I am in the market for some new appliances for my condo. I went to Best Buy because it said they had a 10% off sale.  I saw a GE fridge for $887 last week and with 10% off, I thought thats a good deal.  They jacked up the price to $1049 and discounted 10% so it was acutally more then it was last week when it wasnt on SALE.  I went to Lowes and it was $887 all the time.  And since they didnt dick with me thats where I ended up buying it from.  Unfortuately, I might not have a choice when it comes to buying my HDTV.

Best Buy SUCKS!!!!!!

There has got to be a Circuit City or Sears near you. Both have excellent customer service and don't jerk you around.

The last time I was in Best Buy I was asked not to return.  That happened shortly after I called the manager a "Fu*king Little Prick!"

Amen'
I worked for those bastards for over 5 years.....
There sales people are dishonest with you and at times will tell you anything you want to hear to sell an extended warrantee. (Performance Service Plan A.K.A-PSP)
   I was head of security for the store and they wanted me to sell people on service plans and MSN Internet access as they entered and exited the store. That's not was I was hired on to do....That's one of the main reasons I left. Another, was being told to be dishonest to people. They have good products at competitive prices most of the time but they are missing the big picture by far! "Customer Service" = "Customer Loyalty."
I don't know about you guys but I seldom deal with anyone a second time around that wasn't completely honest with me the first time around.

The horror stories I could tell.......


John

Shit, please don't tell me we have to boycott Best buy now?
I live there.............
I collect movies and add to my collection at least once a week.If i don't get my Best buy fix, i go nuts.
Eric the ammoman

Ah, dmuldrew!

I recognize another fellow graduate of the Internet Grabbit & Runn Institute of Commercial Diplomacy!

I bet you they also told you that if you had purchased the "PSP" they would be able to help you.
But, in actuality what they would do is have a "TECH" (and I use that term loosely as most of the so called "techs" had no real training or schooling in the field.) look at it and after determining that is was broken would have to send it out for "service" to best buy's nearest service center. Good luck getting that sucker back in the same condition you brought it in and if the don't lose your TV or it doesn't take 2 months to get back you might be ok......

Yes, I have a bit of animosity towards Best Buy.....


John

It was worth using my 1500th post to rant about a piss poor establishment such as Best Buy....

(I actually double posted then deleted #1500)[:D]

I will add one good thing about Best Buy....
They had a great employee discount program. It was pretty much 5% over cost on everything over $25. Audio speakers were basically half price. I bought about $3500 Retail worth of Audio/Video equipment for roughly $1800 out the door! Pretty good.....

But, they still SUCK!

Best Buy customer service is HORRIBLE!  Their prices aren't bad but you better hope everything is in working order because they will stand behind NOTHING they sell.

I bought my best bud a Sony DVD player back in September for his wedding gift and he left it in the box for about a month (he was in the process of moving) and when he finally opened it up, the DVD player didn't even work.  The jackass customer service manager refused to even let him exchange it for the same exact model, even with me standing there showing the receipt proving it was a gift!  I was persistent but polite, however I was told very rudely that I was basically S.O.L. and my friend could take it up with Sony.  Bottom line: my friend was out a DVD player AND I was out $300 and felt like a tool.

F Best Buy, I will never spend another dime in there.  They're bastards.

My mother-in-law gave me a $50 gift card from Best Buy a couple of years ago. It sat in my wallet for a couple months. When I finally went to use it,the barcode ink had worn off. The cashier said I couldn't use it because the barcode reader couldn't read it. I asked for a manager and was blown off by her too. They said if I could produce a receipt for the card they would honor it. Being a gift, and the fact that is was bought a few months earlier, I was SOL. Why should I lose out on $50 because they used shitty ink on their giftcards. I haven't been back since.

Was there any type of # on the card at all that survived? If so im sure they can track it down that way,it may take a lil work but its worth 50 buck!
Goodluck!

3 year veteran of bestbuy here. video supervisor. It was exciting at first when the store first opened as we had experienced staff that had worked at the good guys and jerkit shitty. after a couple years they started phasing out the training program and never gave raises or promoted and asked us to to a hell of a lot more. I had to get the hell out of there.

Like what was said before, they will say anything to sell to you as they know absolutely nothing about the products or installation. Their turnover rate has to be over 60% at least.

My story is too long to go into, but it's almost unanimous - Best Buy (& at least the local Circuit Cities) Do Suck!




ARDOC, not if you live in southwest MI...[:)]

I haven't frequented Best Buy since the last time I bought CD's there.  I got to the register, and they wanted almost $16 for each of the three.  Whatever happened to $10.99 or less per CD?  I was surrounded by signs with $10.99 on them.  There were several signs on each row of CD's.  They advertised $10.99 or less.  The price marked on the CD's were $10.99.  The price on the register came-up much more expensive.  The manager told me they had stopped the $10.99 CD policy a couple of months earlier, and most people didn't notice or complain about the difference.  If you're going to advertise one price on TV, in the newspaper, in the store, and on the price tags, shouldn't you honour it?z

I try not to buy anything at Best Buy...their customer service is horrible.  Circuit City is much better.

I agree.  I worked in the computer department for less than 3 months (that was enough time to see it wasn't where I wanted to be).  I was going to school at the time and said I would work a maximum of 20 hours....  They usually had me scheduled for 25-30.

Anyway, all I have to say is NEVER buy a computer from best buy if you don't know exactly what you are doing.  Having worked in that area I can safely say that almost no one actually knows what they are talking about.  Most don't know anything more than is written on the display tag.

I couldnt agree with you guys more.  They tried to sell me $167 warranty for each item.  Circuit City wasnt any better.  I think SEARS sounds like a good idea.

Agreed on both. No need to go into details, you get the idea.

I just got a new GE fridge from Great Indoors (Sears).  Service was good.  Price was good.  The salesman who helped us was a recent move in from Maryland - saw my Glock shirt - started talking - he's a shooter too and glad to be down here in Texas.  Very pleasant experience.

Tate

We got a $100 Home Depot card for Christmas.  Dog chewed it into about 20 pieces.  They still honored it.  Good customer service means we will be back.  I don't know how places like Best Buy stay in business, they don't even have the best prices.

ARDOC- Check Sears for the HDTV.  Find what you want, get a low price off the internet, and they will match it.  

Lately, I've been buying all my applicances at Sears and have not been dissatisfied.

But speaking of crappy customer service, are you guys saying Best Buy is worse than CompUSA? That can't be possible!

Bought three things from Best Buy. Three problems. The only reason I go now is to look around and then order elsewhere.
A bunch of us at work were talking about them yesterday and the concensus was that everyone had had some pretty lousy damn experiences with them. They will go the same way as Kmart.

Best Buy sucks.

ARDOC, email me the HDTV model you're looking for..I work for an AV systems integrator....we're not in the home theater business but we do a lot of boardrooms and such...

QS

Yeah, they've managed to fuck me consistently about 50% of the time.  I've left that store many a time swearing I would never go back (or just swearing).  But I fucked them back once or twice (can't say how), so whatever.  I only go there when I'm really out of other venues.

Sure-Shit City is just as bad or worse though.  My solution?  I shop online as much as possible and have cut down on buying computer things at all.  More money for shooting and less money to the government that just uses my own money to oppress me.  

Fuck Beast Buy, I hate 'em.

You're talking about the one over by Lowe's $ Sam's wholesale, right? Nothing but idiots work at that one. And ever notice how they always emphasize how they DON'T get a commission on that service plan, and yet continually try to ram it down your throat?

how about never ever buy a branded pc. always buy custom jobs by flybynights.  reason? so what if they go under and it has problems. you can take it anywhere. its all standard parts, nothing is custom. no fancy smancy restore disks. you get the real windows CD (else MS hammers us, I'm one we've been around for years).

one time in best buy I was in the pc hardware section (they had a nice sale on drives then) and was near the counter where a "tech"(LOL) was telling the customer you could mix 2 different ram types with no problems. these being 5V 72pin RAM and 3.3v 168pin SDRAM. well as any good tech knows you cant do this. the mobo will feed 5 volts to all memory if 72 pin is used (one power channel), nice well baked 168pin ram coming up. so me being the nice cheerfully helpful tech I am spoke up. to tech : "no sorry thats not right you idiot, learn what you speak of before you say it or try to sell it." to customer after that "hi I'm (NAME) from (COMPANY), he's not correct, mixing those two ram types is not good. your old ram runs at 5volts the new at 3.3, the old ram is favored over the new by the computer and it will feed 5volts to the 3.3 volt memory, which will end up destroying it." customer looked at tech tossed him the mem, looked back to me and asked for a card, gave him one. hehehe NOVA5 1, BB 0.  our hardware not only costs less but comes with free phone support and no labor charge for a warranty failure. upgrading costs labor thou.

another time.. I was at BB's PC service bay (moni I bought on a deal there died, getting it back from service) he was looking at a customers pc that cust has just brought in. cust asked what NSCHED is (valid questions) tech said, "I dunno", spoke up nicely this time (him saying that wont cause damage so no need to beat him like the mem guy) "Nsched is part of Norton utilities, its the scheduler that handles all its tasks, such as virus scans or defrags." no points on this one [;)].. also it was a HP I really didn't want to mess with a POS like that.. (ulterior motive for being nice [}:)] )

BB has good sales on pc hardware from time to time, let them live.

Zardoz, I know the one you're talking about, but I stopped going to Best Buy long before that one was built.  BTW, not all of the employees there are idiots.  I know one of the security guys there that is sharp.  Also, one of the guys that fixes computers there is a relative of mine.  He just got out of the Navy after getting an EE degree from NC State, and sadly, that's the best job he's found so far.z

Yea, damn economy. I've only got one step better. Tech job at a local college. (okay half-step better) Where in SC are you zoom? im 45 west of columbia on I20

Having worked at best buy I can confirm that if you don't sell the service plans they'll get rid of you.  There is no commission but everyone is highly pressured to sell the PSPs or leave.  They openly admit that PSPs is where they make the big money--most people don't want to deal with customer service when what they bought goes bad so best buy makes almost 100% profit on them.

NOVA5, I'm near Spartanburg.  You're right about the economy.  If you think it's bad in the part of the state where you live, you should come up here.  I've read that eight of the ten largest employers from 20 years ago here in Spartanburg are now out of business.  Over the past twenty years, I've gone from a good job programming for a contractor for Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command to working for a the worlds largest textile machine monitoring company to my current job.  I'm now working as (basically) a security guard.  It's sad, but it's the best thing I've found in six years of looking.  A job at Best Buy wouldn't be that far of a drop for me.z