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Best Buy Says Customers Not Always Right
linuxwrangler writes "Best Buy is one of the retailers that has now decided that the customer is not always right. Best Buy consultant Larry Selden has identified "demon customers" like those who file for a rebate then return the item. OK, I get that one (hey Best Buy: dump those customer-despised rebates and you won't have that problem...). Other categories like customers who only buy during sales are more interesting. Best Buy declined comment on how they are dealing with those customers. Some stores have actually "fired" customers. Welcome to the end result of all that customer information data mining."
Like always right to _choose_ not to purchase a service plan?
"Sanity is not statistical", George Orwell, "1984"
The last two paragraphs are a great example of putting in a worthless interview that has nothing to do with an article, solely to defend an undefendable topic.
If best buy is sick of people using rebates, then stop offering them. Rebates work by the majority of people not using them, while thinking they are buying it at a great price. If people are going to use rebates without actually buying the item, Best Buy is going to have to live with that. If they think they can get it both ways, they are wrong. It is just another example of horrible customer service and deception backfiring, and then the company having such a great monopoly that they can somehow blame it on the customers, the very people they rely on to make money. Just absurd.
You will always get scammers, like people who the article description described (send rebate, then return), as well as people who purchase extended service plans, then static zap their video card, hook it up to 110 AC, or otherwise kill it after a couple years, and get a much better card in replacement. At least with data mining, you can identify suspect customers instead of just going on the manager's whim.
I would have thought that many of the customers who only buy during sales would be buying a lot more products than if they bought on a semi-regular (non-sale) basis. Surely this means that the customers make up in bulk for the slightly lower profit margin due to sales? After all, the point of sales is to attract a higher product turnover at a lower profit margin, so what are they complaining about?
Disclaimer: The above comment was made while under the influence of too much coding and not enough sleep.
What on earth is wrong with waiting until a sale is on til you buy whatever it is that you have your heart set on?
If it is an urgent purchase that can't wait, then buy it then and there, but if you're happy to wait until whatever it is goes on sale due to it no longer being the newest and shiniest widget, what is wrong with that?
This is penalising people who are swimming against the tide of instant gratification that our credit driven society has pushed.
People have done this from time immemorial in raiding the new years and mid year sales at department stores they don't otherwise shop at
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World" 1 John 4:14
Normal costomers like my mom are alright. I mean she thinks, "oh, I need a TV" so she goes to BestBuy or Costco or whatever, finds one that looks pretty, and buys it. Big profits for the store.
If I need a TV, I wait a few weeks until I find a good deal on dealsea or FatWallet. Then I price match to someplace with massive coupon discounts, then I try to even pricematch the rebate. Then if they try to get me to pay for shipping I bitch about it and get that charge taken off. The stores make nothing.
If I was running a business, I wouldn't want people like me as customers. I would want people like my mom. It's just plain business sense.
Is a way for Best Buy to identify customers who are likely abusing the return policy in order to use the store as a free rental shop.
They can refuse a sale or refund to anyone for any reason (except race, sex, etc.) and are well within their rights to do so. They don't have the money like Walmart does to be able to absorb crap returns and BS like that.
What this will do is help to increase margin and somewhat prevent prices from rising to cover the cost of bad returns. Would you rather they let people get away with this or would you prefer to pay more for the products you buy to cover Best Buy's losses from abusive customers?
How dare they pay Best Buy money in order to obtain products they seek to purchase.
In all seriousness, comments like these tell me I should be taking my business elsewhere. Not that I didn't already know ths, but it just reaffirms it. "Firing Customers" is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've heard today. And that's saying something. It goes against the whole idea behind a business; that is, to get customers and meet their needs while making a tidy profit. (Perhaps they believe their profit isn't quite tidy enough with people who use rebates and buy sale items.)
I had vowed to never go back, thanks to all the awful support in store, and online that I received.
Things like discounts not being applied, sale prices not showing up on the final invoice, etc.
I was dragged back in as they had a "great" Comcast deal. It would turn out to be a free cable modem, after rebate(s).
There were 3 rebates.
- $25 store credit
- $20 rebate from Linksys (for their modem)
- $60 rebate from Best Buy for buying the Linksys modem.
I used their kiosk, with their employee. I expected to wait the obligatory 6-8 weeks.
In very short order, the store credit showed up. Followed quickly by the Linksys rebate. 2 weeks later, the denial letter showed up from BB. They said I hadn't bought a Linksys modem. Interesting that they returned my orignal submission, and that receipt clearly showed the modem that they had on rebate.
When it arrived the rebate program had ended, so they screwed me out of $60.00. Another lesson in BB's incompetence.
I sold the store credit to somebody else. I wanted them to have to pony up that money for something, but it wouldn't be me.
Ergo, they're evil.
My mom says I'm cool.
My case in point:
"This sign says 2 confections for 2 dollars!"
"It says 2 HERSHEY candies for 2 dollars."
"So?"
"Gobstoppers and popcorn don't count, and "almost" only counts in horse-shoes."
And then the customer will whine, and whine, and whine, and whine, and whine. My god, I've never heard so many adult-aged persons whine so much.
It's always something retarded they whine about too: they misunderstood the advertisement and want the deal anyway (yeah, right), or they know somone who used to work here and wants an employee discount, or they have a coupon ... that expired two years ago.
No, I don't need anger managment. I need a shotgun and some whiskey.
Home electronics resellers have a pretty spotty past - seems they expand exponentially, then raise their prices and reduce their service to customer-unfriendly levels, then they go bankrupt. It's a constant cycle caused by cutthroat competition and low margins.
Best Buy is just summiting the mountain and headed to the downhill side of the cycle. Profits are up. The problem is that i'm not going there anymore because the prices are pretty exorbitant. I'm sure others are getting the same impression.
They are following in the path of Crazy Eddie, The Wiz, Circuit City, and lots of smaller outfits.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I thought that was the whole thing behind making people either take the rebate or return it. Most rebates require an original UPC, and I assumed most retailers want something back that they can resell.
Or is that when the whole "fitness of goods" type thing comes in (spurious missing capicator anyone?).
1. Big Company assumes no matter what, people will come to store.
2. Big Company pisses off customers by getting way too aggressive with a very small minority of bad customers.
3. Big Company loses customers.
4. Big Company slashes prices more to bring people back, forgetting the price wasn't why people left.
5. Big Company loses more money, wonders why.
It's the SERVICE, stupid. It's why the Gateway store in my town always was best in its district... it was the only Gateway in such close proximity to a Best Buy. They couldn't help but look like geniuses in comparison to the untrained warrany-whores placed in the computer department at BB.
-=-This sig brought to you by The Cheat; and by Viewers Like You.-=-
...and I don't think I like to be bundled in with people attempting fraud. I'm not high maintenance but I can spot a deal. Either you're selling something or your not. Don't start trying to second-guess what I might buy next. Maybe I'm taking advantage of a cheap offer to find out how good your service is...
I run a small business, and sometimes I refuse to take on a client because I can tell they're going to be more trouble than they're worth. Why would I want to bother with someone who's going to constantly bitch about prices, try to wheel and deal me, and make me work twice as hard as the average customer? I don't need the money that bad.
It's probably the same thing for Best Buy. Why would they want to bother with people they know are going to take up their customer service reps' time, which costs money, and thereby result in no profit for Best Buy? There is no "right" to shop at Best Buy. There's probably a "we reserve the right to refuse service to any customer at any time" notice somewhere near the entrance to the store. Best Buy is simply choosing to exercise that right.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
My suggestion is shopping clubs.
Get together a group of good consumers, mums on the school run is a prime recruiting ground. Organise until the number of participants is significant; and issue a membership card.
Then visit the shops.
Tell them that the group will promise to use a particular store for a particular type of shopping in exchange for a discount off all elements in store on production of the membership card. Organise an auction process for a type of shopping for an entire quarter and get the shops to bid against each other.
Providing the manager sees the take goes up for those stores in that quarter, everyone wins.
That way you can exercise the power of the mass market in the same way the shops use their marketing size to drive down supplier costs - the enticement of the large numbers with the threat of losing those numbers if they don't play ball.
In fact, since one thing Slashdot does have is size, that model would work well for Slashdot membership and computer goods...
Side 1 - people suck - have you ever read any of these "deal forums" (Fat Wallet and AT Hot Deals are two I read from time to time. Jesus fucking christ these people would walk a mile through the desert barefoot while eating salted peanuts for a fucking $10 rebate. Sometimes the "sequence of events" required to get these deals is more fucking work than just well, working and BUYING it for regular price, pricematch here, rebate there, obscure coupon code over there, print someone's reciept from some other store in some other state, and you might get a $79 item for $64 or something equally lame. I get a chuckle at the enormous lengths people will go to to save a couple bucks.
Side 2 - Best Buy sucks - reading this site is like a traffic accident complete with ripped off limbs, you can't stop looking but you know you should. The damn near criminal "support policies" they push and push and push on you, and the "piggyback" magazine subscriptions make me want to do things that would get me on the news. I'm currently getting bills from Entertainment Weekly because when checking out at BB a few months ago I let them "send me 4 free issues" just to get them to shut the FUCK up. Now they want me to pay for the stupid magazine like I give two drops of spit about EW (ew is right).
I don't know who to root for in this fight... Best Buy or the "demon customers" socking it to them. Goddamn I hate rebates, I go out of my way to avoid deals involving rebates because they just PISS ME OFF so bad.
Really I'm not ranting...
--- www.f-theocean.com
I see that Royal Bank of Canada sends wealthier customers to the head of the phone queue, while making ones with smaller accounts wait and wait. This is a classic example of abusing the facelessness of phone transactions, leveraging it to their advantage. Could you imagine customers putting up with this kind of stuff in a face-to-face setting? You walk into the bank, and they tell you to go to the "poor people" line? Or say you go into a department store, only to be told that you will have to let other customers cut in front of you, because they are buying more expensive items? That sounds almost like it should be illegal. But hey, what do you expect for a gigantic, faceless corporation?
BB wants the bar code to get a rebate. They won't accept returns without a bar code (only exchange). BB should complain about their employees not following their own policies. Btw, I fired them from being my retailers a long time ago.
RTFA.
Some other guy from another retailer with a mere 21 stores in the same market is talking about 'firing customers'. The guy from best buy went out of his way to say that they won't give up on 'problem' customers.
C'mon people, follow the narrative.
I worked as a Tech at Blue&Yellow Hell a few years back, and I ended up quitting after getting into it with the weasly little sales manager over screwing over the customers with that ripoff service plan.
Hell, if you think the company is customer-hostile OVERTLY, you should see the kind of crap they tell the employees at those micky-mouse-micromanagement "Huddles" every morning before opening.
I don't have any sympathy for bad retailers who offer ridiculous deals to customers, with profit margins based on the fact that customers will not exercise options (eg, rebates) or will buy accessories to supplement the original sale.
:).... And *all* my problem customers left me, taking up the offer.
They deserve what they get.
On the other hand, I did run an ISP, so I know what it's like when you give a customer an unlimited account, based on a pool of bandwidth, only to discover they are a leech, and bring down the quality of service for all customers.
Still, they purchased the service legitimately, so I wasn't going to ban them...
So I sent them 3-month gift certificates from a competing ISP
My competitor wasn't too happy when he found out years later, but I was left with a pool of good customers, and those customers I didn't want respected me also, and often recommended me to their friends, many of whom weren't leeches.
Overall, I didn't abuse the customer rights, and I still managed to offer a premium service at a reasonable price. And at better profit margins than my competitors. Not once did I have to make excuses like fair-use policies do.
The moral of this tale? Treat your customers with respect and they'll respect you in return.
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
Riiiiiiiiight. As long as we're pipe-dreaming here, let's dream big and pretend that said savings will be delivered to me on a silver platter by a host of Playboy centerfolds, who will then proceed to sexually pleasure me in ways unknown to mortal men...
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Now, mailing in a rebate then returning an item is unethical on the customer's part (didn't think it was possible since most require original UPC).
However, it's been my experience that BB more often then occasionally won't have a rebate item on stock/shelves right when the store opens on the first day of the rebate sale. 3 cases where I've tried to get a rebate item (modem, HD, monitor) I'd get there and be the first few when the doors open only to find the item NOT on the shelf. Ask a salesperson and they'll say there's no more in stock. When questioned about the promotion, it's the usual B.S. "The item has been on sale for the past week, so we ran out".
I see rebate sales going out of popularity soon. I won't dare touch BB, and once great-for-quick-rebates-turnaounds OfficeMax has gone down the crapper recently for denying legitimate rebate submissions. The second "denied" rebate from OM, I really let the guy on the other end have it on the phone. (got approved after "resubmitting") Since that day, OM's made it on my shitlist along with BB. My sanity and karma isn't worth it. There's only so much crap people in general will take, and more will start to ignore them and not care as word-of-mouth spreads. Perhaps that's the goal of some retailers...
$cat
In most states, retailers are required to sell you the advertised product, even if they don't have it in stock. They give you a rain check. They order it. They contact you when they get it. They hold it for ten days. If you come back in that ten days, you get the sale item at the sale price.
I think people should read the articles they submit. Best Buy did NOT say they fired customers. Also, in my experience, Best Buy has been a better retailer than Wal Mart, Circuit City, Target and the like. I've received great service and pricing there and 100% satisfaction when I needed to return a dud digital camera.
Everyone else is telling awful service tales, why not me?
I went to Best Buy to checkout a Lexmark All-In-One they had advertised for a wicked cheap after-rebate price. When I got to the printer section I found it it wasn't there. I asked an employee there if I could get some test pages printed, and he obliged, "Oh, sure thing..." After five minutes, I had zero test pages. He admitted to me this wasn't his section, he was just trying to get something copied (don't they have an office copier elsewhere?!)
I asked him if they had any Bluetooth mouse, and he replied, "Oh, yeah, just come over here." We got to the mouse section, he picked up a blue, corded Microsoft mouse - "The blue one, right?"
Bah.
SEARS dropped the "customer is always right" motto a long time ago and replaced it with "The customer isn't always right, but they are never wrong".
Lets face it, if you haven't worked retail then you simply don't know what hell is. Customers are often devoid of communication skills, arrogant, flat out dumb or in such a god damn hurry that they just don't care about anyone or anything else. We've become a consumer culture where everyone says "gimme!" with complete disregard. I'm not even gonna get into the number of thefts frauds etc. Just enter a Fry's Electronics some time and try to find an item on the shelf that doesn't have a return label already on it.
People suck most of the time, especially during the holidays. Sales or no sales everyone is pinching pennies and it's usually the rich pricks pinching them hardest and giving you a hard time for no reason other than to be a complete prick.
What I find ironic is that Xmas is the worst time for all of this. A time supposedly for giving, for your fellow man, love, compassion etc etc which when put into perspective is complete hypocrisy from what it really is. Greed, parking lot arguments, massive crowds, bad tempers, increased suicide rates, fraud. I could go on and on. The fact is, people suck whether they are shoppers or the assholes who own the store.
I'm no fan of Best Buy, I go only once in a rare while. But I don't see them as evil or wrong in this. You and I can decide not to patron them, they however have no fucking clue we are coming or what we'll do when we get there. As far as I am concerned they have the right to refuse service to anyone they like.
From the article: Anderson said Best Buy was tightening its rebate policies in the case of customers who abuse the privilege, but declined to say what else his company was doing to discourage its most costly customers.
There is a simple way to stop mail in rebate fraud. Give the rebate when the sale is made and record it on the reciept. But computer stores will never do this because of how many people forget to mail in the rebate in time. I for one hate mail in rebates, and think it is deceptive for stores to list the price of a product as the price after the rebate (with the rebate listed in small unreadable font). On second thought, I wonder if what he really means is how to screw people from sending in the rebate, like forcing them to print out their own rebates from some website or shortening the time window.
Now while Circuit City is no better with the rebates, at least there they really try and help you with what you buy. I purchased a laptop from them, saw 2 weeks later it was $100 less at another store (on-sale), and went to get the price match. The manager gave me the money plus 10% of the differance with no problems. She told me she was happy I was a customer and looked forward to servicing my needs again. That was good service.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Honestly if someone takes the time to do a bit of research and sift through the ads in order to get free shit from promotional deals from companies like BestBuy that have horseshit customer service to begin with (anyone else remember the Native American dude arrested for trying to get his instant rebate on his pre-ordered NVidia card a while back?), then more power to 'em. Or maybe I'm just bitter because I've gotten screwed on so many of these rebate deals in the past.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for SEGA. ..."
Once, while searching for a particular item at Fry's, I found that all 25+ boxes were returns. I didn't buy it. It was.. frightening.
Clerk: "Have you considered our extended warranty"?
Me: "Do you mean to tell me your products are so inferior that you can't guarantee them past 60-90 days? What the hell am I buying here"??? (Then I walk out)
Un-news
I worked at a very small specialized retailer (running store) for about three years.
We had our normal "problem customers". People who would buy a pair of shoes and then bring them back after several long runs on the shoes and try to exchange them. People that would complain about our prices, and so on.
The fact that the owner of the store was there most times to make the final decision, what helped more than anything was having firm, clear-cut policies on things.
If you never took back shoes that had obviously been run in, then the person who was always trying to bring them back worn was going to have a problem. And, I admit, sometimes that meant calling the customer a liar, sometimes to their face.
The customer was always free to go elsewhere. There were even times when I would give directions to another store.
We would never refuse to sell someone a pair of shoes, and we would never treat a customer any differently than any other person off the street. If someone came in trying to return his tenth pair of shoes, I could objectively look at him (and the shoes) the same way as someone who was coming back for the first time to return something. Had the shoe been obviously worn outside? Would I feel comfortable selling this shoe *as new* to another customer? Would I feel comfortable buying this shoe myself, as new?
If the shoe passed those tests, I would take the shoes back, tenth pair coming back or first.
And I will add something on about the rebates - others posting are correct. If you have problems with rebates, *get rid of them*. No one likes them except the retailer, and if the retailer is having problems with them, then no one will be stopping them from getting rid of them.
Now, I also see a difference between a retailer rebate and a manufacturer's rebate. I dislike them both, but the retailer rebate is the worst.
SprintPCS, for example, is making a big deal about this new promotion for existing customers. If you have been a customer for over 18 months, you can get a new phone.
Fine print: SprintPCS will send you a rebate check for up to $150 if you buy the phone, even if you buy is straight from Sprint! So I give SprintPCS my money, and then I have to prove to them I gave them my money, and then 6-8 weeks later they will return *my* money to me?
Insane! Just give me the stupid phone up front!
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
I'm an Australian and I went on a trip to the US not so long ago for only a week on a business trip.
My first impressions of service in the US (other than the really fancy joints, and the customers on the business trip) was pretty appalling. People talk to you as if you, the customer, are a problem that has to go away.
Let's see... well apart from certain airline stewardess being a bit careless about which passengers they make fun of about on a flight, to the endless cancellations from hotel to hotel and at short notice.... to the rude replies when you ask a simple question:
"Excuse me, can you show me where the bathroom is?"
"Huh? YOU WANNA KNOW WHERE THE BATHROOM IS? WELL! IT'S STRAIGHT DOWN THADDAWAY!"
Oh yes... the image of the bored-out-of-her-mind angry waitress I saw in the movies actually existed!
Then some woman decided she'd check my ID for beer (I'm creeping up on 30 if you don't mind. But hey, nice to feel under 21 again), in a manner which made me feel like I did something wrong.
The taxi driver tried to rip me off, which reminded me of a similar experience I had in a third world country (Well the driver WAS from a third world country), but I'm not sure that this is the kind of experience vistors to the US should be getting. Made more sense to fork out for a limo.
I only tipped for good service (and believe me, it wasn't that often!).
I dunno, but maybe this talk down to the customer thing is just the way of life over there. Maybe you guys are all as tough as nuts and don't get easily offended - but the ordeals were a bit uneccessary. Everybody seems to be competing to be the alpha-male... for some reason.
Makes the RIAA spats against customers seem a little more realistic in my mind.
Oh yeah... and what the hell is it with you guys and Atkins anyway?
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Rebates are a tax on laziness created by greedy, unethical corporations. I refuse to buy any product that has an advertised price that is based on a rebate. What a bunch of crap.
As far as Best Buy, it's to high tech what McDonald's is to cuisine. I've never met anyone in that store that couldn't be more intellectually-challenged by delivering pizza. The store is crap; the selection is crap; the layout is crap, and nobody in the place has a clue.
"...a host of Playboy centerfolds, who will then proceed to sexually pleasure me in ways unknown to mortal men..."
Er, be advised, those 'ways' involve haggis and bagpipes.
Sincerely,
The Highlander
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
I work at Best Buy, and I can partially agree with the stance the company is taking. People don't realize that not only is the customer not always right, they're not always honest either. Every day at my store we get at least two instances of attempted "Rocks in a Box" returns (when a customer purchases a product, swaps the product out with something different or broken, and tries to return it). Other customers like to bring back products that they didn't buy at our store. We know because they're things that the company has either never sold, or haven't sold in years (like exercise equipment, Acer desktops, or clothing).
In terms of the service received, many of you probably have legitimate complaints (like that guy talking about 'smurf herds', when all the salesmen stand in a group and chat, and not acknowledge customers, which is something that happens every so often in the store I work at). But for every one customer who actually has a legitimate complaint, you get three who are complaining about problems they created themselves. The reason why that 'salesman' doesn't know anything about computers could be because he's an appliance salesman, and doesn't know anything about computers. The reason why that Tech (sorry, Agent) was rude to you could have been because there's a line 10 people deep at the Tech Bench (sorry again, Precinct) and you want him to come help you buy a TV. Maybe that Manager would give more a crap about what you say if you didn't smell like you've been rolling around in manure, or didn't act like a four year old with A.D.D. This is stuff that really happens, and what's worse, things like this are common, not extreme.
This is not an article about Best Buy practices. Its about how companies are coping with "Demon" customers. We have a "demon" customer that is slamming our tech support with questions unrelated to her service, but they will argue about the tie in and we need to keep our relationship. Its tough when people are trying to exploit your weaknessess. When the time it takes to patch the holes is time taken away from serving those who deserve it.
BAD. Just BAD. Ugh. My old boss used to say, "The customer isn't always right -- but they are always a customer."
My gosh -- talking about "demon customers" is just terribly bad PR. I've never shopped at a Best Buy, and after reading that, I don't think I ever will. I don't care if they think I'm the angel fucking Gabriel of a customer, if they're calling customers "demons" I don't want to deal with them.
It's one thing to scam the store out of money, for example buying sale items and returning for full price. It's another thing *entirely* to "take up too much of a salesperson's time." As defined by who? Some marketroid from Upper Management? I've often asked salespeople questions just because I was needed the information to make an informed purchasing decision, and eventually made an informed decision not to buy the product. Now, *I* don't think I was taking up too much of their time, but...
Or only buying at sales. Come on, think like a (skinflint) customer, especially if said customer isn't from the area and needs to drive a ways to get to your store -- gee, store X is holding a storewide sale again, I better check that out. You hold the sale, you deal with the skinflints. If the skinflints are a problem, hold fewer sales, don't just turn them away! You have to deal with the fact that not all of your customers are going to be consumerist sheep.
C'mon, people, the employees are there (or *should* be there) to help customers, and if they do a decent job the company should make money. If you need to resort to "firing" customers to make money, the customers may not be your problem.
Now, I'm afraid this will fail. The problem is that he doesn't realize that Angel customers are also demon customers, except with a soul. Now, it is true that they'll often help the Buffy customers stick it to the other demon customers, but that's because they're tormented by the past, and don't want to grab only the bargains anymore. But definitely, putting a bouncer before the store hellmouth isn't going to even slow down the demon customers. They'll make mince meat out of him. No, retailers should realize that they are really powerless, and let the professional slayer customers clean up the store.
From the article:
Best Buy executive vice president Philip Schoonover said the idea of "firing" some customers is one place where Best Buy disagrees with Selden. The company will try to find ways to make money-losing customers profitable, he said.
Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!
" This reminds me of a funny story."
That statement is only half right.
heh
Actually, I believe we have entered an era where PSP arn't as bad of a deal as they used to. In the race to get items for the lowest price as possible, manufacturing is cutting back to the point where stuff doesn't last as long as it used to.
I bought a cheap DVD player recently, and I bought the 'extended warrenty' for 4 years. Cost me 9 bucks. The DVD playes cost me 50. So for 59 bucks, I am gaurenteed to to have a DVD player for 4 years. If this POS dvd player doesn't crap out at least once, I will be surprised.
I mean, buy super cheap, get the extended warentee for a few bucks, and then when it breaks, you gte a new one, which will i all likly hood be an upgrade from the one you bought, because that one won't be sold anymore.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The problem is not necessarily with the company, but with society in general.
Who of us has not heard the phrase "the customer is always right". And I'm not just talking from a retailers point of view; I'm referring to parents, friends, newspapers, television, etc. What these sources fail to qualify is that this phrase has power only to the end of the customers desires. And this is what retail is supposed to be for; the customer knows what they want, and the retailer provides the product that meets the customers needs. Everybody wins! But society has bred a noticeable few retailers that care only about themselves, producing a noticeable number of customers who are "always right" on every topic, thus breeding a vicious cycle.
Retailers, stop trying to deceive your customers, you can trust them to buy your product if you give them what they need!
Customers, stop assuming that you you can get a deal just by demanding it, kicking and screaming. We all don't get a commission, and we all can't lower your price by X%!
Alternatively, do some research yourself. Go into the store knowing what you want to buy. Talk to the sales person, negotiate price, and if its going nowhere, leave. Don't walk in assuming you can get a 25% discount on whatever you like, especially when markups on most consumer electronics run below 10%!
Best Buy or any retailer offer rebates in the hope that very few will actually claim them. Not to mention all those hassles of waiting period and post-mark dead lines etc. But, what intrigues me is how one can return an item after claiming for the rebate. Most rebates (AFAIK) need a original UPC code cut from the packaging. Returns cannot be made if items are not in their original packaging with their UPC codes. It is hard for me to believe that someone can actually return the items after claiming for rebate. Infact, retailers also gain from the fact that customers *cannot* return the items they brought through rebate offers. That should reduce their losses!
Brad Anderson, Best Buy's chief executive: "Those customers, they're smart, and they're costing us money."
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
OTOH, I will admit to often passing over an open package, for a "fresh" one.
aaaand...whee!
Maybe in the world of mindless retail, "the customer is always right" but this is absolutely NOT the case in other industries. As a developer and technology consultant, one of the most significant responsibilities I have is translating the customer's needs into something real and functional. In almost every case this involves at some point, me telling the customer what he wants may not be practical, economical, or even viable.
I vehemently believe that behind EVERY botched tech job, there was at least one greedy, obsequious player that was too afraid of telling the customer he is WRONG.
A few years back my company turned down a job for one of Stephen Spielburg's companies because what they wanted to do was ridiculous. We knew from the beginning that a bunch of detached executives had an idea for a net-based solution that would backfire on them, and we choose to not be the sacrificial lamb when the whole thing imploded. I lost some potential money in that deal, but I'm certain I would have been much worse off trying to patch the fatally flawed system they suggested we develop. Not a month goes by where I don't have to have one of these types of conversations with customers who want the earth, sun, moon and Jesus Christ piled on top of a rich creme filling that will rot in a few months time.
In the area of technology and application development, it's almost imperative for the customer to defer to the wisdom and superior working experience of the IT professional.
Back to the world of retail, how many of us have been in a store and saw some mindless consumer drool over a product that we knew was crap. Every day the goofballs in places like Best Buy have to nod and accommodate these people, even when, among the few employees that have a clue, are fully-aware the customer might as well toss their money down a drain.
Life is too short to go through that. I am so thankful I'm in a position where I have clients who respect the wisdom of my recommendations. If you're not there, you might want to strive to get there and not be a slave to the all the goofy, destructive, superficial mantras corporate america tries to brainwash consumers with.
Thats the number of times I've been in a Best Buy. I've never made a purchase there. The sales people don't know their products. They will annoy you until you leave. The prices are within $5 of Circuit City.
Guess where I buy TV's and stereo equipment?
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I've been spending my hard earned dollar at Best Buy for years, but no more. I (foolishly) purchased one of their "extended warranty" plans for an after-market car stereo.
I realize that what I've been through might be minor, but when I see crap about the customer not being right, it makes my blood boil. The reason is simple: companies like Best Buy take "the customer is always right? not anymore" to an extreme - where the customer becomes some kind of pinyata for them to beat on until all the coins drop from your pockets; where they try to make the customer feel like the bad guy for taking them up on sales, warranties, etc.
Here's a short version of the story:
Under this plan, I tried taking the stereo back because it wasn't functioning properly. A week and a half later, they called and said it was fixed. I took the time to reinstall it, only to find that not only wasn't it fixed, but that their fix had caused a new and unrelated problem with the unit. I took it back to the store, where they called a few days later saying it was fixed. The initials on the repair slip indicated it was the same tech, who said nothing was wrong with the unit. Not the problem I originally had it in for, or the new problem. The thing was fine according to this hack.
I took it back a third time being very specific that I did not want this same tech touching it. This time they wanted two pieces of wiring - the harness and the antenna adapter, which cost me about 30$. No problem. I brought all three items to the store, and they sent them all out. A few days later I got a call saying that the unit had been "junked" - they were going to just replace it.
Well, this unit isn't available any longer. No problem, I'll choose a comparable unit close to the price I paid originally. I also asked if they were going to replace, under the warranty, the two pieces of wiring they'd taken. Nope. This is where it starts to get ugly.
The CS rep I'm dealing with at the store has disappeared and returned, and decided on a model he believes is equivalent to what I had. It is priced at about 50$ less than what I paid and lacked several features of my old unit. If I wanted anything else, I would have to pay the difference from the price of this "comparable" unit. No, I can't just take a store credit and be done with it, thats not how it works, he tells me. "Well feature A doesn't seem to be on this model, I really liked that about my old model. Don't you think thats important?" I ask the CS rep. No, he tells me flatly. At this point, I'm getting pretty pissed. No!? WTF?
Back to the wiring stuff. They took the wiring from me, but they're not going to replace it. The CS rep says he'll call the repair people and have it sent to me - it'll be 7-10 days before I get it in the mail. I want to know why it wasn't already on its way, and how I'm supposed to install my "comparable" unit without it. Best Buy repair people knew they had junked the unit and that they weren't going to give me new wiring. The CS rep responds by saying he just called and it is being shipped. I try to explain to him that he's totally missing my point, but he can't hear me. They took something that they're not going to replace - therefore the items belong to ME. My property. Why don't I have them already? Why does it take you calling to get MY stuff back? Why won't you just give me new ones and be done with it?
At this point, he says something to the effect of "well, you're obviously not listening to me, so you can go talk to my supervisor on the other side of the store."
I had to walk away because the attitude this rep was copping was starting to cause a scene (which maybe isn't such a bad thing), but I was about to do something that would have prompted security to haul me off. At this point, a supervisor SHOULD have made him/herself available - this was all going on right in front of the service desk.
I was (am) royally pissed. The guy was a complete prick, didn't give a ri
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
I once worked in a department store in Australia. I sometimes performed the role of "door greeter", the person standing at the front door, the first point of contact for customers to ask directions etc. Part of this role was to immediately pick up the phone and contact security whenever one of a small number of "problem customers" walked into the store - known shoplifters, fradusters or problem customers who were rude or abusive towards staff.
...to which the manager replied "If you ever step foot in this store again, you will be asked to leave by our store security, or will be removed by the police if necessary."
On one occasion, such a person was in the store and started to argue and yell at the checkout staff, because she wanted prices from a sale that ended two weeks ago or something. When the manager arrived, this customer started to argue with him, and made one critical mistake:
Customer: "If you don't do what I want, I will never shop here again!"
Realising the error in her line of reasoning, the abusive customer simply turned around and left immediately.
I have NEVER found a store with such clueless employees. If they get screwed over, it's not the customers' fault IMO.
I purchased a DirecTV/Tivo system from BestBuy. I take it home and find out there's no card in the system. I can't make it work. The salesperson told me DirecTV would supply me with a card; DirecTV told me they wouldn't and I should get one from BestBuy. End result, I take the unit back to Best Buy and only then am I informed that they do have the cards, but they don't keep them in the boxes with the units. I tell them to piss off and I get a better deal doing business directly with DirecTV. I have NEVER found one thing in BestBuy that wasn't higher-priced than CompUSA, broken, incomplete or misleading. I'm glad this article came out, because for some perverse reason, Best Buy is on the way to CompUSA and I always stop there, but I'm now reminded that while I waste time poking my head in this store, I don't think I've ever gotten a better deal, or found less-clueless salespeople anywhere.
Can we all look forward to the time when these stores will be converted into Chuck-E-Cheeses? I could probably get superior tech support and an order of cheesy bread!
At the store, the clerks look up up the printer and then they tell him they wouldn't let him exchange it. The printer he had had been discontinued for years and there was no way Best Buy could have sold it to him. Basically they tell him tough luck.
Now in Best Buy's defense it looks like he's trying to scam the store, but my buddy asks them two questions. 1) If they can look up the printer, can they not look up if the box had been returned previously. 2) They can certainly look up his purchase history and see that he was a good customer.
After some reluctance and some heated words, they find out that the box had been returned 2 months before my buddy bought it. My buddy had bought thousands of dollars of appliances, electronics, movies, etc with almost no returns.
In my buddy's case they let him exchange the printer, but wouldn't had they not had the data and if he hadn't been so persistent.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I've had staff members RECOMMEND that I do those things and take advantage of those annoying Best Buy "perks" that they are instructed to pitch at you.
Best Buy is totally aware that the customer would quickly think of ways of abusing the policy. But they already figured that would happen. They're banking on the gobs of people who are trying to be "decent", and Best Buy is just abusing that goodwill. Same thing with rebates. They assume (correctly) that most will forget about it, or not photocopy your UPC, then return the product.
The problem is that now, with the internet, these notions have spread far further than they projected. People do it out of spite, even if they end up wasting time and money doing these things.
So Best Buy could either demonize these customers who are acting just as they predicted we would, or adapt (maybe they could just provide better customer service?)
I guess customer profiling is the next best thing. It's like... you asked for it. Be prepared to fight for your right to abuse their policies... or get used to shopping with Amazon or Circuit City.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
In a lot of ways I think Best Buy is a pain in the butt. Let's start with rebates.
But at the same time, anyone who says "the customer is always right" has never worked retail. Contrary to popular belief, at least 90 percent of the time the customer is full of shit. In the past, businesses only let them *think* they were right. Most businesses had to take that line, because they had a limited number of customers in a given location, and they wanted to make everyone happy. Thanks to an era of retailers on every street corner and nationwide sales via the internet, those days are over. I will admit that there are a lot of instances where businesses are very guilty of poor practices and poor customer support. But there are just as many instances, if not more, where the "customer" should be told to go shove his head up his ass and shuffle it on out the door.
Lets start with customers who regularly come in to a store, tie up a sales person asking endless questions, then go home and buy the item on the internet from a mailorder business. And before anyone fires up a reply saying "well then, the store should lower its prices", no brick-and-mortar retailer will ever be able to match the price of a mail-order only business, and you are being totally unrealistic (and very ignorant of business) expecting them to do so.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
#1. To get people into the store so they might purchase other FULL PRICE items.
#2. To clear stock so you can put in different stuff.
Stores tie up a LOT of money in their merchandise. If it ain't selling at the price you've marked, then you ain't gettin' money. So you mark it down until it DOES sell.
I don't see anything wrong with shopping around to find the discontinued and going-out-of-style bargins that you're selling for less than you paid.
The good ol Bait & Switch is alive and well...
Car lots
Video game consoles & Spam
Job-related markets
and Vacation Packages
Finding the other half trillion examples is left as an exercise to the reader.
My old man was a cheapskate, but he grew up in Europe without a lot of money. I was with him one trip when he pulled up to the Texaco in his Jaguar and bought $1 worth of gas. (OK, that was 2 gallons in those days, but still...) That would keep him going until the Esso where he could use his Esso Credit Card. Oh, and he got a fantastic deal on the Jaguar...
I don't have that kind of brass, or I'd be the "you're fired" customer. If I go to Joe's Eats, I don't know what a burger costs til I walk in the door and read the menu, and I don't know how good it is until it arrives. If I was brassy, I could then reject it and walk out without paying , but it's so much simpler at the big franchises. Plus, sometimes (often) my wife and I will split a single meal; I feel imposing to do that in a small private business (lack of "brass"), but McDonald's couldn't care less if you order nothing but a small coffee and a cup of water.
People will agree that getting rebates on returned merchandise is theft, but I don't think BB will win customers by telling them not to take advantage of sales. I think they'll win more friends with a "let's get simple" approach. Also, here in Canada, eh?, you pay sales tax on the price before rebate - no rebate on taxes - 14% or more! Hmm... I wonder if they claim GST (VAT) back on that rebate? Rebates are a practice I tolerate because I have no choice - and usually take months for the cheque to arrive - and oh yeah, the bank will charge you a service fee to deposit - another 50-cent insult...
The rebate is a gimmick that (a) allows them to advertise a lower than true price - exaggerrated low price gets you in the door so the salesman can work his magic... - and (b) puts some limit on the quantity you buy (If like many box stores, the small retailer says "Their retail is lower than my wholesale!". The Grocery chains enforce limits with their "club" cards, but food is a whole different class of retail.
Those stupid warranty programs are a rip. When Sears first tried selling me one years ago for my fridge, my response was "are you suggesting you expect this product to fail??" When we bought coverage for our car tires from the dealer, and had to claim while away from home, it was almost as more trouble than it was worth. "Sorry, that warranty is through the dealer 1500 miles away, talk to them..." Had to buy a used tire as a spare and ask the dealer later for reimbursement of extra expense. Good thing they liked us...
BTW, notice that the world's biggest, most successful retailer is the one that offers NO gimmicks or sseasonal sales or other crap? Just "everyday, low prices". OK, so they're not always, but for all the (many) complaints thrown at Wal-Mart, the rarest are "I just bought it and then it went on sale", "I found it MUCH cheaper at another store", and "they tried to sell me an extended warranty".
He probably should have just left the store after being shoved, and not gotten the Tube. I can't imagine why anyone would want to continue the transaction after something like that. Just go to another store.
Also, best buy isn't exactly cheap.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Most all manufacturers have warrantees. If a product breaks down on it's own, you can send it in (up to a year). On the other hand, if you have a service plan, you get about 3 years of coverage, you can take it back to the store for an instant return (rather then waiting for the mail) and the service plan covers you if you break it yourself (such as a broken screen on a PDA).
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I work for a major department store chain as a your basic associate (younger geeks have to find crap first jobs as we all know). Now I agree with all of you when it comes to the shopping experience: leave me the hell alone, if I need your help I'll ask for it.
But the thing is, it's not how you or I want your shopping experience to be, it's how the management wants your shoppping experience to be.
I didn't say hi to you within 30 seconds of your walking into my department? Bad associate!
I did say hi to you, but a manager walked by so now they insist I have to say hi to you again, even though that just makes you mad.
Done shopping? NO! How about more of the stuff you've got now, but in different colors/styles or accessories even though you told me you only came in for a pair of socks.
Now you're done shopping? Would you like to put this on our store issued credit card? Don't have one? Well what's holding you back from opening a 25% interest account? I must insist!
(Incidentally they feed us BS saying that the real reason they issue cards is because those customers who have them tend to be more loyal and spend more than on your standard everyday credit card, but if that was the case why charge so much interest?)
Now that our transaction is complete, and all you want to do is get the hell out of here, would you like to fill out a feedback card describing your shopping experience and determing my worth as a human being to my superiors?
Unless your dealing with just a complete asshole, odds are the employee is as equally annoyed as you are by pushing those nonsense extras.
Cut us some slack ehh?
I have worked for best buy for over 4 years now, and well best buy sucks. But for a lot more reasons than what most people bitch about. I wont go into that stuff.
First humans in general are assholes. Humans work at best buy and humans shop at best buy. So people on both side are going to be aggrevated.
Now to my main few points.
rebates: Not all rebates are offered by Best Buy(the actuall company). Most rebates are manufactures rebates, so for the people who bitch about not getting those, call the manufacture.
PRP/PSP: For all the people who dont get them, yes there is a quite a people who actually do. I dont believe that a PRP/PSP necessary on all thebvitems that we sell, but on quite a few i think its worth it.PS2 for instance i get the damn PRP in a heart beat, best buy sends soooooooo MANY defective ones back it ridiculus. OR maybe a overpriced really big tv. Because they tend to produce the customers best buy wants to fire. Costumer buys $999 TV and it breaks 30 days later, cant return it and they didnt buy the service plan. SO they come to best buy and they throw a big tantrum. Sorry for ya, then i got to call the cops cause they wont leave.
and yes the sales associates can be a little pushy, but its not their fault, if they dont they get fired plain and simple.
oh yeah one more.
advertised price: If allcostumers actually came to buy an item at ad price best buy wouldnt be so upset. But alot of the customers that come in the first thing out their mouth is "what kind of deal can u get me?" These are the customers that best buy wants to fire. they want to wheel and deal and try their hardest to get a few extra bucks off of something thats already on sale. They take the longest to get to buy something thing and yes it ends up costing Best buy money.
Best buy is not the best company in the world, but it is in the business to make money.
Start a Co-op & own the store.
If you work in customer service and you believe that harassing customers about crap like PSPs is the proper way of going about your job, you seriously need a new job. I've worked in customer service for over 6 years, and now manage a store. If any of my employees ever treated a customer the way I'm reading in this thread about Best Buy customers being treated, that employee would be thrown out on their ass in no time at all.
Customer service is NOT customer harassment. They are two very different things. Good customer service/salesmanship is saying "we also have an extended service plan available which gives you these extra benefits (lists benefits). Would you be interested in finding out more about that?" Then, if the plan is well presented in a curteous manner, the customer may be interested in finding out more, and the sales rep can tell them more and get them signed up. If on the other hand the person doesn't want it, a good customer service/sales rep will back off, sell them the product, find out if there are any other items they may need ("do you need any cables to get that hooked up?" or "especially since you won't be covered by the extended service plan, you should be aware that the biggest killer of these widgets is power surges... do you have a quality surge supressor or UPS?"). Then the customer leaves well informed and having made a purchase, but feeling as though they were helped by a truly caring person instead of feeling harassed and pushed into buying something they didn't want.
You say you "see people all the time who enjoy getting pissed off at customer reps." Did you ever stop to consider that probably many of them have good reason? Yes I get the occasional inconsolable asshole in my store, but I probably have at most 1 or 2 pissed off customers every month.
All in all, customer service is what you make of it, and customers will typically treat employees much as they are treated by the employee. If the customers are treated with respect, they will typically treat the employees with respect. If the rep is rude and pushy, the customer will also be rude and pushy, to an extreme.
I KNOW why they use rebates. I STILL think that they just need to simplify somethings by just OFFERING IT AT A LOWER PRICE. I was thinking if you reduce all the overhead on store specific rebates, then you may be able to charge everyone the lowest price in the first place.
I just want to post one HAPPY story in this thread:
This week I had had it with my iPaq. It started to get to be a pain in the butt to charge. Something was going bad in the sync connector you use to charge the device. I bought one of the final tap plans with it offered by Compusa that include things like ooops I dropped it and you walk in and they replace it deals. It's not what I would call a extended warantee, but assurance program that helps Joe Sixpack get more comfortable with new technology. ANYWAY, I took my reciept and iPaq in to CompUSA and they of course did not have the model I had (5555....has only been out a year and is already discontinued...not like Toshiba's who have a model they had just brought out 6 months ago and you already can't get it). Anyway, I had paid around 650 for the iPaq last summer(when it was first released). They only had about 4 or 5 models to choose from with Windows Mobile OS. One of these was the 4350. Only 2 or 3 things it does not have that the 5555 has. The manager felt bad they did not have a equal model so they gave me that one (which is just fine), a free new tap plan (one where I mail it in and they fix it or ship me a refurb if I drop it and kill it) and 100 dollar gift card. When they were ringing the replacement up, they also had a 50 dollar gift card rebate and I got that as well. The manager just really had to give me a replacement and nothing more and he gave me a deal I will probably never get again. It's things like this that make me want to go back to the store. Of course when you talk rebates though, CompUSA is definitely the KING of rebates. I have no problem with rebates, but here's the thing:
DO NOT ADVERTISE PRICE AFTER REBATES!
Cell phone companies are guilty of this as well. I won't say that I get suckered in, but people like my Mom do sometimes. My thing is....advertise the price I need to pay at the register. If you want to say there's a rebate on it in the ad, then do so, but don't make it like that's the price I am going to pay at the register. Also, if a customer ONLY buys during sales...that SHOULD tell you something. It should tell you your price is too damn high!
Best Buy, I have no problems with you keeping lists of customers who commit fraud, but please don't penalize me for waiting until you put something on sale.
Gorkman
They just opened a store up in Renton, worth the extra distance compared to Beast Buy in Tukwila.
Their salesmen are attentive, and the way they seem to have the departments set up is at least 10 salesmen at any given time. One salesman had to take off while I was perusing scanners, but that was understandable, since I was browsing for over 10 minutes.
Their checkout counters are incredibly fast and efficient as well. I'm sure in the cases of sales there may be more congestion, but on the last day of one sale (dual mode DVD-+R/W for $69, and 25 blank DVD-Rs for $17), I was in and out of the store within just 30 minutes (including drooling at their HD sets and drinking at the coffee bar).
Ahhh, the coffee bar. They have a decent coffee shop with *gasp* reasonable prices! Can you say root beer float with real vanilla ice cream for $2 and change? That alone makes the trip worth it.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
At the end of 2002, I was delighted to find a pair of CDJ-1000 CD players on sale at bestbuy.com for the ungodly low price of $800 and change each. I bought two immediately. Then I received an email indicating that they were revoking the offer. That's not allowed under the law, so I called them up and offered to file for fraud with the FTC.
They treated me like shit, and refused to honor the price. I filed against them at the FTC (yeah, a lot of good that did me--ho hum). I also demanded that they not process the charge on my card.
Not only did they charge my credit card, they double-charged it to the tune of $4000! Consequently, I spent the week Christmas 2002 with my credit card maxed out for a pair of turntables that I wasn't getting.
Obviously, Best Buy should be shot dead on the spot and dragged through the streets like the scum-sucking frauds that they are.
I (unfortunately) work at an Office Max, and we have some customers who habitually try to abuse the system. We have one person who buys a printer, then wants to return it just before the end of the return period. After, of course, using up ALL the ink. Needless to say we no longer accept returns from him. Another went through 5 Palm Pilots, in about 10 days. I'm not sure what she did to break them, but these are the only five allegedly "defective" Palms we had all year. It's hard to believe it was just bad luck. When she returned the fifth one we told her that we wouldn't take any more Palms back from her, she'd have to go through the manufacturer warranty if she bought another Palm from us and had problems.
Then of course there's the "vultures" who come in every Sunday (arriving about an hour before we open and banging and kicking the doors because we won't open early for them) and get everything that's "free after rebate". They'll get things like Hard Drives but don't even own a computer, they just plan to sell them. Thank God we stopped doing "free" stuff.
On the other hand, we are FORCED to try to sell protection plans (and lose hours if we don't sell enough) and pester people to buy extra stuff. It's one thing to offer a USB cable when they buy a 3-in-1, but we're supposed to do it if they just buy ink or paper also. That radio in our ear is "reminding" us all the things that could possibly be associated with whatever your buying. At my store, at least, we make some attempt to have only one sales droid pester any given customer, instead of all of us one after the other.
BTW, the best way to keep the sales droids away is to hold a cell phone to your ear and pretend to be having a conversation. It's far from guaranteed, but it will help. And mail in rebates are, IMO, just a way for the store to make interest off your money. That's why they take 3 to 4 months to send the check. Wait untill the specified product is sold out and you may get (if it's a manufacturer rebate, not a store rebate) the substitute item at the "after rebate" price at the register. I picked up a DVD +-RW for $60 cash that way (list was $199).
Open Source for Open Minds
I found this article and all the comments really interesting.
Last fall, I needed a new refrigerator and saw one in a Best Buy ad that was at a decent price and was really just what I was looking for. I like it pretty well and had made up my mind to buy it, but then the Best Buy sales staff entered. I didn't *even* get to the arguing about the extended warranty part before their general rudeness had so thoroughly alienated me that I told them "I changed my mind; your bad service and attitude just blew the sale for you" and walked out.
I then drove a few miles to Sears, where I found a fridge with all the same features, and free delivery (which made it the same price as the one at Best Buy), and the sales people were great.
Best Buy's staff is the best advertisement their competitors could wish for. That would have been my first time to buy at a Best Buy store, and now I will not set foot in one again. I wouldn't care if they were beating Fry's, Circuit City, and everyone else on the price of every item, I'd rather pay more somewhere else than buy from Best Buy.
What a load!
I have spent some time in retail, and I can easily say that there are "special" customers. The reality is very simple, without customers (demons and not), there would be NO Best Buy.
It is all too often I get into the conversation of "Where has the customer service ethic gone?" Well, it certainly was thrown out of the handbook at Best Buy (and many other establishements). These Stepford type sales people are absolutely the WORST, they will do/say anything to make a sale, it is no wonder they have "Demon Customers"
One major problem is the completely convoluted marketing practices. It is no wonder you have "gun shy" customers, because they (many retailers) are always working some angle on you. Everyone wants you to be a part of their "club", or sell you some Extended Warranty plan thats got so many gaps for them to wiggle out its like swiss cheese.
"No, I don't want a $10 extended warranty on my $2.99 ethernet cable, I'll take the risk"
Sales Person: "You do realize that if you are a member of our buyers club, you would receive an additional $2.00 off the price of this $5000 LCD, just fill out this form...by the way, have I talked to you about that warranty?"
Customer: "No thank you. I bought the warranty, remember?"
Sales Person: "Well now that you decided to take the warranty, how about the super duper deluxe warranty for just $100 dollars more?
Customer: "What is that?
Sales Person: "Thats the In-Store warranty that we actually honor, the other one is for tech support only, in India."
Customer: "I'll just take the standard warranty, thank you."
Sales Person: "Would you like to buy a $100 pre-paid calling card? It's a great rate! You can put it with your warranty information in the event you need to call tech support, it's in India you know"
Customer: "uhhh...Sure, thanks for the tip"
Sales Person: "I see you got the standard $29.99 installation kit, so you'll be needing a power cord since it doesn't come with one, but I'll cut you a discount on that. Should I put that on the warranty too, it's only an extra $5.00?
Customer: "uhh...sure"
Sales Person: "Do you have an Internet connection now, or do you need an installation CD?"
Customer: "I have DSL, why?"
Sales Person: "Great! you'll be able to download the new version of AOL dial-up service quick! It's a great service, and think about it, you'll be getting it FREE for 1 year and then it will only cost you $14.99 per month for the next 3 years and it's saving you $100 on this great TV!"
Customer: "Oh..Yeah, thats right.... Hey, this thing does do HD, right? How come it doesn't say so here on the box?"
Sales Person: "Oh, yeah baby, this thing has everything and if you have any problems, just give me a call, and I will help you out myself.
Customer: "Great, thanks again".
Later that day...
Customer(On the phone with Mgr):"Listen, could you help me out for a second, I am trying to find the HD connections on th---"
Mgr: "Sir,like our sales person informed you and our AD says, the sale model is not HD , I don't have time for this, but luckily you bought the warranty, just give our tech support a call!"
CLICK!
Manager: "Damn Demon Customers!"
I have learned many things being a former employee for bestbuy, hence why I am a former employee due to the fact that i despised so many of their practices.
For starters, the best buy in brentwood tennessee, i have known the managers there to throw customers out or not let them purchase very large items in home theater if they were not willing to get the service plan, and this was a manager. This stuff happened all the time if people refused to purchase accessories or more stuff all over the store.
Second, I started working in the computer department, wanting to kill a day and get paid for it, i sat down and read the whole computer department training manual. I found out a few weeks later that I was the only person in the history of that best buy to actually fully read one of the training manuals, most of the time they dont even read them. In the computer department i would walk by and hear some of the most outlandish claims thrown out by salesmen, and most of them confided in me that they didnt know the first thing about computers, they only knew prices, not what was best for the customer. Lastly are the service plans. Best buy used to have a policy fo judging sales people by their service plan sales but it had been cancelled a few months before i joined. I would offer the service plan to those people and items I thought it would actually be useful on, mainly emachines since if they broke they had a policy of not trying to fix it but just replacing it with whatever model was equal to the price that person purchased theirs at, a hell of a deal if your pc breaks every 6 months. I had been talked to many times for not hawking the service plans extremely hard, even if the person obviously did not want one.
One final item, which may not be unusual for a corporation of that size, but still pissed me off. One of my friends working there completely destroyed his back doing lifting for them. A few days after his accident while he was working he was fired, due to some lame excuse about paperwork which no one does. Of course the friend filed suit but was constantly followed by a private investigator to make sure he wasnt doing anything that could be used against him in court.
Anyway, thats just my 2 cents from a former employee, I still purchase things there but usually only on sales.
For the last ten years, the big watch-word in IT was CRM - "Customer Relationship Management" - the idea that you had to really treat the customer right and constantly get in the customer's face with how wonderful a company you were so they'd all want to do business with you since you were such a great friendly place.
I knew it was a fucking joke the minute I read about it - because I KNOW management - and management's idea of CRM is dropping spyware on your computer so they can bombard you with crap advertising for products that don't work and nobody wants - and treating their employees - those people who are the front-line to their customers - like dirt.
"CRM" is a joke concept given the nature of business in this country (for that matter, in most of the world.)
The Corporation is NOT your friend any more than the State is.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Secondly, if you want attention from employees and can't seem to get it, there are two ways to guarantee a conversation with an employee. The first is to dress nicely (collared shirt, nice slacks, belt) and act really confused. They will see a person with money and little technical knowledge and will pounce. The second way to get attention from employees is to look kind of scruffy and act as if you are about to shoplift something. I promise that an employee will come right over and ask in a rather stern voice, "can I help you?"
The last thing that people seem to be bitching about is the salespeople pushing PRP/PSPs. There are a few ways to avoid this.
1. don't shower (this is a little gross)
2. act as if you don't speak English/or are deaf
3. wear a thinkgeek shirt (whenever I wear my Linux shirts I get A LOT more respect from the salespeople)
4. start to hit on to the salesperson.
5. inform them that you are allergic to "stupid" (and then start to cough)
6. just say yes to whatever they want you to buy, and then when you get to the register, don't buy it!
In a situation like this you go and pull out our cellphone (you likely have one), or if you don't have one go get another phone, and call the police. When it's all an video, it's all nice and clear cut. You would be amazed at what the threat of jail time can do to attitudes. Don't wait until later to get a lawyer or some such, call the police then and there. You may have to wait an hour or so (face it, getting pushed in a Best Buy doesn't rate as high on the list) but they will come, and if you press the issue, those repsonsible will be charged.
Like with MP3 players - if it doens't work the way it was advertised to work, I'm much more prone to break the damn thing and THEN return it - just because I don't want to pay 15% because I was lied to about the capabilities of the player.
feh. stuff.
Ok, since this is a Best Buy Bashfest, I'll spill my story (the short version).
Went into BB the day after Thanksgiving '03 to buy a doorbuster DVD for $20. 6am, got in, got the player, and was headed out. Guy at the door stops me, insists on seeing my receipt. I have always refused such requests (politely), just on principle (Don't treat your customers like shoplifters by default). Years ago, when I worked at Computer City, I was advised by the manager that while we could request to see receipts at door checkpoints, we had no entitlement to it. If someone refused, we had to make an instant decision if we really thought that they were a risk, and detain them for the police. He said if we detained, we better be right! Anyway, after politely refusing to show my receipt, I paused to dispose of my now-empty coffee cup in a nearby can, and when I look up, here's this guy again, now just inches from my face, and he has his hands on my package (the DVD, pervs!). I immediately requested the manager, my full intention being to show my receipt to the manager, and while we were both inconvenienced, to explain to her how offensive the checkpoint policy was. As soon as she approached me, she advised a nearby employee to call the police. I then released my grip on the package to retreive my receipt from my back pocket, when the employee decided he was going to snatch the box out of my hands. Well, since he didn't meet the same amount of resistance as he expected, his motion toward me was very exaggerated, and (this sounds funny, but just visualize it) in a downward motion, his head struck my hand. THey took my DVD player, and returned it to my credit card for me. (where I come from, we call that stealin'!). When the police arrived, I was charged with Battery. The police refused my request to review the Surveillance tapes, and just said to "tell it to the judge". I am still battling this thing, but I intend to win. The court offered me a simple $100 fine to plead guilty, but I have opted to pay the several thousand in attorney's fees to defend my good name (and to ensure that the status of my CCW permit is not affected). After several hearings where Best Buy has failed to provide the videotape that would corroborate my story, they have been threatened with Contempt of Court. Oh, and it is in the police report that the mgr on duty stated that there _was_ video coverage of the area in which the incident happened.
Lastly, It should be noted that what started the whole thing was an accusation of shoplifting, but when they found that they were mistaken, they fabricated the battery story just to show me who was boss. If anybody has any similar horror stories regarding the LV locations of BB, I'd love to hear them.
A reprint of an April 30, 2004 Washington Post article is at http://student-voices.org/news/index.php3?NewsID=1 0915
Quotes from the article:
"The principal of a private high school in the District has accused the new Best Buy store in Tenleytown of discriminating against the school's black students by having them followed as they shopped, subjecting them to searches and, in one instance, letting in a group of young white students to shop but barring a group of young blacks."..."Jennifer Schwab, a representative of Best Buy's customer care office, wrote that she was "disappointed we did not meet your expectations when a couple of your students were shopping in our store." She provided no response to the specific allegations."..."The principal decided to go public with his complaint after he said his students were subjected to further discriminatory incidents, including one witnessed by another school official."
I think i'm one of those demon customers. I go in, install linux, (qnx once) on a whole row of computers and then ask a rep if I can get my computer like theirs (put on dumb face) Of course they eventually see that it was me and my friend and we get (literally) chased out of the store to avoid confrontation. The funny thing is, the second you stick an alternative os on them people seem to be more intrested with something they haven't seen before, and a few of them had people starting up snake and tetris.
Guy at the door stops me, insists on seeing my receipt.
You're still on their property, and I think they have a right to monitor what is leaving their store. It's not like they searched your pocekts or anything.
The mentality that says, "I'm insulted if I have to participate in security screening" bugs the crap out of me.
Evil is the money of root.
We still believe in the state protecting the weak from the abuses of the strong. But then I remember that those American business practices have already substantially eroded our culture. How long will this one last? How long will it be before we lose all that and have to beg to be allowed into a store promising to spend whatever the manager deems appropriate.
--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
This was pretty radical stuff back before 1998 - then Peppers & Rogers began pushing it in the CRM space.
Of course, this has nothing to do with CRM products like siebel, vantive, etc. But instead has everything to do with methodology - in this case Relationalship Marketing. In this methodology Peppers & Rogers are the thought leaders:
http://www.1to1.com/home.aspx?ItemID=548
As far as bestbuy identifying their worst customers. That's fine, nothing really that wrong with it. It will probably just result in them *not* sending promotions, sales info, etc to those customers.
Don't forget, mail-in rebates are also a way to get you to voluntarily hand over your personal information to a third party so Best Buy can claim it didn't sell it without your knowledge, and the third party can claim it has an existing business relationship with you (calculating the probability of a kickback is left as an exercise for the reader).
Unfortunately I was once a Best Buy employee and didn't like it. It wasn't that you were mistreated as an employee but you were just mentally abused by all the bullshit. Every morning you'd go to work and have to watch a movie and/or listen to a long speech of how terrible the "team" was doing. I got so tired of hearing the word team that I was ready to hit someone by the time I left.
Thing is though, after a while it doesn't just settle in. It nags at you worse as time goes by. I don't think it's the managers' fault though. They have a job the same as I did and they were just relaying their orders on to the employees. I don't know who to blame but it's rediculous how much they push you to sell the service plan.
You think the service plan is bad though? It IS! However, you should also take into account of all the other miserable means of sales you have to go through. There is a "process" in which you are required to sell things. This entire process is what you had to watch in those movies in the morning.
Anyway, you were required to great the customer, shake their hands, introduce yourself and your name, ask the customer his/her name, little small talk in between (even though they didn't "advertise" that), ask them lifestyle questions, find out what they were into, match them up to things that fit the style of the person (which never worked), start the sales pitch on the service plan or replacement plan early in the conversation. After getting the sale you were then required to "attach" at least 2 accessories because a sale isn't a sale unless they get the complete package. After that you were then required to try and finish them off on the service plan.
Upon succeeding or failing on the service plan sale you were then required to do even more. Now it's time to pitch the sale of services and subscriptions. That includes DirecTv, Satellite Radio, NetFlix, Msn, Comcast Cable, Reward Zone, Magazines (which were just coming into play as I quit thank god), and Rhapsody. Of all those mentioned, the only one worth a damn was Reward Zone. NetFlix was cool but it wasn't for everyone yet we were chewed out because of that. Satellite Tv and cable internet were things that most people already had or they didn't want anyway.
It's just a shame that Best Buy is the way it is. I told them the day I started working there that I loved their store. I also told them I was coming to work because I loved the environment and how things worked and that it wasn't because of the money. The day I left I told them that I wish I had never worked there because it made me hate the store with a passion that I'd have never had, or at least not for a good while anyway.
So the moral of my rant here is that Best Buy employees aren't always the prime reason of hte problem. You guys will never understand the pressure they put on you to sell something and how low they run you into the ground mentally if you don't get the sale their way.
Not Best Buy, but CompUSA.
I was having a computer repaired. The woman and her husband in front of me were arguing viciously with the manager that they should be able to buy a memory card that was on sale two days prior at the sale price.
She was in a wheelchair, she was vulgar, abusive, played the pity card, etc. Her husband was no better. They even lied that they had called in and the "manager" had told them they could. (note: she was talking to said manager)
The manager wouldn't budge.
I was amazed and amused at the gall these assholes exhibited and watched as the worked their way out of the store and through the parking lot. Making *very* sure everyone saw how upset the poor, crippled woman was.
Upshot. When they got back to their truck, the "crippled" woman got out of her wheelchair, picked it up, and TOSSED it into the truck .
I told the manager what I'd seen and all he could do was shake his head.
And people wonder why retailers come to despise some people.
After a few more problems with the way BB treats its customers I don't shop there anymore. There is a Circuit City right across the street.
My family has had several great experiences with Circuit City. We bought an open-box big screen TV (for a good bit less than a new one), which promptly broke a week later. As frustrating as that was, Circuit City delivered a brand new one the next day, at no cost to us. When this same TV broke again a few years later (bad model, i suppose) we called in to have it serviced under the extended warranty. Also another poor experience at first, as the repairman seemed relatively clueless and couldn't fix the TV, but a few weeks later when the TV still hadn't been fixed, Circuit City gave us store credit for the full price (unopened box) of the TV when it was new. That let us upgrade our 4:3 standard resolution TV to a bigger 16:9 HDTV for something like $60 more.
As much as I hate those 'extended warranties', Circuit City's definitely turned out in our favor.
About 6 months ago, bestbuy.com had a deal - buy the Tenacious D DVD, get a free four-song EP with unreleased tracks. Considering the DVD was selling for less than I had paid for their full-length CD (and it was a 2-DVD set at that), I ordered it, and decided to pick up the DVD at the store that night and have the CD shipped to me.
When I picked up the DVD, the spindle inside the case they gave me was broken, and as a result, one of the discs was so horribly scratched I couldn't play it. "No problem", I thought, "I'll just return it as a defective item and get a new copy." The customer service rep I dealt with said that because I ordered the DVD online, they'd have to void the sale, charge the price back to my card, then create a new sale, but the end result would be the same - I'd get an unscratched DVD. They even let me open the box right there to insure that the discs were OK. So I went home, new DVD in hand, and was happy.
A few days later, when I was checking my credit card online, I noticed the original charge from bestbuy.com, and an additional $17 charge dated the next day. I called their customer support, and was told that since I voided the sale of the DVD, they were charging me full price for the EP. I spent about half an hour on the phone arguing about Best Buy's return policies (she suggested that I should've shipped the DVD I picked up at the B&M store to them at my expense in order to get the replacement), then asked to speak to her boss. Of course, he was unavailable, but I got his name, direct phone number, and a promise that he'd call within 24 hours.
I never did hear back from the manager, but after leaving him a voice mail (where I used phrases like "never shop with you again" and "I will call the Better Business Bureau"), I got the ridiculous price of the EP refunded.
I've never had a problem with the staff at the B&M stores, but it'll be a cold day in hell before I buy from their website again.
1. Those damn rebate slips!
2. Constant pressure to buy useless extended warrenty, even when I tell them in plain English that I don't want it.
3. After purchasing a washer and dryer at Best Buy and paying to have them installed, after three attempts of coming to my house they were still unable to get the darn thing installed. (First time they broke my exhaust hose then proceded to leave a big stinking dump in my bathroom, second time didnt have necessary parts and didnt know what parts I needed to purchase to make it work, etc). In the end, I installed it myself with a couple friends.
"Do not mention the fucking PSP again, this is abusive, I have stated clearly 3 times that I am uninterested and have also kindly asked you to simply just stop talking to me about it at all. You don't seem to get it. Here can you understand this "I don't want the fucking PSP"
Rule #1: Never drop the f-bomb. It gets you noplace and changes the basis of the conversation. Forty years ago, it was shocking and people would react by surrendering. Today it just makes them angry and you immediately lose any opportunity to win the argument.
... my mother would never be able to buy another galon of milk. She regularly uses coupons with sales to buy $50 worth of groceries for under $10. Once in a while the store winds up "owing" her money (though of course they never pay)! Yes I realize that the stores get money back for the coupons, but still.... If sales make a company unprofitable, then they just shouldn't have sales. Don't blame the customers.
On the other hand, those who buy, file for rebate and return... Something needs to be done about that. How about a database that the product company can check and update before sending out the rebate, and the store can check and update before accepting the return?
I bought a camcorder for my wife. By the time I gave it to her, and she wanted a digital camera instead, it was too late to return it. It was unopened and they would not take it back for refund/exchange/store credit/ or with restock penalties...Argggggggggg..
We just ordered a table and chairs. The sales guy was really pushing the "fabric protection" crap that they spray on for another $45. I declined several times and he went ahead with the sale. We were sitting on a couch waiting for him to do paperwork when the store manager came by and said "whenever someone declines the fabric protection I have to find out why." We explained that we don't feel the need. I said I'd get it if they waived the sales tax (which they do for larger purchases). They ended up taking off 3 percent (tax is 6) which made it about the same price WITH the fabric protection. I spent the whole trip home trying to figure out why that's so important. My conclusions is the manager must get a bonus for selling this stuff and did so at the stores expense in this case - We paid the same price and got the stuff in addition to what we were willing to take home for that price.
I can't believe this guy...
"Those customers, they're smart, and they're costing us money."
The implication being that its the stupid customer they make money on?
Brad Anderson, Best Buy's chief executive, said:
"That would be directly equivalent to somebody going to an ATM and getting money out without putting any in,"
Um... isn't that the whole purpose of an ATM... you take out money without puttiny any in?
At least you won. I purchased an open-box Viewsonic monitor years ago, with the promise (printed on the box in huge letters) that Best Buy would honor the manufacturer's warranty. Six months later, the monitor went Kaput. Best Buy no longer carried it, or ANY monitor that met the specs it had-- and refused to replace it. I was offered store credit only. Nothing they had would match the refresh rate and resolution of the broken monitor. I went around and around with them for months, finally receiving an email from customer service that "this was the last email I would receive on the subject."
While I'll admit to having bought a DVD or two there in the intervening four years, they haven't seen a dime for hardware or software. Which, as in your case, has been a significant amount.
The problem, though, is that there is no real alternative. When BB screwed me, I tried other stores-- but when my HDTV failed it took HHGregg (local electronics chain) 4 house calls followed by SIX WEEKS in the shop to diagnose and repair it, despite promising 1-week turnaround. They missed four promised delivery dates to return the set after that.
Circuit City hasn't done it yet, but I can't imagine they're any more honorable than the rest.
What do you do when ALL your choices are like that? Stop buying, I guess.
...that George Costanza reads slashdot.
If he really cared he would have known ahead of time that your food was late, given you a discount on the meal and politely asked you to not penalize the waitress for the cook's error.
Keep in mind, waitresses get paid less than minimum wage in the US. Not leaving a tip on a $400 bill is literally taking food out of the mouths of that waitresses kids(or from her tuition, rent whatever). You probably ruined her whole day. My wife has come home crying because people somehow think that they don't have to pay a tip.
Actually I'm kind of surprised they didn't add gratuity to the bill. Usually a bill over 100 will automatically have it added to protect the wait staff from tightwads.
Next time, don't take it out on the waitress if she did her job. Demand that the manager cut you a break on the bill and then tip based on the full bill(15 to 20%). Otherwise you're being an asshole and contributing to the sterotype that foreigners are poor tippers.
However, it's been my experience that BB more often then occasionally won't have a rebate item on stock/shelves right when the store opens on the first day of the rebate sale. 3 cases where I've tried to get a rebate item (modem, HD, monitor) I'd get there and be the first few when the doors open only to find the item NOT on the shelf. Ask a salesperson and they'll say there's no more in stock. When questioned about the promotion, it's the usual B.S. "The item has been on sale for the past week, so we ran out".
In point of fact, this is usually the case on any good priced sale item. I've seen it time and time again. I worked at Best Buy back in the late 90's, and this *always* happened. The real reason is that the items simply did not arrive on the truck. They have a scheduling system whereby the items in question either arrive a week early or fail to arrive until three days after. Usually three days after the sale starts. Understand that a) the circulars are printed on a national or regional basis, not on a store basis and b) the stores get them about 1 day before the sale itself. So half the time when an item was a good sale item, we wouldn't actually have the item in stock because it hadn't shown up on the truck yet. Invaribly there would be customers complaining about "bait and switch" or other tactics being used, and the only response we could give was "What the fuck do you want us to do? The item has not shown up at the store yet. I can't sell you what we don't fuckin' have." Best I could do was offer a raincheck at that point.
Whether this is intentionally planned or just the result of shitty planning in terms of truck arrivals, I never did find out. But it happened like clockwork, on at least one or two really good deals in every sale. Usually in the computer stuff, which is why I dealt with it so much.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Read my story. After being chased into the parking lot for failing to be searched by their door nazi and threatened with police action, Best Buy has guaranteed that I won't be back.
-- Mark Lyon http://www.marklyon.org
Actually, I did have one issue recently, but that was with the individual not the store. I brought a TV abck that had a large magenta spot in one corner. After waiting for at least an hour in line, and being passed up several times for people who hadn't waited as long, I finally made the guy deal with me. He plugged the TV in, ran a magnetic wand over the screen, then said "there, it's gone." It most certainly wasn't, if anything it was worse, and I said as much. He argued for a minute, then I just said "look, it's still there, and I want a replacement or a refund, period. I'll talk to someone else if I have to." Without another word he put it through, I went and grabbed another, and that was that.
That was one guy, I've never had a problem like that before, and it was extremely busy that day so I couldn't really blame him for being on edge, though there's not a chance in hell he didn't see the spot, so he was deliberately bullshitting me. Whatever.
I can't say there are no problems at Best Buy, but that's not a universal experience.
You built a fuckin' store the size of Texas and have an inventory of goods bigger than some 3rd world countries. Yet, you only have 2 cash registers of your 30, actually open at any one time because you want to save money. Here's an idea, open all of your cash registers every operating hour of the day and advertize..."No lines in our store, ever" The sales from that will more than pay for the shitty wages that you think you're saving. I don't know how many times I've dropped my items and walked out of Best Buy/Home Depot/etc. because those idiots had 2 registers open with a huge line.
I was at the Mall recently, and was parked such that walking through BB made sense. The DVD racks are on the main aisle, so my wife and I paused to look through them. We saw a movie we had been wanting to buy - it was $22.95. We started to buy it when I noticed that there was a "holiday special" or some such - that same movie and another by the same main actor (we wanted that movie too) were in a pack for $19.95. So, save $3, get another movie. There was another such pack with 2 other movies we wanted for the same price, so we got it too.
While I would never go to BB before that day, I now start to think about it on holidays - just to check out the dvd bundles ;)
The clerk committed a felony against a customer. By any reasonable social standard, he should get fired.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Basically, he was eating 5000 calories a day - double the recommended amount, high in sugar, starch and fat, low in vegetables, fresh fruits, fiber etc. Do you think he didn't know what was going to happen? And, his girlfriend was a vegetarian, so his body REALLY wasn't acclimatized to this diet either.
McDonald's sells what people want to buy. If you want healthy, they have salads, they have small regular burgers, they have frozen fruit'n'yoghurt parfaits, and - hey! - they have SMALL soft drinks. Maybe 200 calories of sugar water is a better idea than 700?? They have plain milk too!
Someone else is now doing a movie about losing weight by eating McDonald's food. They're going to eat healthy and sensibly... Do you think it'll get as much publicity?
BTW the guy in the movie said that he wasn't picking on McDonalds (hmmm...) After all, he said, their food is pretty much the same nutrition as any other fast food places. It's the sheer volume that causes the health problems.
Remember when a regular coke - those little greenish bottles - was 8 oz.? Probably before your time, but that was what passed for a regular serving then. Now, you only see that small a serving on the nutrition label "suggested serving" of packaged foods...
If every pissed off customer just walked out without getting his name and complaining to management, all that management knows is that he has a 100% success rate in upselling customers.
You were part of the problem that kept him there, not the solution that might have helped.
'McCuskey, an industrial chemical salesman, said he shares Best Buy's frustration with "extreme price shoppers" who are so low-cost oriented that it's tough to make money off of them.' This comment floors me. It's like they're blaming the customers for having low profits. As if they deserve to be more profitable.
I understand you have a new policy concerning customers, and I believe that I am the customer you are targeting with that policy. I hereby put you on notice that I *will* only buy things from you when they are on sale because they are otherwise overpriced in your store (MSRP, my ass). And if I buy it with a rebate, fulfill the rebate and then find that I am unsatisfied with the product, I *will* return it, and you can worry about the rebate issues.
On the day that you stop having good sales and rebates I will no longer buy from you. I am a veteran of the dot-com boom when everyone and their mother sold things at outrageous prices and then disappeared. I was there when 800.com sold 3 DVDs for $1 with nothing else to buy and they are now gone. Egghead.com had great sales when they went online, but no longer offered competitive pricing so good riddance. Treat me and my fellow customers like crap and you won't even have a store left in your native state of Minnesota. Until then I will suck you dry since (shocking as this may be to Best Buy's management) I am not there to give them as much of my money as I can in each individual product I buy. I want the most bang for the buck.
To those that were actually physically accosted by an employee, I don't know what magic restraint you have, but I would have put that person into an armlock at that point. NOTHING gives them the right to touch you, especially when they are trying to coerce your hard earned money in that fashion.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Exactly ..... they're a gamble. Next time you're in a bookie's shop -- preferably around the time of some important sporting fixture, so it's nice and packed -- add up the estimated total wealth of all the punters, and compare it to the estimated total wealth of the owner.
On which side of the glass is there more money?
That's not to say you can't make money out of gambling, far from it. If you can estimate the odds better than the bookie, then you're on a winning ticket. But electronic component failure is fairly random -- more like the lottery or the roulette table -- whereas performances in sports are somewhat predictable (and, crucially for a gambler, can be influenced by events occurring after the odds have been fixed, but before the game is played).
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
If you have any questions about BestBuy or its policies, try WWW.BESTBUYSUX.ORG
I've never been denied a rebate. Why? Because immediately after purchase of the items, I read the rebate instructions carefully and follow them exactly to recieve my rebate. Sure enough, X weeks later I do get my rebate check.
Rebates are somewhat tricky, and I agree that the plot of the rebate is that Joe Consumer forgets about ther rebate or fails to follow the proper instructions to recieve the rebate. However, if you follow the instructions to get your rebate, you will get it in most cases.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
While I wouldn't go so far as to call them "demon customers", I can understand that "the customer is always right" belongs to an earlier era...one where people seemed to have a bit more integrity as shoppers. I always thought it should be updated to "the customer is frequently right, but can at times be horribly misinformed."
Two things I've done about stores like Best Buy. First, whenever you return something to the store for exchange, mark in heavy black marker on the inside of the box what's wrong with it, the date and, if you're feeling altruistic, give a throw-away email address.
Reason? Many retail stores don't bother checking returns to see if they work (or not) as the original purchaser stated. They simply re-wrap it, and put it back on the shelves. If someone else comes behind you and purchases that unit, they'll see what you wrote (write BIG), and learn to never deal with that store again.
Also, if you left an email address, they can contact you to let you know what happened (and possibly thank you). I was the "second buyer" in that scenario - (thanks, GeorgeC!), and will never buy from that store again (local chain).
Second tip, ask the store selling purchase plans if you can take their "details" home with you -- don't purchase anything...yet. If they tell you that their "Purchase Plan" is only viewable after you actually buy something (as is the case with one major retail chain, iirc), you're getting "MS EULA'd".
- Jack
I went to a Future Shop in Winnipeg to buy a digital camera after Best Buy took them over.
The saleswoman asked if I wanted the PSP. I said no, if it breaks, it will break in the first year, and it has its own 1-year warranty.
She said if it breaks and I don't have the PSP, then I'll have to ship it to Canon and it could take months to fix. And, if they don't sell that model anymore, they don't *have* to fix it.
So I said, "you're telling me that it has a 1-year warranty and they don't have to honour it?"
She looked kind of sheepish and said, "well, that's what the store told me."
I bought the camera and have been using it for almost 2 years without a problem. (Canon Powershot A40.)
About 10 months ago, I stopped by BB on my way home to pick up an iRiver IGP-150, because it supported Ogg and had 1.5 GB storage for a decent price. In checkout, the Cashier asked me to buy an ESP. I said, No thanks. She said "You HAVE to get one because your MP3 player could get a virus from "downloading mp3s from the internet", and that wasn't covered under the warranty." I laughed lightheartedly, and informed her politely that she was mistaken, this was impossible, and she shouldn't tell people this because it was wrong. She got uppity with me, told me "NO, YOU'RE WRONG," told me I was making a huge mistake and finished the sale. I walked right past the door, over to customer service, returned it, told them exactly why I was returning it, and informed them that I'd never shop there again-- and I haven't. This is the best way to deal with these people-- especially if it's a non-sale/rebate item.
Hell, do it for fun. Just go in there and tell them you're buying a widescreen TV or a plasma, and when you get up to the front, and they ask you to buy the plan, say no thank you. When they ask you again to buy it, (and you know they will) just snatch your card back and walk out the door.
Hell, I might do that at lunch.
If you don't like your previous Best Buy, here's the easy solution: Don't buy at Best Buy.
If you want to contribute to making your experience not happen to others, complain to the Store Manager AND write a letter. In fact, if you're going to do one of the two, just write a letter. Not an email. Not a phone call. Maybe even write it to their corporate headquarters, but be specific: mention the store location, the time and date, and (if you know them) the names of the employees involved.
(Heck, if you want to scare the employees into treating you better, take notes as you're talking to them!)
If you don't mind shopping at Best Buy or the like, but one or two things bother you about your shopping experience (like the product replacement plan pitch), let them know (in writing, natch). Let them know you'll take your business elsewhere because of it.
As for rebates, most consumers find them annoying and frustrating. So don't play the game. I used to have a hard time not playing the rebate game, but I finally figured out it just wasn't worth my time. So what if I can get $8 off by filling in a rebate? If it takes me even 15 minutes to read the minutiae of the rebate terms, cut out the appropriate UPCs, fill out the form exactly as described (oh, and waiving my privacy, BTW), buying the stamp, mailing it off... then waiting 6-8 weeks for a check that MIGHT come through if you did everything right (factor in interest from the cash that could've been sitting in your bank account, not theirs)... then making the trip to the bank to cash that measly check... how much is your time worth to you?
Further, do NOT trust Best Buy (or other megastore employees) for tech advice. Get a second opinion from a techie or another user. Read Consumer Reports and other reviews. And don't trust that just because a sales employee says they'll make good on it if it doesn't work, that they'll do it. Get it in writing if you're concerned. Otherwise, figure that you may have to throw away money if it doesn't work, and that you're taking a chance.
I honestly believe that somewhere in the Best Buy training manual, there is a section under computer/technical questions that says: "If you don't know the answer to a customer's technical question, make something up that sounds good." I have personally tested BB employees by asking them technical questions I know the answer to (or know there isn't a good answer) and heard some pretty entertaining made-up answers. I encourage you to try this.
Finally, just a pitch for the local guy: Instead of going to a megastore like Best Buy for your computing needs, go to a local mom&pop computer store. You're pretty much guaranteed not to get the best price on computer components, but you can ask all the tech questions you want and not deal with a faceless minion. You'll get better quality service and heck, if you act halfway decent to them, probably exceptional service.
First off... here's something I usually do at Best Buy (when I'm not just going there because I want to buy "something").
:)
I go to BestBuy.com and find everything I want and order it for In Store Pickup. You pay for the merchandise online, an employee will walk around the store and pick out everything and bring it up to the customer service desk. Then they e-mail you saying your order is ready. You just show up at best buy, show them the printed e-mail and the card you used to purchase it and be on your way. This is *wonderful* to do at Christmas time. I love walking into Best Buy, walking right up to customer service and leaving while watching the wrap around the store line. And I didn't even have to find any of my items. Use it!
Last time I went to Best Buy I bought a logitech wireless keyboard/mouse combo that cost me about $100. I'm used to the first thing out of my mouth being a "no" once I hit the cashier. It went something like this (keep in mind I worked customer service at a store for about 2 years so I know what goes on).
Rep: "Would you like to buy the service plan for $10?"
Me: "No."
Rep: "Well I work at customer service too and I see these come back a lot and if it breaks you'll need the service plan."
Me: "No, if it breaks due to it being faulty you'll exchange it without the service plan."
Rep: "Well... some people find that the range isn't long enough on this product so you'll need the service plan to bring it back if it's not good enough."
Me: "No, if it's not good enough I have several days to make that call and bring it back for a full refund."
Rep: *blank stare*
I really don't get what he was getting at. From past experience in customer service I know I probably could have returned the keyboard and mouse to them covered in peanut butter without a receipt and gotten my money back and a $25 gift card. Being persistent and pleasant tends to get you results. I almost wanted to not buy the product on the basis that if it was that bad of a product I should probably get something else... although I've yet to have problems with it.
The only two things I do have their service plan on is my TV (the tube did go out and the model was discontinued so I ended up better off for it anyhow) and my digital camera because I bought the display one (which was discontinued anyhow) and since they knocked a decent amount off the price it made up for the purchase of the service plan. Plus the plan entitles me to new free batteries for 3 years after I got the plan and the plan was $40 and the batteries cost a good $30. I've already gotten one new battery. Both of my service plans have been useful for me.
Now to go place an order on the BestBuy web site to pick up after work...
I have a friend who works at a furniture store. The get a very small commission (2-5%) on the actual item but extra things like extended warrantees, etc. they can get upwards of 50%. VERY strong incentives to sell the add-ons.
cheers,
Kris
In Soviet Russia, hot grits put YOU down THEIR pants.
Okay, we all know how annoying BB is about the PSPs, but, having worked there for extra cash a couple Christmases ago, I would like to speak in defense of the sales associates.
While it's true they don't get commission, they WILL get fired if their personal numbers don't look good enough, and the main consideration there is how many PSPs they move. Increasingly, the only people who can move those damned things are the ones who are willing to outright lie about them. I sucked at it, but it's either that or get fired.
So although associates are supposed to offer it 3 times and let it go, it sometimes gets belligerent if their numbers are looking bad. That's one response to customers who aren't willing to throw their money away. The other (that I reluctantly started using) was just abandoning customers who wouldn't buy one. If you're finding that you are being hot-potatoed from one associate to the next, it's because no one's numbers are good enough that day to afford selling you that naked laptop (BB makes almost nothing on laptops if you don't throw a bunch of accessories and the PSP on it).
It's an extremely high-pressure job, which can be terminated at any moment, so please keep that in mind when you go there.
Here's how you get around the mess, though: If you're buying computer products, don't talk to an associate if you can help it. Look around the department for where the item is kept, and if it's accessible, pull it from the shelf yourself and take it to the front. The people on the front registers don't have the time or the sales experience to push the PSP more than one time.
If the computer product is not accessible in the department, look above the phones and TVs in the right-back corner. If there are some up there, you can ask one of the TV guys to get it for you. They don't know anything about the computer stuff, and your sale won't affect their departmental or personal numbers, so they will probably just get it for you to get you out of the way.
And regarding rebates, I think someone else already said this, but PHOTOCOPY EVERYTHING. Keep your own copies of everything, because the companies need the originals. Keep accurate records. Neither BB nor the manufacturer is going to be terribly proactive about GIVING you money, so you very well may have to fight them.
And finally, my thoughts on the BB business model: It's fucking doomed. Fewer and fewer people are willing to buy PSPs and ridiculously overpriced accessories--the only things BB makes any money on. BB is going to have to find a way to make money ON THE ITEMS IT SELLS. I kicked ass at loading customers with every cool gadget under the sun, because I knew about every cool gadget under the sun. But then I had to switch from "Isn't this cool?" to "Now I'd like to talk to you about our PSP," and sometimes the customer would just walk. As the business model is set up now, that customer walking is not seen as a bad thing, because the store is losing money on them. But what the model doesn't take into account is that that person probably never shops there again. And tells his friends. BB is flushing their reputation down the toilet, and they don't see it yet. They used to make money with volume and low overhead, but they are increasingly raising that overhead with pretty stores, resulting in them having to find products that don't exist, but that people will fork over money for. It's a crazy system and it's doomed to fail. People go to a store to buy SOMETHING, not NOTHING. If you can't make money on what people come to buy, you're fucked.
But, as with most PHB's, reducing the figure in the 'revenue' column is always more painful than reducing the figure in the 'cost' column.
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
I must be a "demon customer." When you think about it, most often electronics are "want items" not "need items." This means that you can afford to wait for the really good deals and this is what I do. When the big day to buy the new electronic item comes, I'm up early and hit the store just as the doors open. I walk directly to the department and try to locate the item. If I can't find it I ask a salesperson where it is. If I can, I simply ask them to point me in the direction of it and I get it myself. I try not to get "sales person assistance" if I can help it. I then take my purchase directly to the check out and I decline any "service plan" that is offered me.
If a sales person pushes, I tell them in no uncertain terms that I am not interested in plans, accessories, or other things. If they push a second time, I tell them I will not be pushed and that I do not appreciate their interference. That always stops them. If they make a "final comment" I will either abandon the purchase or ignore them (depending on how bad I want it).
When I have to make a return, I try to be as perfect as possible. I save even the plastic and the tiewraps and put the package back exactly as it was when I opened it. I return the bag and even the plastic outer-wrap. I never make up excuses, if it quit working, I'll say that. If it didn't meet my expectations, I'll say that. If I am making a return, only rarely will I accept an exchange. If the return is not going smoothly, I will give the clerk two choices, either immediately accept the return or call the manager. If they call the manager, I will tell him/her there are two choices, either accept the return or I will cancel the transaction on my credit card. That always works.
As far as I am concerend, I am the customer. In a sense I vote with my money. I am free to spend it where I want, when I want. If you want my money, you will do it my way or I will go somewhere that they will.
I guess that makes me a demon customer and damn I am proud to be one. It is what makes good companies profitable and bad companies go out of business. Businesses need to compete for my money. They need to offer products at fair prices, provide a good shopping experience, and give great customer service or I will vote them off the island. I am a demon and am proud of it!
They love those extended warranties, don't they? I was buying a statistical/engineering calculator there, and predictably, she tried to sell on the extended warranty. I listened patiently and said, "No, thank you." She said, "If it breaks, you can't return it." I said, "I'll take my chances. I owned a similar model for 8 years and it never broke." She rang it up and PUT THE FUCKING EXTENDED WARRANTY ON IT ANYWAY. I told her to take it off. She said, "I thought you said you wanted it." I said, "No, I told you I do NOT want the plan." She picked up a phone and called a manager over, who asked her what was going on. She said, "This guy doesn't want the plan but I rang it up already." He looked SHOCKED, and said, "You ... don't want the extended warranty?" I said, "No, I don't." He said, "Well, do you realize if something goes wrong, you can't return it?" I said, "I realize that, and I don't care. It's not going to break." He said, "Don't be too sure, this is a brand new model, new models tend to break more." I said, "I bought a DVD player here in 96 and you told me the same thing about it. New technology, would break. I've been using that DVD player for the last 8 years and never had to so much as clean it, and it works fine. No extended warranty." The guy shook his head, and they cleared the service plan off the register. He looked at me again, and shook his head like I'm a total idiot, and walked off. The gal said, "You really should get the service plan, because that thing will probably break or you'll drop it or something." I said, "I'm sorry, but I have more faith in your products than you do, I guess."
Geez. I've quit shopping there.
Good story - painful to read, though...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I worked at Best Buy while looking for a full time programming job and I can tell you everything you want to know about the computer department.
:(
It is true that the managers receive bonuses based on the performance of their departments but it is based by monthly performance, so if you don't want to buy a PSP and don't want to be badgered by pressured sales people, go to buy from beginning to mid month.
Also, as any customer service or sales representative will tell you, being hostile will get you nowhere. If you antagonize me or address me as if I am beneath you, you will not get any help from me. From someone else, you will get some lip back, because it is not a job people regret losing (low paying, crappy hours, dealing with customers like you).
Last but not least. PSP (at least in my store) was a good buy ON CERTAIN ITEMS. (like emachines) We had an extraordinary number of them returned due to problems and Best Buy does not deal with manufacturer warranties. The reason people tell you "You know that you can't bring it back here if it breaks" is because many idiots bring an item back without a service plan, past the return period, and demand Best Buy to repair or replace the item. It wears down everyone in the customer service and the tech department when the customer should know that they need to contact the manufacturer.
That said, I worked in a great store, while it was a great store. Rule of thumb is: Go to a newly opened Best Buy if possible, or one where there is a lot of competition. The managers there are more experienced and customer (as well as staff) oriented because they are either:
a) training new staff or,
b) trying to retain customer base.
Our good management went away after a while (promoted internally) and supervisors, while good sales people, moved up into management and just were not so good. After that our entire computer dept. left because we could not deal with the management.
After my stints in sales, and customer service, I was amazed at how many people can be just plain rude and hostile just because someone has to ask one question (I never repeatedly asked for PSP, but I was knowlegeable about computers and thus had a better sales record, and thus was retained as an employee)
My dream is to make a "How to be a good customer" website, describing techniques of being nice AND getting what you want from the sales person (not mutually exclusive).
TANSTAAFL
You know, I started doing this in 1992 when I started college. This was before the BB days, but I went to a HiFi Buys (which subsequently became Tweeter) and bought a receiver. It was cheap, but they still offered the PSP... I declined, but then got the idea to just take that $40 or whatever it was and stick it in a savings account. So, for the past 12 years, for big ticket items like TV's and Laptops and other stuff that would suck to have to replace, I've declined the PSP, but put the cost of the PSP in that savings account. Whenever something has broken beyond repair, I've used that money to replace it.
Today, 12 years later, I'm SO ridiculously far ahead of the game. By simply self-insuring on breakage, I've managed to amass about $4K in that account (and a lot of it is interest).
Just think about all of the cell phones, TVs, appliances, CD players, and other crap the average person buys in 12 years... a PSP is usually about 25% of the cost of an item, so you can well imagine that can add up to a large sum. With a failure rate of around 3% (infant mortality excluded because it's covered under manufacturer's warranty), that's a gigantic profit...
Welcome to the wonderful world of Pricing High For Discounts!
This kind of idea is exactly why you need medical insurance in the USA. The insurance companies are discounted down to as little as 10% what a cash-paying customer would.
To keep their discounts as low as possible, the insurance companies have to play stupid games like refusing a certain percentage of legitimate claims. The hospitals, on the other hand, raise their cash prices higher and higher so they can use "But look at the discount!" as a negotiating tool.
It sounds great until you realize what you're essentially doing is forming a quasi-governmental price-fixing organization and replacing a free market process with a political one. All manner of backstabbery naturally ensues.
In the end, the price-fixing organization becomes parasitic yet indispensible. Those who are in it enjoy a little slice of communism, with shortages, queues, people telling you what (or from whom, in this case) you may buy, and general lack of consumer choice, while paying for the privelege. Those who are outside the iron curtain enjoy hostile, punitive pricing and service specifically designed to drive people to join.
Thanks for bringing this up since I intend to buy an HDTV in the nxt 6 months and planned on getting the PSP (If I'm dropping ~2500 on a TV, I don't want to drop another ~2500 once the warranty runs out). I will read the extended warranty info VERY carefully now.
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
Lots of talk here about how bad Best Buy is, and how people shouldn't or even don't shop there anymore. If you are serious about affecting change with your buying power as a consumer, you need to be prepared to pay more somewhere else.
I haven't shopped at Best Buy for two years, and I haven't looked back, but I have paid more for items that could've been bought more cheaply there. I chalk it up to the cost of better service.
I agree that the customer is not always right. Dishonest and unscrupulous "customers" will take advantage of even the most honest businessman. Best Buy, however, is the last business that deserves to judge its customers in this fashion. Their staff are underpaid and undertrained, and in some instances, pushy and insulting. No Best Buy employee has ever been able to answer my questions about the technical specification of any product. And their selection is more and more limited every day.
For instance, if I want to buy a CD, I'll get a better selection, better service, and knowledgeable staff at the local record store. I'll pay more, yes. But I will get more in return, in the long run.
If you are not willing to do the same, then there is no sense in complaining about Best Buy. Their policies, along with their prices, are a direct result of cost-cutting, and the first cost to be cut is service.
I was in some kind of weird mood, so instead of just saying "No", I said "I'll forego that opportunity, thank you."
She misunderstands. She thinks I'm saying "yes". She looks at my Visa and says "this doesn't look like a Sears card." I say, "It isn't. It's a visa."
She says, "oh, my mistake. Well, you got 10% off!"
I leave the store, all smiles.
Watch out for that warranty. My in-laws recently tried to get warranty service on their GE refrigerator.
It was going to cost $100 for the service call and $70 an hour for the technician to check it out, even if the problem was covered by the warranty. They were also informed that nobody could look at it for about 17 days. That's a long time to be without a refrigerator/freezer.
Considering the fact that the tech probably wouldn't be in a hurry, would be motivated to find issues that wouldn't be covered, and would be looking to sell them parts and labor above the minimum, the in-laws decided to just buy a new refrigerator.
But not a GE model.
I worked a return desk for a little under 2 years at a discout department store. That pretty much killed off any compassion for my fellow human, after cranky, whining, obnoxious people trying to return blatently damaged by themselves stuff.
Holidays, ugh. Aside for the personnel staff saying no one was going to get time off holidays off was just lame. Then of course, in the season of guilt that happens every December, every shopper seems to become horribly cheap because the neighbor 3 blocks away that they never talk to just sent them a gift and now they feel guilty for not first sending a gift.
All working retail tought me do to was return stuff, hit the right buttons w/ the low paid person at the counter. Demon shopper, me, probably, and I'm fine w/ that.
Of course, customer service in general is dead. The larger markets, and bigger chains can afford to blow people/customers off because they'll draw in enough new people because they are who they are (BB are you listening?!?). I live in SE MN, pretty much middle of nowhere MN (I get told a lot of the chains that "our stores in the Twin Cities have it"). There are some chains, and yes, a BB, that I try to avoid (no I don't need your help, no I don't need you to install it, no I don't wan't the useless, waste of money PSP, I'll get CDs and DVDs there, that's about it). Anyway, for a few years just about every store had a "Help Wanted" sign, meaning all the overly paid burger flippers could go down the street to another job and abuse the customers if they didn't like the current gig. At this point, customer service didn't exists, no staff at any chain store cared. Now that there seems to be a low-paid lackey for hire surplus, things are slowing getting better at some locales.
Of course, once the department gets the sense to leave you alone, when you really do need there help, you can't find staff. There's a reason I'm a good store shelf climber, since I can't find staff when I want them.
I have learned that the mom and pop shops in the city where I live are quite useful, helpful, knowledgeable and non-nagging. They know they can't afford to blow people off, and it shows.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.
I buy a cell-phone, I have 14 days to evaluate it, but I like it immediately so I file for the rebate, but two days later I realize that the cell-service sucks really bad, so I cancel the service within the 14-day mandatory federal evaluation period (still paying the first month and the activation fee but avoiding a hefty early-termination fee) and return the phone. The rebate takes an inexpliciable 8-10 weeks to "process", so when it arrives, it's mine.
You got a problem with that, you give me the "rebate" at the register so it's on the receipt when I return the phone.
Cool.
Well, I used my machine for a long time. Of course, maybe I used it too much. It's probably a bad sign when you get out of school, and boot it up to play some MP3s on the walk home, and find out you blew all your batteries on games of Go in class.
So, eventually, I get up one morning, and try to start the machine. No go. I can't even do a hard restart on it. So, after work, my mom and I go down to Best Buy (I was a minor in '99, so it was all in her name). At first, they won't take it. No proof of purchase. So, for the next few weeks, we're comming back and forth with different forms of proofs of purchases. Eventually, we call up the Best Buy corporate office and have them fax us a copy of the recipt.
So, now we're getting somewhere, right? Now, remember, this is Winter, and I live in Minnesota. Every time I go into Best Buy, they have to put a little sticker on the PPC to make sure that I didn't steal it. Now, I walk into the store, and take the PPC out of my pockets, with my gloves still on. I hand it to the guy, and it slips from my hand and falls to the ground. When we go to the service counter to get this all wrapped up, the guy refuses to service it. He said he was us drop it, and pointed to a small plastic piece that was exposed, pointing out the obvious physical damage. Now, this was no physical damage. originally, this piece was covered by a chunk of rubber, but to affix the flip cover, you had to remove the rubber chunk, and clip it into the plastic piece. Either way, the guy won't service it.
from then on out, we've never been happy with Best Buy. In fact, the next PDA I bought was from OfficeMax, and was a Visor Edge, specifically because Visor offered a proctetion against droppage clause in their warrantee and because OfficeMax had never screwed us. To this day, OfficeMax has yet to screw us.
Rawr
There have been many, many court cases which establish the right to lie as protected speech under the First Amendment. Freedom of Speech includes the freedom to say things that aren't true.
Don't make me out to be morally deficient simply because our society is skewed. On the contrary, I'd say our society's tolerance and even encouragement of lying is a far larger problem than whether or not I personally tell the truth.
Take a look at the lies surrounding any of our nation's recent Wars (Vietnam, drugs, terror) and you'll see that lying is endemic to our very way of life.
Don't shoot the messenger, bro.