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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 reminds me so much of the story of someone I know who back in the mid-90s had a shrink wrapping machine. He bought a CD-ROM drive from some department store, took it home, took the CD-ROM drive out. Then he took a brick and placed it back in the CD-ROM box, srinkwrapped the box and then returned it to the store like it was unopened.
Now can you imagine what the next person who bought that had to go through?
So thisb fhf could just be a case of someone trying to trick Best Buy and trying to use a grass roots campaign scam Best Buy.
This is absurd. From reading TFA it sounds like the best buy manager took his new hard drive away from him. This is absolutely criminal. I hope best buy learns from this after they get posted all over the internet. Oh wait, they just did! If you don't want to give your customers service then you really shouldn't be accepting customers. Also, shouldn't this be "Your rights Offline?"
-- David
Sounds like Best Buy. With all the great press they get on/., why do people still go there?
Keep the tiles; they're more reliable.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
If you purchased with a credit card, can't you issue a chargeback?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chargeback
Granted it is only wikipedia, but it does list 'failure to issue a refund' as a reason for a chargeback.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
that didn't get checked upon return? If not, then I'd have to be as doubtful about that return as the manager was.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act!" -- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
...they'll somehow find child pornography on the tiles.
Oh arse
I guess the one positive thing we could say is that at least the Best Buy employees don't drool on themselves within customer eyesight like RadioShack ones. :P
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
In this situation, just take it up with your credit card company if you bought using your credit card. Otherwise, you're in trouble, no?
Incidentally, that's why I buy everything I can (except for low-cost stuff) with my credit card. If I'm unhappy, I can complain. More importantly, I can threaten to void purchases. The threat of voiding purchases via your credit card, in my experience, is more useful than actually voiding purchases. The only time I've actually had to follow through on the threat was when hotels.com charged my card but didn't reserve a room for me. Hotels.com refused to cancel the payment because I hadn't given them enough warning. (Ha!) I couldn't get the CSR droid to give up, so I just reserved a new room at the same hotel (for a lower price) and then voided the hotels.com purchase.
Most of the time, though, your credit card company will be on your side, especially if you are a high-value account that buys lots of stuff and have a high credit limit.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
If I buy something and it doesn't work, I take it back to the store and they replace it or repair it. They can then take it up with the manufacturer, or not: I don't care. Repair is a high-stakes game, because if trading standards believe that they're doing it to delay, or that the failure was unreasonable, they vendor has a problem. SoGA protection is a movable feast, but applies for at least a year.
Receiving those tiles must have driven him up the wall.
This story has been published in the Consumerist and now on Slashdot without either publication checking facts and looking for at least talking points from Best Buy itself. As far as I'm concerned, this story may yet be true, but all I can safely assume is that someone took some pictures of bathroom tiles wrapped in newspaper next to his HDD box in the hopes of scamming Best Buy out of a second drive for free or perhaps just defaming them as revenge for something unrelated. I agree with the columnist in the Consumerist that if this fellow does want to take the issue seriously he should file a complaint for theft and/or a consumer complaint with the Attorney General's office. Up to now, all we're doing by disseminating this story is continuing to feed the anonymous-libel monster.
Think of this from the store's point of view for a moment. Should they just go on good faith? What's to stop tens of thousands of people from buying anything they want and coming back with am empty box demanding their money back? Once word of Best Buy's honor system policy gets out they would be bankrupted by scams.
This isn't any different than the iPod boxes full of gravel that Target just recently got to play with. Assuming the box was brand new and not previously owned and repacked, there is probably a warehouse worker some place with a nice shiny hdd
I was a customer service manager for a Best Buy in Houston, TX for a little over a year. Best Buy Store #291 - "The PowerHouse" Galleria. This store did incredible revenue. My specialty was dealing with overtly horrible Best Buy politics on a daily basis. I sat in on numerous Geek Squad and Home Installation meetings where Management would tell the service sales people to increase their service revenue "by any means necessary." I kid you not, I saw employees express concern about the prices and methods of invoking cash from vulnerable customers, and the management would repeat itself by saying, "by any means necessary." I saw an employee charge a customer $59 to "diagnose" her computer when a CD was stuck in her CD-rom drive, when all he did was pop it out with a paper clip. I saw more horrible Best Buy policies than you could imagine, and I made a good living for a year of my life, trying to negotiate comprimises between customers who had been ripped off bluntly, and Best Buy's corporate ladder, to try and salvage any sliver of dignity that company could possibly salvage, and this speciality of mine only lasted until I'd expressed my concern to the corporate level enough that they realized it would be easier to push me out of their store than it would be to address the concerns that I brought to their attention with regard to their return, exchange, and serviec policies. Being on the inside of that place blew my mind. As for their "service plans," they use the rock-bottom dollar lowest-bidder service centers that broke as many things as they repaired, if not more. Seeing this bit on /. reminded me of the days I spent with customers who were literally crying infront of me because of how this company had wronged them. I'm not saying don't shop there - frankly I could care less and I still buy the occasional item from Best Buy out of sheer convenience, but stories like this one never surprise me, in the sense that Best Buy's business model is to make money by any means necessary.
Well, maybe at first, however, in TFA, I got the idea, that BB had already accepted the return, and the customer had bought and paid for a NEW harddrive and had that in hand.
The manager then took the drive from his hand, etc. Now, if the customer had a drive and receipt...I would think what the BB manager did to him was plain and simple theft. I'd contact the Atty General about that.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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.
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.
I bought a wireless mouse/keyboard combo (LogiTech brand) that was a returned product (i didn't even notice it was a returned product until customer service was inspecting it). I opened it up and it had the wrong brand keyboard/mouse in there. some third party i had never heard of. at first they were refusing to replace it. they kept saying they can't accept the return because its the incorrect product inside. i said, thats all well and good, but i'm not leaving til i either get the same product or a refund. they were unwilling to help and i kept complaining saying i'm not going to lose approx. $50 because one of their employees was too lazy to check their returns. the customer should never pay for an employee's mistake. this is one of those cases where people forget that the CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT. why are they always right? because a majority of the time, they are. You *always* give the customer benefit of the doubt. If you don't, most of the time you're turning away honest customers who will no longer shop with you and you therefore lose a lot more money as opposed to the cost of that one product. sometimes you'll scammers, but the only reason they thrive is due to lazy employees who don't check to ensure the contents are correct. it shouldn't matter if it looks unopened or not. they should always check (unless its blister packaging... thats *much* more difficult to fake). eventually they gave me a replacement product because it was way too complex of a scenario to just get a keyboard and mouse. plus there were a bunch of people on the customer service line and it was completely obvious that everyone can hear me complain that they were essentially charging me $50 because they hire lazy employees.
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!
I had a similar experience last spring. I purchased a sack of manure from the gardening wholesaler and when I got home and opened the bag it was full of F# documentation.
brandelf: invalid ELF type 'KEEBLER'
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 think that you overestimate the influence of /.ers.
We're not even 1% of the population, and while we might make 10x as many purchases as the rest of the population, we're still a small portion of BB and such's customer base; We're too likely to buy our stuff online from places like Newegg and tigerdirect.
I don't read AC A human right
It is theft and scam. I hope Best Buy tracks down the assholes that are doing this and pass the "costs" down on them + a nice visit to police station in cuffs + nice fine and restitution.
This is actually a case *for* unique ids like RFID to be implemented everywhere. At least that way you would be able to track down the asshole that stole from Best Buy and the guy in question. Now it is still possible, but will take time. I'm sick and tired that Best Buy should "eat it". The thief should be the one that eats the damn tiles.
As for the guy that ended up with garbage (if BestBuy didn't do the right thing, as they didn't seem to),
1. file a police report
2. chargeback credit card
3. contact drive manufacturer and report that the drive in question was stolen -- this at least voids warranty on the drive
4. if new drive is not handed over by Best Buy (show them police report), add to the police report that they stole your new drive
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, theft like this hits us all in the pocketbooks all the way from customers up to Best Buy shareholders.
As to parent, I don't know what "people" you hang around with that "do this all the time". Sounds like a bunch of assholes to me.
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
A while back, Small Dog Electronics shipped one of their customers an iPod box with only a bar of Irish Spring soap inside. Here's how their Customer Service department handled it:
http://consumerist.com/consumer/customer-service/no-ipod-soap-210348.php
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
We don't have enough information to determine who put the tiles in the box, and the customer might have done it himself. Okay, sure. But look at the actual words in the article concerning the replacement:If a person returns an item and the store takes that physical item away from them and replaces it with another physical item in return, the second that the transaction is complete, the customer OWNS the replacement item and any person -- store employee or not -- who tries to take it from them is STEALING.
If an employee believes that the customer tampered with the first item, then they should call the police and report the customer for fraud or for falsifying returns, or (so simple it's mindboggling) refuse to accept the return! However, once an employee accepts the return and gets to the point of putting the physical replacement in the customer's hands, I feel as though a judge is going to be sympathetic to the customer and say that he has a right to retain that physical item.
Not even did the manager take back the hardware, the manager physically removed the box from the customer's hands... a good lawyer might even be able to bring the manger up on assault charges.
coding is life
Are you stupid? Do you look through everything you buy to make sure it's exactly what it's labeled as? I sure as hell don't open my cereal boxes in the store just make sure I'm really getting cereal.
Agreed. But if Best Buy is accepting returns without looking inside the box to verify that there is a real product inside it, it becomes Best Buy's responsibility. If I buy something from Best Buy and I get home and the box contains something else, I absolutely positively expect Best Buy to "eat it." It's their fault. They should have inspected the contents of the box before accepting the return, and definitely before putting it back on the shelf for another victim to purchase.
This is actually a case *for* unique ids like RFID to be implemented everywhere. At least that way you would be able to track down the asshole that stole from Best Buy and the guy in question. Now it is still possible, but will take time. I'm sick and tired that Best Buy should "eat it". The thief should be the one that eats the damn tiles.
As for the guy that ended up with garbage (if BestBuy didn't do the right thing, as they didn't seem to),
1. file a police report
2. chargeback credit card
3. contact drive manufacturer and report that the drive in question was stolen -- this at least voids warranty on the drive
4. if new drive is not handed over by Best Buy (show them police report), add to the police report that they stole your new drive
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, theft like this hits us all in the pocketbooks all the way from customers up to Best Buy shareholders.
As to parent, I don't know what "people" you hang around with that "do this all the time". Sounds like a bunch of assholes to me. This would require effort on behalf of Best Buy.
Agreed, and I've never given them my real info. *I* know I'm not ripping 'em off, and so feel no reason to jump through hoops clueless suits create.
Somewhere, in a marketing database somewhere, sits:
Elmer Fudd
22 Acacia Avenue
San Antonio, RI, 90210
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
What you are missing is that the store did in fact refund the persons money. The person then purchased a new hard drive. The store manager proceeded to commit a robbery by seizing the persons property without their permission. The property that was siezed was a hard drive. The transaction concerning the tiles was over and done with in a legal fashion.
;) ) and when I called you on it, you told me that sometimes this mistake happens, and delivered the Tower Bridge, there would be no breach of contract. Of course, if after the transaction is over, and the correct bridge has been delivered, you turned around and seize the Tower bridge from me, and told me to take it up with your corporate headquarters, you would not be in breach of contract. It would be a simple robbery. OK, not simple. It is a bridge after all, but it would still be robbery.
To use your analogy, if you showed me a picture of Tower Bridge, and delivered the London Bridge, (Yes, even though I am an America, I do understand the difference.
The issue here isn't that the store refused the return. The took the return. The real issue is that after the guy bought a real (presumably) function hard drive, the manager of the store approached the customer, and seized his property. That is robbery.
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.
In a pile of scattered text, puns are sometimes our only outlet. Would you prefer that the store be referred to as "That fucking retarded crook-harboring scamshop Best Buy" ?
WorstBuy it is.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
after formatting you can only use 5 of the tiles.
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.
Dear Mistuh Togie,
I'm glad I finally twacked you down. I've been getting endless junk mail related to prowducts I've never purchased. I got a restwaining order against that pesky wabbit, but the junk mail still kept coming.
May you wot in hell.
sincerwly,
Elmer J. Fudd
I work in retail, in fact the customer is frequently wrong as well as loud and stupid.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
The employees, at least, get paid straight time. No commission, and really no incentives.
I happen to have worked at a Best Buy in the past (briefly, mind you... my manager and I had a disagrement about the best way to serve the customers' needs - I wanted to explain things to them so they could make an informed decision, he wanted them to buy things based on purchase price).
I have no idea what management gets paid, or what their incentive plans might include. I do know that the blue-vested people you see wandering around in the aisles ignoring customers are paid not much more than minimum wage, regardless of the speed at which inventory fails to fly off the shelves.
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