Slashdot Mirror
Best Buy Customer Gets Box Full of Bathroom Tiles Instead of Hard Drive
The Consumerist is reporting that a Best Buy customer recently purchased a hard drive only to discover that the box contained six ceramic bathroom tiles instead of the Western Digital drive he had expected. The rub of it is Best Buy is refusing to grant a refund or exchange for the non-existent drive. "The employee and assistant manager were more than willing to help, saying that it happens. So they set up the return and I repurchased the drive and while I was checking the contents to ensure it was a hard drive this time, the store manager came up, took the box from me and said to take it up with the manufacturer. Now to my surprise, I argued with the guy saying that they have already accepted the return and I have now purchased the new one. He said I was shit out of luck. I followed up with the manufacturer today and they said they would get the complaint to the Best Buy Purchasing department. Best Buy corporate said that they stand by their manager's decision."
This is why I use Amex exclusively and do not shop at stores that do not accept Amex. I have, unfortunately, had to use the Amex privilege several times to get merchants to cooperate. Amex has always been grand -- on one horrible purchase that a merchant refused to refund, Amex credited the charge but didn't void the transaction, so the merchant got paid. The merchant subseuquently refunded my purchase, and even after I alerted Amex that they had given me a few hundred bucks for free, the service rep told me it was all taken care of and it was my lucky day. That's pretty damn sweet considering most credit card companies are the root of all evil.
My mom made the mistake of buying a service plan for her Toshiba Satellite.
She asked me to pick it up for her at the Carbondale, IL store (dead HD, laptop still under warranty) and after they'd left me to cool my heels for 20 minutes, had me sign paperwork, etc. they handed me the, paperwork, old HD (in case she chose to send it to Toshiba for data recovery) and then stated that they "weren't sure" if the OS installation fee was covered by the service plan and wouldn't let me leave with the computer unless I paid $130(!) for OS installation (Toshiba recovery CD) and that if (IF!) they found that it was covered, I would be refunded.
I called her (I had places to be right then) and she called the store manager, corporate, etc. and after 1.5 hours decided they could waive the fee if I was willing to wait for them to REPLACE THE DRIVE, a wait of 1-2 HOURS. Well, no, I wasn't willing to wait, so I left. Shortly afterward she received a call that the recently installed drive was WIPED and the computer was ready to be picked up.
I'm going today to pick up the computer. My bet is that either 1.) they'll conveniently "forget" that they were waiving the fee, or that 2.) they've lost either the old HD or the entire computer. Bets, anyone?
No frickin' way would I buy a computer from Best Buy. DVDs and CDs, sure, and maybe hardware with decent factory warranties, but not computers, and if I were dumb enough to, I certainly wouldn't take it to the store for warranty work! I've heard too many horror stories from other people who've ended up spending the same amount of money they'd spent on their hardware, only to have to wait for half a month for a computer just as bricked as it was when it went in.
Best Buy and Geek Squad is about as crooked as the crookedest used-car dealership.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
My guess of what happened: Someone orders the drive, gets it, removes it repacks it with tiles. If this guy has access to shrink wrap machine, he reseals the package and gets full refund. Store thinks the package has not even been opened and restocks it and sends out again to this honest customer.
Given the numbers and bar codes and the tracking they do, BB should be able to find out who ordered and returned the drive and pursue that scammer. To prevent the recurrence, BB should use shrink wrap with its logo and other counterfeit proof shrink wrap.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I purchased a sound card a few years ago, got it home, opened it up and there was an old Jazz drive and 3.5-to-5.25 bracket inside. Lucky for me, I had some leverage when returning it and did get my exchange. When the CS rep started giving me trouble about it I threatened to return the $3,000 in merchandise I had purchased in the prior 30 days.
When I got the new box, I noticed the shrink wrap was different. I always check the shrink now and often will open it after I purchase it while still at the register. I also NEVER buy the first item on the shelf, but go to one farther back.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
First of all, how do you prove that you didn't just stuff the box full of crap and try to exchange it so you could wind up with two drives for the price of one? It may be legitimate and the blame may be at some point in the supply chain at or before Best Buy, but how does one prove it? And how do you - as a retailer - not end up with a bunch of morons returning boxes that they've stuffed crap into, as well?
It would seem the only reasonable thing to do from this point on is to open a box and make sure your item is in there before leaving the store. That's what I intend to do after hearing enough of these stories. If you haven't left the store, then they can't put the blame on you and you can return it right there.
Best Buy has no way of knowing whether the guy is telling the truth. But it doesn't matter.
Unless they want to have their sales slowed down by every customer insisting that a salesperson open the box before the customer leaves the store... and plugging in it... and testing it... and initialling the sales receipt... which would add about half an hour to an hour's work time to every sale... they've got to believe the customer.
At least the first time.
If they've got records that show that this customer has been repeatedly returning items, each time claiming that the factory-sealed box had worthless contents, that's another matter... but one that should be handled by legal process.
There is no set of circumstances under which what Best Buy allegedly did was appropriate.
P. S.
When she was in college, my daughter once bought an item from L. L. Bean. UPS delivered it, not to my daughter, but to the front desk of the dormitory, and got an signature that wasn't my daughter's signature and that couldn't be identified. My daughter called UPS. UPS insisted there was nothing they could/would do, they'd delivered the package and got a signature. She called L. L. Bean. They said, "Oh, that's too bad, we're sorry, we'll send another one out right away." L. L. Bean made several customers for life that day.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
My mom bought a refrigerator and purchased the extended warranty. It doesn't work well - it won't balance the freezer and the fridge. So either you have liquid ice cream OR your all the stuff in your fridge is frozen solid.
They literally refused to honor their warranty. The company sent a repair person who said it was on spec. Actually, what he basically said is this was a poor design that doesn't work well. And this is not uncommon for this model. So since it's not uncommon for this model they wouldn't fix it.
Go figure...that's like saying since it's not uncommon for the breaks to fail on this model car. So we're not going to fix it under warranty because this is pretty much a standard occurrence with this car.
***
All of this being BS as my mother's upstairs tenants have the same fridge and it doesn't have any problems.
I had a bad shrink-wrapping experience once.
Back in 1993 or so, I was not only the chief Macintosh programmer for an educational-games company, I was its only in-house programmer and also the main Mac tech support guy. That meant my working on our next game would be interrupted by answering the phone to deal with customer complaints about the last game I'd written. It sounds cruel but it may have helped inspire me to write better software :)
Anyway, I got a really puzzling complaint from one woman who was irate, and had a right to be. Our software had infected her PC with the Michaelangelo virus. She was mad enough that I had to take the call despite it not being our Mac version. It took a lot of calming-down but I was able to make her understand that it was impossible for the floppy disks to leave our warehouse with the virus because we'd shipped the exact same disks to thousands of other people and hers was our first Michaelangelo complaint. But she had taken the disks to her local PC-repair shop and they'd tested positive for Michaelangelo.
So I asked her where she'd bought them. J&B Computer World. Fine. I called up her local J&B and eventually got put through to a manager... after some prodding, it turned out they'd had a Michaelangelo outbreak at their store a month prior. Oh, and yes they did sometimes "test out" the software they resold by playing it themselves. Oh, and yes, they had a shrink-wrapping machine.
I called back our customer with the news and she said she was going to take it up with J&B. I always wished I could have listened in on that call :)
Bought a shrinkwrapped All-In-Wonder video card at one of those big-box stores, opened it up, and found an ancient ATI card from years ago inside. Either they re-wrapped a returned card and sold it as new (not legal), or there was an inside job by an employee.
Fortunately for me, the manager let me return it (I had never returned anything I bought from them before, so maybe that helped). Nowadays, whenever I go shopping for computer parts (or small-and-pricey things in general), if the box doesn't have a transparent window or some sort of manufacturer's seal (beyond shrinkwrap, which is too easy to re-do), then as soon as I pass the checkout counter, I tell the cashier that I'm going to take a peek inside. I step back a little so I don't block the next customer, and I open the box right there before exiting the store.
I don't see why you'd need RFIDs to track down the person returning rubbish. Most stores I've been to take your address when you return something, so if someone is scamming, it should be easy for the store to track down the person by looking up the serial number on the box.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
As an ex-BestBuy employee I know a little about the fraud that goes on in that store. During the brief holiday season that I worked there, Packard Bell had a promotion (if that gives you any idea how long ago this was) that you would receive a free OEM-bagged Sound Blaster card with the purchase of every system. We had a case of 100 Sound Blaster cards behind the counter that disappeared overnight.
One of the employees discovered that when you climb the ladder up to the stock area up above the shelves, there are no security cameras to keep an eye on you, so here's what you do... Get a case of printer paper and carefully slip the plastic bands off that hold the box shut. Remove the reams of paper inside and place them on the shelf for sale. Tear open hard drive boxes, sound card boxes, software packages, anything you want and toss the remnants around and pack the contents inside the now empty printer paper box until it's completely full, then replace the lid and plastic bands and carry the box down the ladder and put the box full of "paper" on the back of the shelf behind several boxes that really contain paper. Come to the store on your next day off and pull your box of "paper" from the back of the shelf and pay $19.99 for it and walk out of the store with several hundred dollars worth of gear. You got the BestBuy!
This stupid employee came over to visit my brother and told him (in front of me) how he managed to get away with it and just assumed (incorrectly) that I wouldn't mention it to my manager or the store manager the next day. The store manager told me that they suspected him but didn't know how he was doing it and after hearing how they confronted him and told him that they were giving him one last chance to return the stolen items or they would call the police. His reply was something to the effect of "go ahead, if you had any evidence you would have already called the police." And then they kept him employed!!! They did not fire him!!! He quit on his own a few weeks later when he realized that he was under constant supervision and wouldn't have an opportunity to steal again.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
There was a PC tech at the Best Buy store where I worked who was involved in this kind of stuff. He'd have a friend bring in his'computer' - really just an empty case, to be worked on.
During the day, he'd go pick up items off the shelf that he wanted to get into his system....a hard drive here, a cd-rom drive there, a nice new video card. He'd get them while showing people who were looking for similar items and then not return them to the shelf. Then a quick hop to the back, slip open the plastic, remove the item, and drop some junk in there. Walk around the counter, reseal the item, send it back to the floor, and spend the rest of the day 'repairing' the box and configuring his new computer.
Of course, since he did this 'in' the store, everything looked legit when it went out to the floor, price tags, etc. Things with clear cases (like RAM) he just put inside the computer and walked out when he was ready to go.
Of course, this isn't a big surprise, Best Buy has huge problems with employee theft. In the time that I was working security, I busted more than 6 employees for theft...two of them were my own loss prevention supervisors. Loss Prevention is really there for the employees, the customers we couldn't really stop anyway (nor will we when they pull a knife or other shit out). Of course, both of those employees were 'let go' for minor infractions, but they were robbing the place blind. The first one had the balls to mount 'investigations' every time something went missing...interviewing everyone in his office. It's hard to keep the sheep safe when the shepherds are cooking them up every night.
Mozy, free online backup service
--
"Have you seen who works in Best Buy these days?"
Do you know how their hiring process works?
A couple years ago a new Worst Buy was opening, and I thought I'd apply - looking for a mostly back-room techie job. Went to their on-line application site, answered 2 or 3 questions about my technical expertise, then spent some FORTY FIVE MINUTES on psychological profile crap - you know, "would you rather kiss your car or step on a snake?" questions. Went to their hiring office in the mall, girl looked me up and told me they would NOT be calling me for an interview.
Apparently, based on that test, I wasn't enough of a "cheerful Charlie" which FAR, FAR outweighed any tech skills I might have possessed.
Haven't bought a thing from Worst Buy since them.
Teen Angel - a Ghost Story
5. if Best Buy continue to not hand over the drive, sue them for selling you a brick (small claims) + taking money for it + ALL your time you lost + court filing fees. Just do not exaggerate your time - judges don't like that.
Unfortunately, one can't sue for time in small claims in the US. A small claims action is designed to replace property value. A plaintiff will never be made whole in small claims court.
IANAL but have been a plaintiff.
== First cross river, then insult alligator.
This simply illustrates how the US is way behind in terms of customer service and corporate policies. If management cannot think to implement such a simple policy to protect themselves and the customers they serve, they deserve whatever negative press they get. They will get no sympathy from me for their laziness and ignorance.
Clearly the only way we can resolve this (and simultaneously cause major problems for Best Buy) is to unpack our purchases while we stand at the counter to check the contents. I mean, obviously you can't trust Best Buy.
A few years ago I went to the Virgin Mega Store and picked up a CD. I was with a friend and when we got back to my apartment I opened up the CD and inside was a blank CD-R. I took it back to the store and they thankfully exchanged the disc. I think it might have been touch and go there for a moment, but in the end we're talking a few bucks for them to replace it vs. losing my business forever if they don't.
Best Buy apparently doesn't understand this concept, that or they just don't care. Either way, I'm unpacking my purchase completely at the counter before I walk away, just in case.
The Generation
I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.