Several years ago, Paul let us know that Best Buy Sucks. I agreed with him: after entirely too many experiences with their so-called “customer service,” I decided to forego shopping there (boycotting, if you will) for even the smallest of items. But recently, I succumbed to the evil in the name of saving money. I’m here to come clean, but I’m also here to tell you that Best Buy still sucks.
Number one… on August 7th, I pre-ordered a DVD box set from BestBuy.com that was due out on August 20th. They had the best price on the set, by far, were offering free shipping, and gave a $10 “digital coupon” wtih each order of this particular box set. On August 17th they “confirmed” my order. Unfortunately, even though I pre-ordered this item two weeks in advance, they didn’t have any in stock the day of the release. Now, most good DVD retailers will ship a DVD so it arrives on the release date. Not Best Buy. They shipped the day after. And then it took a full week for it to actually get to my house. But, hey, at least I got the $10 coupon.
Number two… on the morning of August 23rd, I got my $10 digital coupon (which had to be used online before September 9th). They were selling the brand new Madden 2003 for the PC for a mere $24.99. Every other online retailer had it for no less than $39.99. After my digital coupon and after adding in tax, my order for this brand new game was only $16.11. I justified my momentary lapse in judgement by the fact I got a great deal on this game. Though the free shipping offer was still on, I didn’t feel like waiting two weeks for it to arrive. So, I chose the “pick up” option since I have a store a mile or two from my work.
Now, with other stores like Circuit City or Office Depot, their “pick up” option only has to be chosen a few hours before you plan on picking the item up. And if the web site tells you its in the store, it’s there and will be waiting for you when you arrive. When I got the Best Buy receipt in my e-mail, it said that my order would be confirmed for pick up within 24 hours. I ordered at 11am on a Friday. It wasn’t until Monday at 3pm that I heard back from them with a note saying “Unfortunately, the items you ordered were not found at our store. Please contact our Customer Care representatives at onlinestore@bestbuy.com or toll-free at 1-888-BESTBUY (1-888-237-8289) to check product availability at other locations, or we’ll be happy to ship those items to you free of charge.”
I was a tad annoyed. My reponse to them via e-mail:
How in the heck did it take 3 1/2 days to tell me it wasn’t in stock at a store (what happened to the promised “24 hours”)? And how does a store not have a brand new title like Madden 2003 in stock? Amazing.
Anyway, please just ship it to my billing address. (Note that I ordered the PC version.)
Clear, right?
Two days later I received this e-mail:
Ryan,
Thank you for contacting Best Buy about our free shipping offer. I’m Holly with Customer Care.
We apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced related to this order. We value you as a customerand would be happy to ship your item to you via our standard ground shipping free of shipping charges.
Your original order has been cancelled. Please resubmit your order online. You’ll initially be billed forshipping and handling, however, when you reply to this email with your order number, we will credit your cardfor the standard shipping and handling amount.
And another e-mail followed confirming my order cancellation.
So wait… “We… would be happy to ship your item to you. Your original order has been cancelled.” Um… ok…
I got back on their web site. Fortunately, the digital coupon had been creditted back to my account so I could use it again. Unfortunately, the game was no longer priced at $24.99. Now it was $39.99. It was going to cost me an extra $15 to “resubmit [my] order.”
I fired off another angry reply to them that started, “NO NO NO NO NO NO NO, NO!” I proceeded to ask them if they actually read the e-mail I sent them. I then asked them to reinstate my order for the original price, with the digital coupon applied. I bet they don’t.
It didn’t take long for me to remember exactly why I had boycotted the Evil Empire of Best Buy nearly four years ago. Now starts phase two of that boycott.
Posted in Consumer Commentary
K. January 11, 2008, 2:08 pm
Best Buy does suck. I worked there and the lack of organization with their employees is horrible. Ordering off the website and doing in store pick up never works out for customer, as the employees are still running around the store trying to find the items while the customer is at the front counter to pick it up.
Geek Squad, while I can say nothing bad about the actual people working for them, is a joke. $59 to install an operating system. What a joke! If you know how to insert a DVD, hit continue a few times then you can install an operating system. And the “48 hour” wait time for stuff to be done is a joke. Most times the “geeks” are just sitting around in the back looking at status bars on installs. They can’t seem to manage to multi-task more than 2 machines at once.
Management will tell customers anything to get them to buy the service plans. And guess what, the only thing that is even worthwhile on them is the surge protection guarantee in the off chance that your computer does fry. Anything else is actually cheaper to get fixed outside of warranty by an independent computer tech. I would only get the service plan as an employee because of the discount on it. $500 to cover a MacBook pro for 3 years when nothing ever really goes wrong with them. Yea, not cool.
Eric July 3, 2008, 8:18 pm
You people who have bad experiences at best buy, have those experiences because you come in thinking you are the only people in the world who need help with something. Take a look around every employee is busy, we help as fast as possible. For example there is 3 people that work in computers most times of the day, plus up to 3 customer assistants that work in every department, on average a computer sale takes 15 to 20 mins. if there are 10 customers best case senario we will get the the 11th customer in 25 minutes. We are all busy, all day long. Try doing a little reseach on our website and get an idea of what your looking for. We will be happy to set it up and get it working for you with all of the accesories you may need. If we have to explain every little detail to you about things that people aleady know about your wasting precious time we could be using to help other customers so we dont get complaints.
Paul July 4, 2008, 6:49 pm
“Try doing a little reseach on our website and get an idea of what your looking for.”
I’m looking for the letter “R” and an apostrophe. ZING! OH YEAH!
ntsavr December 4, 2008, 5:20 pm
Comments: I had ordered the pink panther 6disc film collection, and had put it for store pick up. When i got there and finally got the package (after 20 min wait) it was the wrong disc!! I told them this not what i ordered. The associate goes away for another 20mins and then hands me over to another person, who says ” would you like to return this!”. I was shocked!! I had never ordered what was presented to me and then i was told – do you wanna return it – no explanations!! So i had to return that disc ( which i never ordered) and then buy the thing i had ordered at the store!! I was simply too much wait an trouble for a simple swap that anyone could have done. Please get your processes in line and do have better store pick up procedures – and make sure your warehouse personnells’ mistakes are checked. I did not expect such utter disregard from Best Buy
iabhornc March 14, 2011, 5:45 pm
I totally agree. Best Buy has really gone downhill over the years. First, they have stopped carrying a lot of things they once had (whether it be electronics, etc.) Second (and last), The service is so horrendous words can’t even describe. It is everything people have mentioned before me and more.
As with defective CD/DVDs, it seems to be becoming a very common tale. Sometimes, I even have to go to a Best Buy far away just for a measly (sp?) return. Just how ridiculous is that. If they don’t carry something, then they should just say they don’t have it instead of making themselves look like idiots. This happened to me once. I went into a Best Buy looking for one of those devices used to clean CD and DVD discs with. It has a crank on it and you spray some solvent on the disc. Then, you turn the crank to clean it. I couldn’t find it anywhere there and the (North Carolina) assholes in charge said they had it when they were clueless as !@#$. They didn’t even know the difference between a disc resurfacer and cleaner. What idiots. Then, the store clerk(s) took me to where I had already been and they had to ask me a stupid question like: ”what do you need it for?” By the sounds of it that much should be obvious (what I need it for.) I was so appalled that I stormed out of that putrid, Durham, NC; establishment. I recently went to one in Lynchburg, VA and it too was bad. A good name for Best Buy would be WORST BUY. At least Target was able to help me out with one of those CD/DVD cleaners. !@#$ you Best (more like WORST) Buy! I hope you (and your Minnesota butts) get driven out of business. Why can’t you be more like Target?
I have heard NUMEROUS complaints (nationwide of course) about people who have bought computers from this sorry retailer going back to the 90’s. Not to mention that MANY of the store clerks at WORST BUY are nothing but a bunch of RUDE MORONS who deserve to be out of a job. The prices are not as good as they used to be and they carry defective merchandise. !@#$ that! It’s good to know others have had a problem there. I say that we should stop going into WORST BUY and drive those @$$holes out of business b/c enough is enough.