So I've been trying to secure a 4090 to use in my first pc build for a few days now, learned about the trick with the best buy app (https://youtu.be/Fn-1bl6S0cw), and saw that it was available at a store near me.

I live in Manhattan and this store was in Queens so I phoned ahead to make sure they actually do have a 4090 in stock. For those unaware of BestBuy's garbage customer service, calling a store automatically forwards you to their national customer service hotline; so to speak to a store you have to press the pound key(#) when connected, and enter extension 2711 to speak to geek squad.

Upon being connected I inquired about the 4090 stock, and after a few minutes was told that it isn't in the places it's usually at so probably not in stock. And informed me they won't look further as it's not their job(fair enough it isn't). I then asked that they enter the SKU number into the system for me and after some convincing, they were as surprised as I was that it is in fact available. I then asked the employee if it was possible to reserve the card for me which they said it isn't (also fair enough), and I said I would drive down in an hour and thirty minutes to pick it up. (this detail is important later)

Usually, the road is quite congested but on this day thanks to some good luck or perhaps fate, I made it to the store in under 40 minutes. Made my way into the store and spoke to the first employee at the helpdesk and asked "hey do you have a graphics card for me?". the employee replied "the 4090? oh it's sold out"(i never mentioned 4090). I then explained the phone call and he said (and this is a direct quote) "yes it just sold 5 minutes ago". I was obviously upset and went on a rant about how long I've been waiting for this and how disappointed I was. It was obvious at this point that I was not about to hear the news and just leave, and I started to look at the register and was gonna ask someone else. At this point he noticed me looking over at the register and starting to walk over and said "yeah you could ask the front desk", and as I started to walk over he said, "I was just about to buy it actually". I'm now thoroughly confused and approached the front desk and asked for the 4090 at which point the guy who is now behind me said "he's here for the 4090" and "ill bring it up".

I believe that the store employee did not know that they had a 4090 in stock, when I phone and prompted them to check the SKU number that also alerted this employee to the fact that a 4090 was available, I also said I would take over an hour and a half to get there and arrived in 40 which may be why he hasn't yet purchased the graphics card.

I also find it hard to believe a BestBuy employee has yet to buy a 4090 if they really intended to use it two months after launch after working there daily, so this leads me to speculate that this BestBuy employee may be buying graphics cards to scalp them on eBay ( I have no evidence to support this).

In any case, it's pretty scammy for best buy employees to lie to customers in the hopes that I would go away so they can buy the graphics card for themselves.

some information:

The store was: 5001 Northern Blvd, Queens, NY 11101

The receipt: https://imgur.com/a/3znGPtN

the graphics card which I managed to buy: https://imgur.com/umVw6zZ

edit: for clarity