Envizen ED8850A Duo Box Pro

If you shop for electronics online, be wary of rock-bottom prices from e-retailers. There may be a catch—or a hook.

Bait-and-switch schemes from online electronics retailers can be lucrative for such anglers and frustrating for consumers. As the Consumer Reports Money Blog reports:

Some retailers, especially some online electronics stores, post ridiculously low prices. Shoppers who bite typically receive a phone call from a salesperson trying to “upgrade” them into buying accessories or other products or services, often at inflated prices.

If they refuse to purchase additional items, shoppers find that the retailer cancels the sale, claims the product has been back-ordered for months, or, if they did purchase the additional product, sends lower-quality merchandise or items that were never ordered. Returns can be difficult, if not impossible.

Back in June, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sued seven retailers who employed such practices, and won $750,000 in settlements. The New-York-based companies included Best Price Camera, Foto Connection, 1 Way Photo, 86th Street Photo, Broadway Photo, Camera Wiz, and Sonic Photo. A complete list of the 100-plus Web sites they operate can be found here [PDF].

The post on the Money blog gives more information on what to do if you’ve been swindle by such a scheme, and how to avoid them altogether.

To help find a satisfactory retailer, use our Ratings of places to buy electronics, available to subscribers. —Nick K. Mandle

Get ready to hear a lot more debate over how freely the Internet can be used, and by whom, following today’s announcement [PDF] by the Federal Communications Commission that the agency will weigh in to “preserve and promote the vibrant and open character of the Internet.”

Calling them “exactly the right approach,” advocates with Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, and the Consumer Federation of America, hailed today’s moves by FCC chairman Julius Genachowski to “establish clear rules of the road for the Internet, so that consumer choice and innovation are assured.”

The FCC chief announced that the agency would embrace principles that “would prevent Internet access providers from discriminating against particular Internet content or applications” and be “transparent about the network management practices they implement.”

The new principles follow a recent FCC decision ordering Comcast to stop slowing down peer-to-peer traffic on its network—a slowdown that first become evident in press reports.

Reflecting the expansion of broadband networks to mobile devices, Genachowski also proposed clarifying that the two principles—along with four it had already embraced to ensure that consumers “be able to access the lawful Internet content, applications, and services of their choice,” using any “non-harmful devices”—apply to “all platforms that access the Internet.”

Consumer groups have long decried attempts to hamper free access to the Internet by charging companies to convey data at a certain rate. “No consumer should be punished with a slower download speed or with a more expensive Internet experience because the provider they choose picks and chooses the companies that are allowed to reach their subscribers,” said Joel Kelsey, policy analyst for Consumers Union.

Yet the misgivings and opposition to changing the traditional architecture of the Net were evident in the reaction of some industry groups and legislators to today’s announcements, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. —Paul Reynolds