somewhere else they can do what they want. To make a long story short I purchased it just to find out if that was policy. I just went to another store spoke to a manager and was told that is not policy and should have not be forced to but the coverage just to purchase an iPad.
Obviously, a customer shouldn’t be forced to buy an additional support plan to get an iPad 2. We also don’t believe this is part of Best Buy’s rumored “upcoming promotion” – why would anyone want to spend $109 more with no discounts on the whole bundle whatsoever? Rather, people can just get a $79 AppleCare protection plan.
Did you try to buy an iPad 2 from Best Buy recently? Did they try to convince you to buy a Service Plan together with the device? Let us know in the comments below.
