Best Buy Sued By Ohio

liryon writes "The Register is reporting that the state of Ohio has sued national electronics retailer Best Buy for misleading customers by repackaging used goods and then selling them as new, and for failing to pay rebate claims. The Register report can be found here, and the original story is here. I guess this is what you get for deciding the customer is not always right." See also the Ohio AG's press release.

Comments

Best Buy Protester

[Robotech_Master]

This kind of reminds me of a fellow often sighted on the outskirts of the parking lot of the shopping center that houses the Best Buy here in Springfield, Missouri, particularly during big sales. There's a landscaped border to the lot, with small grassy ridges and trees and things, and this fellow will bring a lawnchair, thermos mug, perhaps a parasol for shade, and set up right there on the hill overlooking the entrance with a big posterboard protest sign. I can't remember exactly what the sign said--I'm sure he had different ones on different occasions--but it was basically warnings like not to trust Best Buy's warranty plans, don't shop at Best Buy, etc.

I never quite worked up the nerve to approach him and ask him about it, but I did ask a couple of Best Buy servicepeons I happened to encounter while eating in the nearby Subway one day. Apparently the fellow had bought a video camera, damaged it in a fashion not covered under warranty (apparently dropped it over the side of a boat into a lake or something, I can't remember exactly now) and then got upset when Best Buy refused to honor the service plan.

So now he's getting his money's worth back by carrying out this oddball protest. Takes all kinds, I suppose.

Re:Best Buy Protester

[aardvarkjoe]

Apparently the fellow had bought a video camera, damaged it in a fashion not covered under warranty (apparently dropped it over the side of a boat into a lake or something, I can't remember exactly now) and then got upset when Best Buy refused to honor the service plan.

It's worth noting that salesmen in these electronics stores often claim that their service plans cover anything that happens to the items, and so it's not too surprising that people get mad when they refuse to fix damaged items. It doesn't excuse the guy in question from reading the fine print before blowing his money on one of these worthless "service plans," but it does make the situation a little more understandable.

Re:Best Buy Protester

[stratjakt]

I've fallen for the "service plan" scam before. And yeah, the salespeople lie straight out about it. They claim it covers anything.

I've been told, and this is as close as I can get to quoting "Yeah, like in 6 months they won't sell a 20 gig hard drive anymore, so if you brought yours back, we'd replace it for the next compatible model, and you'd get an upgrade to 40gigs or so for free!" This was completely in a *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge* kind of way. Completely dishonest, and completely false.

I have a nephew who works at Best Buy, and these sorts of speeches are encouraged.

Anyhow, I got screwed over a monitor. Back when 14"-15" were the norm, I payed about $500 bucks for a nice NEC 17", from FutureShop (the Canadian answer to Best Buy). Being a poor college student, $500 bucks was a lot of cash, so another $50 for the extended warranty seemed like a wise idea.

A month down the road, the monitor starts going bad. It shuts itself off after a half an hour, sometimes not coming back on. So I lugged the thing back to FutureShop, and put it on the service desk. It was hot and that fucking thing was heavy.

I was told, that since it's still under manufacturers warranty, that they couldn't exchange it for me. I argued for a good hour with every jackass in the store. I showed them my replacement plan, which said nothing about "manufacturers warranty". I said replace it, and YOU deal with the manufacturer.

But no, I ended up having to ship it back to NEC at my own expense, who cross shipped me a refurbed monitor.

The next paragraph is even more offtopic!

The story goes on, the replacement had the same problem, as did the replacement after that. All I can say was that NEC was top notch. They kept good records of what went on, and never gave me a hassle. I remember the girl on the other end of the phone, after putting in my name, going "Oh, this is the 3rd one?". We talked about climate and where it is, and why they were overheating, etc.. The last time I called, the girl brought up my file, and immediately began apologizing. Turns out that particular model had a design flaw that made it overheat at higher resolutions. They hooked me up with it's replacement, which lasted me until early this year, when it started to ghost images.

Anyways. Every time I see the Simpson's episode where Homer is having Moe reinsert the crayon into his brain to make him stupid, and they know Homer is stupid enough when he exclaims "EXTENDED WARRANTEE! HOW CAN I LOSE!", I can't help but be reminded of my Future Shop adventures.

Manufacturers are so much better to deal with, and for most electronics, offer decent warrantees. Hell, Sony repaired a CD walkman for me for free, and it was six months out of warantee.

Re:Best Buy Protester

[C_To]

Likewise, I think of Future Shop when Homer makes that comment.

I was screwed by Future Shop with my first laptop, a P133. The guy gave me the same story, if they don't make the laptop anymore, they'll replace it with a similar model, so I dropped money for the warranty (it was 1998, I was still new to buying hardware). The laptop kept overheating until one day the hinges fused together, making it impossible to open it without breaking the hinges.

I took it back, and they kept aruging it was "Physical defect not covered under warranty". I tried to explain to both the technician and the manager that heat can fuse materials together, causing the hinge to break (or it could of been lack of lubricant). The manager broken down enough to take it in. He called a week later (in his broken english) to say he had someone look at it and it was overheating, however they would not fix the hinge issue or replace it. He kept saying they would not cover the hinges, like a broken record, almost as if he felt guilty... When I picked up the laptop the hinges were broken but it didn't overheat, and they didn't even fix it, they had a local computer shop take a look. I was disappointed and I now have this laptop in a bag in the corner of my room collecting dust (there's lots that could be done if the screen was able stand up).

Re:Best Buy Protester

[Izago909]

In my younger days I used to work for both Circuit City and Best Buy. My experience in being the "man on the line" is that most customers are ignorant, either by choice or by apathy. Because I am the only person they will ever talk to I am the CEO, President, and store manager wrapped up in one. Towards the end of my days at both places I was so bitter that my most common response to a complaint was "I am a trained monkey with no authority. If you like, I can find a manager, but I can do nothing for you"

Most customers fail to realize that they are 'protesting' to a kid who probably has the same complaints they do, but management ties their hands. If I could have, I would have given every last person exactly what they wanted.

Circuit City has gone under many changes since I left. They used to have older, more knowledgeable people, but since they stopped paying their sales people on commission, high school and college students have filled in the ranks. This greatly reduces the quality of service since the more experienced and educated people can not afford to work there and support their families.

Their service plans are another example. People are actually fired for not meeting their quota on service plans. If you read the fine print and can comprehend it, there are actually certain pieces of hardware that everyone should get a service plan on, but it is useless for almost everything under $200 and stand alone commodity items. It's also good for people who don't have a clue what they are doing, and the manufacturer's support and warranty lifetime is too short (like computers).

All-in-all if you have a problem with something in any store, take it up with a manager. Even they may not have the authority to fix you problem, but you have better odds with them than the kid on the floor. Also, the quality of service is much better at locally owned and operated stores. You probably will pay more, but you are supporting your community instead of a large, heartless corporation that uses off-shore tax havens to avoid paying their taxes.

Re:Best Buy Protester

[maxpublic]

I had the same thing happen to me with a Seagate hard drive, purchased from a franchise shop in my home town. The shop's own in-house warranty guarranteed replacement or your money back within 90 days.

The drive lasted for about an hour, after which it made some horrible grinding noises, made my entire computer case shake and jump, and then came to a sudden halt with a loud "bang!". Needless to say it was damaged beyond repair.

I took it back to the store the next day, whereupon they refused to replace it, saying that I had to send it back to the manufacturer. I pointed out their own guarrantee said *they* would replace it (boldly printed out on the wall above the cash register), not to mention the little matter of state law and 'defective sales', but they refused.

Noting that there were about a dozen other customers in the store, I started shouting about the problem loud enough for everyone to hear. The customers started perking up - I would have, too - and the manager started to become frantic. At this point she shouted "hey, buddy, I'm not trying to Jew you!"

Dead silence in the store. All eyes turned to the manager. You could hear the lost sales walking out the door.

After that the manager refunded me my money and told me never, ever to set foot in her store again. Not that I needed the warning; her attitude and their attempt to bend me over and fuck me up the ass was reason enough to avoid that place forever. And because I'm a vindictive son of a bitch who never forgives and never forgets, I not only will never set foot in that particular store again, but I'll never go to any of the other stores in the chain again either. That company lost me as a customer, permanently.

If only more people would make a fuss instead of being so goddamned concerned with potentially embarrassing themselves in public, companies might take customer service a bit more seriously.

Max

Go get 'em Ohio!

[garcia]

Why people ever shop at Best Buy I will never know. Sadly I was tricked into going there just last night...

I have a problem with Best Buy at all times of the year but especially at Christmas when they block off lanes so you can only enter/exit in one spot. That way they have an easier time trapping you in there to tell you that they do not work on commissions but that they are happy to help you look for everything they offer.

The second to last time I went to Best Buy I was looking for a wlan CF card for my iPaq. I went to Circuit City first and they had one for $40. I wasn't a huge fan of the maker (never heard of them) so I went to the Best Buy (less than 2 mi as the crow flies). I went into the area with the CF cards and looked at their gigantic selection of two CF cards. Both were over $75. Immediately the vultures descended on me. For once I had a question, "where are the rest of your CF wifi cards?" "That's it." "Wow, these are expensive." I was then dismissed with a wave of the hand and an insult about my lack of wifi CF card knowledge. I told them to start shopping at Circuit City, their discount couldn't even help to match their prices.

So last night I go in there to pick up a SD card reader. Their selection was, again, fantastically lacking. Five card readers. Two took SD the rest were for Sony format. $35.00 was the cheap one. Huh? Newegg.com here I come. So as I am leaving I am asked why I am leaving without buying anything, "Not here for Madden 2k5?" "No, I was here for an inexpensive SD card reader, it's obvious you don't carry those."

Now I was lying a bit when I said it was $35. It *was* $35 but I was not-so-politely informed that I could buy it at $35 and wait X weeks for my refund to come in the mail. Sorry about that Best Buy but I could get I online for $14 including shipping and no need to wait for my money to come back. Perhaps Ohio should force Best Buy to pay interest on the money while you wait for a rebate... Don't they make you pay back all the interest accrued if you don't have it all paid off when their 0% APR offer is done? It would be nice for them to taste their own medicine for once. Perhaps they would care about their customers more if they did.

For Best Buy being on nearly every block here in Minnesota (there are 5+ within a 5 mile radius of me) they suck. How the hell did they get so popular? People are really willing to put up w/lack of choice and expensive prices?

I'm sorry, I forgot I was in Microsoft-taught hell.

Re:Go get 'em Ohio!

[Chris Siegler]

The nice thing about Circuit City is that, at least here in Springfield, they will match prices for Best Buy including rebates. So if something is $30 with a $10 rebate at B'Buy, C.C. will sell it to you for $20 (well, actually for $19, since they price-match by 110%) with no wait for mail-sending.

Uh no, they don't. From Circuit City's site

Our policy applies only to advertised prices. It does not apply to special offers or promotions, including rebates, free-with-purchase offers and special financing

and they never have either.

What you can do is use CC rebates in addition to price matching (PM) to get great deals, but there isn't a store anywhere that will match a competitors rebates.

Finally-

[thewldisntenuff]

Payback's gonna be a (mutli-million) dollar bitch, eh Best Buy?

Gives the people at http://www.bestbuysux.org/
some hope....Maybe other states will look into doing the same....Read some of the stories-it's pretty shocking.....

Last time I went in there, they treated me like a total crook, and had the blue shirts follow me wherever I went....Bastards!

-thewldisntenuff

I just went into Best Buy yesterday ...

[Jason1729]

for the first time in years, and it will probably be the last time.

I wanted a bluetooth keyboard for my notebook and some other accessories. I got all the accessories and then I was looking at the keyboards. The sales girl came and said that if I'm going to get a keyboard, I should get the extended warranty.

She didn't even try to see how interested I was in the keyboards or try to convince me to buy one. When I said "that's okay", she said I should read about it and shoved a brochure in front of me. I said "no thanks", and she angrily shoved it even closer and said "I really should at least read it; it's a great deal". I ignored her and she kept trying. I finally just abandoned my cart full of things I'd already decided to buy right in front of her and walked out of the store.

In summary, I didn't RTFA, but I hope this lawsuit breaks them.

Re:First..

[Creepy Crawler]

Perhaps youve never seen the "bouncers" stop certain individuals from coming in. Ive seen it firsthand in Greenwood, Indiana (just a bit south of indianapolis).

If thats the definition of "firing customers", then it does happen.

I will never set foot in Best Buy again.

[Howski]

On August 29, 2003, the Panasonic 27" television that I purchased at the Best Buy store in Columbia, MD was replaced with a model comparable in specification, according to the 4-year Performance Service Plan (hereafter PSP) that I purchased with the unit. The salesperson informed me that, under the PSP, if anything ever goes wrong with the television, I can bring it back to the store for repair or replacement. When the original unit was replaced, the salesperson informed me that, under the PSP, the remainder of the 4-year term of the PSP would carry over to the replacement unit.

Since my roommate and I found a substitute for the unit in the interim, the unit sat unmoved and unopened in my parents' house for approximately 120 days. (Yeah, I know. I probably should have checked it out, but I mean, i didn't really have the room to open this thing, especially when I didn't immediately require its use.) When I opened the unit that was given to me as a replacement, it turned out to be defective, with considerable cosmetic damage in the form of cracks and warps in the case. On January 6, 2004, I returned to the Best Buy store in Columbia, MD to have it repaired or replaced according to the PSP, the salesperson at the store told me that the PSP did not cover physical damage. I told the store salesperson that the unit was in that condition when I opened it. Then the salesperson said that the situation would be different if the unit did not function. I then told the salespeople that I did not turn the unit on, so I did not know if it functioned at all. Once it was determined that the unit did not function, the store salesperson agreed to send the unit to their authorized repair facility, saying that they would contact me when it was returned. They did not contact me. On February 3, 2004, I finally contacted the store myself--at which time I found that the unit had been in their possession for the past 3 weeks--and they told me it was repaired and I could pick up the unit. When I arrived, the store salesperson told me that the unit was not able to be repaired. When I asked for the unit to be replaced according to the PSP, they told me that I must have caused the damage myself, and that it was therefore not covered under the PSP. This is unacceptable, as the salesperson who sold me the unit and the PSP told me that if anything goes wrong with the TV, I could return it for repair or replacement, and since the full disclosure of the terms of the PSP were not given to me until after I purchased it.

So yeah, I probably should have checked it out to make sure it was ok, but I didn't really feel the need - the box had no signs of damage or trauma, was sealed, etc, etc. But that will surely be a lesson to me not to trust Best Buy ever again, ESPECIALLY not their so-called "service plan."

For more stories - FAR more offensive and appalling than this one, I might add - check out http://www.bestbuysux.org/.

I got my tv at bestbuy

[bludstone]

a 42 inch widescreen hitachi. Its been working wonderfully.. ..but now I know why the workers there seemed so reluctant to actually SELL me the damn thing, when I flat out refused the warranty. (fyi, most warrantys are total scams. The product is expected to work anyways. The company is under obligation to sell you a working product. If it doesnt work, they have to replace it.)

Heck, they wouldnt even help me and my buds load the thing into the van. _WE_ lifted it onto the trolley bed. WE pushed it outside. WE loaded it onto the bed.

A wonder they gave me an evil eye when i shoved to trolley back into the store. There were SIX employees just watching me and my friends at work.

Yargh. Bestbuy sucks.

Heck, they used to have good deals on dvds, now they dont even have that anymore.

Won't matter. Expect a settlement.

[Frobnicator]

While I'd really like watching the state collect a huge sum of money for each violation, it would be tough to prove every single violation. The State knows it, BestBuy knows it.

In the end, I expect a big settlement. Best Buy will admit that they have done nothing wrong, and agree that they won't do something wrong again in the future.

The lawyers involved will recieve a payment of 200 million, the state will recieve a check for 5 million. Oh, and the people actually harmed will get some in-store settlement checks.

They'll end up giving out settlement checks for $4.93 to each customer who is or was a resident of Ohio during the time of their doing-nothing-wrong, and end up with a quarter of them actually redeemed, usually spent on items costing ten times the settlement check, ensuring continued profits for the company.

Just once, I'd like to see the lawyers and state paid with in-store credit settlement checks.

frob

working at best buy

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at best buy as a computer tech, in the new 'Geek Squad' outfit. Every day I deal with customers that were blatantly lied to by the sales people about PSP's. Each product has a different status, some are replaceable, others have to be repaired, for a general rule of thumb, anything over a couple hundred dollars is being sent out to repair. Meanwhile every sales person is told to tell people the PSP replaces products right on the spot for 'any reason'. Also regarding computers, people are also told PSP covers stupidity, by that I mean it supposedly covers any viruses that get in there, or if you hose your Windows install. On top of that the techs dont know anything most of the time and just act as F10 techs, if it cant be fixed in a half hour we're supposed to charge the 60 dollars to do a OS reinstall. Geek Squad is a joke and the people who founded it are too busy reveling in the money that they got when Best Buy bought it out and is treating it as such. We're supposed to have a 48 hour turn around time, falsely advertised as such on the website. Realistically its more like 10-30 days! The stores are understaffed and underpaid, and overworked. Everyone is expected to work on at least 4 computers at a time, but nothing ever gets done, because we're all ordered to sell In-home services and PSP above working on computers and actually getting that stuff done. Don't shop at bestbuy, and above all don't bring your computers to Geeksquad unless you want to wait a couple weeks. But i'm pretty sure if your reading slashdot you probably don't need somebody else to work on your computer! Posted anonymously just in case someone from work reads this!

Never had a problem

[Bandit0013]

I normally buy pc stuff online, but any electronic equipment I buy in a physical store 95% of the time I shop at best buy.

I have a best buy card, I buy stuff with rebates all the time, I've successfully used the PSPs. This was all shopping in NY, and OH stores. I have never had a problem with a rebate, return, or anything like that.

I can only conclude that either I've been very lucky for the last 6 years, or else there are alot of morons out there who can't fill out rebates properly and don't know how to finesse their way into a successful return/exchange.

Re:A quote...

[fmaxwell]

Besides those, most of the rest of your complaints are that salesmen are expected to try to sell stuff. Big deal. I may not particularly like being on the receiving end of it, but I recognize that's what they're there for (and getting paid to do).

It's more than that. It's actively trying to mislead the customer. It's the salesman trying to pretend that he's an expert in cables even though he has no idea what capacitance, resistance, and impedence are. It's the salesman and cashier telling the customer that the merchandise can only be brought back if their is a service plan purchase. This is the kind of thing that's wrong.

If the salesman wants to say "you should buy Monster Cable because it's big and thick and might make you feel better if you are insecure about your undersized penis", then I'd have no complaints. If they said "if replacing this $40 DVD player would ruin you financially, then you should buy this $10 service plan", I'd be less inclined to be offended. But when you buy a $79 CD player and they act like Monster cable will make it sound like a piece of high-fidelity audio equipment, that's just wrong. It's wrong to claim that an extended warranty will cover anything that goes wrong when, in fact, it does nothing of the kind.

I sued them and won!

[spoonyfork]

Here's my JE on the story. I did however give up on the fight to get my $50 mail-in rebate for the same item I had to sue over. Since this happened over a year ago I have never purchased items from Best Buy nor will I ever again.

The price is wrong, bitch.

2 stories

[orion024]

I purchased a Toshiba notebook about this time last year. I really needed it because I was going out of town. The local BestBuy was out of stock, but a store about 1hr away had one. They said I could have it shipped down, and it would be there in time, but only if I bought it at that store. Considering there was a sale ending that day, which gave me $150 off the notebook, I thought sure, why not.

So, the "delivery" day came and went. No call. I called them up -- the unit hadn't even left the store where it originated from. I asked my local store if I could drive up to get it. They say, "shouldn't be a problem, but call their store first to make sure".

Sound advice. So I called. The person said "Sure! That's no problem what so ever. We have it back in the warehouse."

So, I called my local BB to let them know I actually was picking it up, they said no problem.

I ended up driving through one of the worst thunderstorms of the year to get to this store.

I get there, and after about 30 minutes of hassel, I find out I can't pick up the unit. Even though had my receipts, showing I had purchased the item. My computer was not even a 2 minute walk away, after a 1 hour drive, in the back warehouse. I fought with them for another 30 minutes... no good.

Apparently, since I "bought" the computer at the other store, they had to recieve the merchandise and scan it into their system before I could have it. This made sense to me ... but what didn't make sense to me is why the 3 different people I talked to to make _sure_ it would be okay told me it was no problem.

Needless to say I wasn't happy. And the manager knew it.

They ended up giving me a $50 gift card for my troubles, and the word of the manager that he would personally deliver my unit to my local best buy in the morning, after which it was all mine.

Sure enough, he did. I was still pretty pissed, however, I felt the manager did what he could. I could understand why I couldn't pick it up (the inventory was not technically their anymore, but my local stores, who needed to scan it into the system), but not why they didn't tell me that before.

Second story. When I first started shopping around for the aforementioned notebook PC, I went to BB. I was looking at the model I was most interested in, but the screen was totally screwed up. It *looked* to me like someone had jacked around with the font settings, and made it unreadable.

So, out of curiousity, I thought I'd see what the computer personel said. I knew from the minute this guy opened his mouth he had no clue what so ever.

He squinted at the screen, trying to read the fonts. Thought about it a minute and said "nothings wrong"

I said "You're kidding, right? Did you notice the fonts?"

"Yeah. I can read them just fine," he said

"Well, I can't. And I have perfect vision"

He said, "Well, I have 20/15"

I almost said "So, a person has to have better than normal vision to use this computer?" but instead I left it as is. I sort of shadowed the fellow for the next 15 minutes or so, to hear some of the "fascinating insights" he had about computers when talking with other customers. After one, I spoke with the customer after the fact and made sure he was *properly* informed before I finally left the store.

Anyway ... as mentioned in many other posts, one of BB bigest problems is many of their employees don't know jack, whether it be about the merchandise or store policy. Though I thought the manager did good though to resolve my first issue.