Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Worst Buy

Yeah...I know the title is cheap and unimaginative, but I'm pissed off and not in the mood to be clever.  Best Buy can go screw themselves.  They will never see another dime of my money again ever.  I ignored the many times I went in there and had some acne riddled snot nose pretend he knew about the product I was buying. Never mind the fact that a cursory amount of research online was enough for me to know for sure he was full of shit. So what if every time I bought anything there including DVDs and CDs they tried to upsell me to their ridiculously overpriced warranty coverage.

Today was the last straw.  Best Buy is now on my corporate black list.  They join Blockbuster and McDonalds as two places I will never spend my hard earned money again. 

I recently was given a sizable gift certificate for a nearby high end mall known as Jordan Creek Town Center. They have a Best Buy on property and their gift certificates work there.  I've been without a subwoofer on my home theater for a few years now.  The old one blew and I just never wanted to spend the money to replace it. So I figured this gift certificate was a great opportunity to remedy that. 

I researched my options on the Best Buy website and found one that looked like it would fit the bill.  I picked up my son from school yesterday and we drove the half an hour or so to the Best Buy store.  I was stupid and didn't write down the model number of the sub I was seeking, but I figured it would be no problem to describe to the associate what I wanted (brand, price, etc.) and they should be able to direct me right to it.  Right?  Wrong.  They had no clue. So he took me over to their little workstation and started searching the Best Buy website.  I tried to tell him exactly what keywords I used to search and find the subwoofer in question, but he completely ignored my suggestions. He couldn't find the one in question.  In disgust I said, "I'll just go look it up again and get the model number and come back."

Today at work I looked up the item again.  I quickly (by repeating my steps from the previous day) found the item again. I wrote down the brand and model number and then just to be sure I clicked the little link to see if the item was in stock at the store.  It was, so I picked up my son and made the 30 minute trek across town again. When I arrived I grabbed a different sales associate and told him the item I was looking for.  He took me right to it which I thought was a good sign.  He said they had them in stock and headed to the stock room to find it.

After about 20 minutes he returned and informed me they didn't have any in stock.  I asked if they sold one in the last hour and he said no. I said, "Well the reason I made the drive over is that your website said the store had one in stock. Can you look again?" To which he said, "We definitely don't have any. The website is wrong all the time. Would you like me to order one? I can have it here in 5-7 days." To which I said, "No thanks, I'll pass. I'll buy it somewhere else like American or Amazon.com." To which he just shrugged. He didn't offer to check with any other Best Buy stores or substitute a different item for the price of the item that showed as in stock on their site. Just watched me walk out the door for good.

I know they're going under on their own without my help and the few hundred dollars I spend a year on electronics and video games won't bankrupt them, but I'm becoming an evangelist.  My sermon will be the same every Sunday.  BROTHERS AND SISTAHS....IF WE PULL TOGETHER WE CAN ACHIEVE ANYTHING! BUY FROM A COMPANY THAT ACTS LIKE THEY WANT YOUR BUSINESS!  THAT COMPANY IS NOT BEST BUY!

8 comments:

  1. Best Buy sucks! You, however, do not.

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    1. Thanks, Josie. I'm a little calmer this morning, but I'm definitely still pissed. I can't wait for Best Buy to go the way of Circuit City.

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  2. Very rare that I go to a Best Buy, or any electronics retailer for that matter any more.
    Last time was to get the Walking Dead Season 1 on Blu - I was going to get the super cool edition but my cheapness wouldn't allow me to part with $54.

    I prefer amazon.com to pretty much everything at this point.

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    1. I usually buy all of this kind of stuff online through Amazon Prime except when my instant gratification A.D.D. gene won't allow me to wait. This time it was only because I had a gift certificate. My kid will be happy though. He's likely going to get a new basketball hoop from Scheel's out of the deal instead.

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    2. With Prime you can even come pretty close to scratching the instant gratification itch. It's pretty amazing how a company that's whole reason for being should be to give folks what they want can do such a bad CS job.

      I was in a department store the other day picking up some lotions the Mrs wanted. She had actually ordered stuff online for me to pick up at the store which is very close to my work. They only let her order 1 set of the stuff online. Since she said it was a really good deal I thought there my be some limit on how much you could buy at once. She wanted more so after picking stuff up at customer service I want to the fancy lotions counter figuring I would just buy another from their stock. One of the sales ladies saw my obvious clueless husband look and asked me if she could help. I showed her what I was looking for and she took me over to where we could find it ... Except it wasn't there. Then she took me over to the register to look for more "in the back". It turned out that they were completely out of stock (so I guess that explains why my wife could only order one).

      So here's the good part. The lady offers to order more ... and have them shipped to my home for free! I was going to buy one extra set, I bought two. She also gave me her card and told me any time I needed something I should call her up and she'd either arrange for in store pickup or free shipping home. It was pretty clear that she wanted to make it easier for me to spend money in their store, not harder. Now guess who's going to get a lot of business around my wife's b-day, anniversary etc?

      Not for nothing but I suspect there may be an advantage to hiring a group other than snot nosed teenagers as your sales staff.

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    3. See...that's the way it should work. I guess it's all relative though. I remember how my dad was completely furious the first time our local department store required him to show his ID to write a check. "WHAT?!?!? I've shopped here for years and now you don't trust me?"

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  3. I guess everyone hates Best Buy -- and rightfully so. I could devote a whole long post about problems I have had there.

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