Corporate America and the weak consumer

A

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I know I am a noob to these threads, and I couldn't find the right place to put this post, so save the flames, I'm an idiot :rolleyes:
My beef is with BestBuy. Here is what happened. I wanted a joystick to play some dumb game on my PC. Having a decent income at the time I bought a $110 Microsoft Force-Feedback joystick from my local BestBuy. After about a month it shit the bed and I brought it back, no receipt, and exchanged it for the same one np. With the second one I opted for the $10 extended warrantee deally, and explicitly asked the salesmonkey,
"Will I need to save anything for this warrantee?"
He replied, "No, you are saved in the computer."
After about 2 months the joystick died, I went back to the BestBuy and at the service counter the monkey said,
"You have your receipt?"
I chuckled and replied, "I was told that I would not need it and I am saved in the computer." seeing where this was going...
He gave a blank stare. After about an hour of circling between managers, service monkeys and repair guys I lost my patience and left taking a loss of $110 and undoubtedly sprouted a few more grey hairs over the whole ordeal. It felt like they had a prefabricated plan to make the customer wander in circles and ultimately frustrate the customer until they left the store. Well it worked. It's companies like BestBuy that just lucked into the IT retail industry, which would have otherwise succumbed to their ignorant and repulsive means of service and sales. It's like if a lemonade stand were to pop-up in the Sahara Desert just as 4,000 wanderers are passing-by, dying of thirst. FUCK THEM!

On a different account, my oldest brother's friend wanted a new PC so he went to BestBuy to get one. He already had a cable internet connection that he planned on using. He paid for it using a credit card and here's what BestBuy did to him:
1: Charged his credit card accordingly for the purchase, as expected.
2: Gave MSN his credit card number.
3: MSN began charging him for a 6 month contract for dial-up internet access and began monthly charges, unbeknownst to him.
4: Refused any refund requests saying it was between him and MSN.
Now I understand that there was probably some fine-print bullshit saying this would happen but wtf, if every bit of fine-print had to be read nothing would ever get done. This is a perfect example of the fat feeding the fat from the scraps of the consumers. FUCK THEM!

Sorry about the long post, but one final thing I must mention. My friend was also on the market for a new PC not long ago. His wife was adamant about getting a warrantee, blah, blah so a homebuild or generic machine was out of the question. I went with him to the local BB and while he yammered on with the sales monkey I happily sat at the kiosk trying to fuck it up as much as I could. We ended up leaving the store a few minutes after closing. As I walked through the store I was aghast at what I saw. The whole staff of the BB apparently has 'pep-rally' things at the end of the day. It was so close to a facist convention I was almost ill. Chanting, speeches, it was all there. I half expected to see them all 'seig heil' and goose-step out with a look of enlightenment. Luckily they were mostly younger kids and the gathering seemed to have no effect on them. The BestBuy flag above them might has well have had a swastika on it. Is this what is becoming of our country? I apologize for politicizing this post, and I know I have a distorted view of society but I hope this is not what our country is becoming. Thanks for hearing my rant.
 
I believe the moral of this story is save your reciepts. This is probably the best thing to do in ANY case, especially when your dealing with durable goods. Tis a shame you had to go through all of that, it most certainly is. I FEEL yo pain. The case with your brother's friend is definitely annoying for sure. I haven't seen this before, but did it say anywhere if there was going to be a hookup for service immediately? Gotta watch those things, cause companies like to sneek that kind of stuff in there.

Also, go easy on the "salesmonkey" as you call them. These people work for almost nothing and most of them are not educated on the the aspects related to the crap they sell. And what do you expect? People do not last long at these jobs because the pay is poor, the hours are crap and some customers don't realize how often they act like jackasses towards employees. But hey, it's better than nothing right? Their labor for next to nothing insures that well off people are just a bit more pampered and the stuff you buy is kept dirt cheap. If you wanna bust some heads, bust the manager's heads cause they are the ones that get paid the money. It's their job to deal with customer service/sasifaction aspects of things. They are the ones to hold accountable.

Also, I have no idea where your getting fascism from. This merely discredits your story's credability even further. I cannot see a connection between BestBuy and fascism. Perhaps better luck next time with what you buy? Thanks for reading. Have a nice day. : )
 
I've gotta go with Crimsonator. I've been a salesmonkey, as have some of the other people on here. For the most part, unless you make a concerted effort to know return policies, etc., you aren't going to know what they are. Plus, you might not even be in your own department when you're answering questions. Granted, return policies/warranties and such are important, but there's a good chance they were never trained on them.
 
I bought a car radio from best buy once, and they installed it for me for free, and everything turned out fine. I'm sorry your experience sucks with them, but i cant empathize with you on this one.
 
maybe it's an omen; you're too old to be playing video games :P

i'm just kidding. seriously, it sucks and about a billion people have gone through similar situations. i can remember one time telling a customer service rep for cingular that i could see that the brand-name umbrella was a tool they used to point customers in circles until they gave up.

what a clear strategy: "be dicks and never give the customers anything but another phone number."

btw, great first post. articulate, well-structured, extremely mature by comparison to most of the writings here :D

A+

~ dan ~
 
Yeah I can't really complain so long as their shit works.. but when it doesn't, even with a receipt, if you're lucky enough to get someone who knows what the fuck they're doing it takes 15 minutes just to get all cleared out, and when there are 10 people in front of ya .. do the math you're gonna be there for a looong time. OH and god forbid they use the other registers and have more than one person working the return line *sigh* the retardation of corperate companies (-.-)
 
I Personally hate the local BB they just opened a new store last spring and it is an utter nightmare. Now i'm not saying all the BB's are bad I've been to a few good ones, just the one from around the way is the only one I have a problem with. My main bitch is the incomprehendible distribution of sales staff throughout the store. you'd think there would be more ppl in the more technical and confusing sections like computer hardware and cellphones than the typically easy to browse movies games and cd sections, that is not the case. on my first trip to the store i wanted to look for prices on a few cd's i had looked up online. I was asked by 8 different salespeople if i needed help finding something. everytime i would lose my place in what i was looking at. the unfortunate acne riddled saleskid who asked me the 8th time got an earful. I immediately apologized for blowing up on him and explained what had been going on. he accepted and trudged away to pester someone else. finally i finished looking and left. on my next trip i was going after a usb2.0 card and a new set of sata hard drives. it took me twenty minutes to find someone who could open the locked case they were in and a half hour more to find someone to answer my questions. on my way out i decided to look at some dvd's and was swarmed with helpful salespeople trying to assist me in finding what i was looking for. after that i gave up on the local BB. if i find BB has a great deal i will drive the extra 20 minutes to go to a different location. they seriously have some screwed up priorities. pester the hell out of people who are looking at items categorized and stacked ALPHABETICALLY FOR CHRISSAKE. but in the section of the store with the confusing high dollar electronics put one salesperson and i'll be damned if he isn't always on break when you show up there.

maybe i'm wrong and i'm fucked up but :mfinger: Best Buy!
 
DON'T buy Microsoft inpuit devices. (Mice Sticks Pads etc.)
I learned that after buying a Microsoft $20 mouse, it broke, I didn't have the receipt, so I bought another one, a $25 dollar one this time. It broke again. This time I kept the receipt. Now I have a Logitech mouse (MX 310). Its perfect. Now I'm planning on buying this stick.
Looks pimped, doesn't it? Or I can buy the X-45, which is completely pimped.
If you wanna get and input device, don't get a Microsoft one. They break after a month (or more.)
If you need a new one just order one from www.newegg.com
It's teh bast computah store. Seriously. I'm not just saying that.
I order lots of stuff from there. Always satisfied.

BB is good for playing Spiderman 2 on PS2 if you don't have one. :>
 
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