Today’s Best Buy Service Plan horror story is brought to you by the letter “L” for “lemon.”
Hi Ben & Meghann,
I’ve been an avid reader of The Consumerist for some time. Now, I need your help.
In March 2004, I paid about $450 for a 40GB iPod and 4 year extended service plan from Best Buy. Since then I have been repeatedly cheated and lied to and they have taken every effort possible to avoid providing me with the service I paid for. My iPod has been in for service seven times, despite a warranty that says more than 3 repairs means the product is a lemon and they’ll replace it. They have countless excuses and technicalities that don’t actually exist in the warranty contract, but that they insist are “policy” and there’s “nothing (they) can do about it.”
My iPod has been in their hands since 9/5 while they “investigate” whether it is eligible for the lemon clause of my contract despite the fact that it clearly is. I was promised a one week turnaround when I gave it to them, yet they still have it 6 weeks later. They cannot provide me with a valid date of completion but they can provide numerous worthless promises of dates that come and go. They also insist my iPod, that was worth $400 in store credit under the terms of my contract when I dropped it off, is now only worth $250 since Apple lowered their prices.
I have escalated to the store manager and the Geek Squad manager. Both made false attempts to emphasize, but claim they have no power and everything is up to “the service center” which, conveniently, has no known phone number and cannot even be contacted by the store managers except through the issuance of electronic repair orders (or so they claim). The Geek Squad manager has lied to my face and contradicted himself several times on their supposed policies.
Legally, I am on solid ground. They are in breach of their contract and I am literally days away from suing these people in small claims court if they do not come up with a minimum $400 (plus tax) store credit. I’m writing this in hopes that people will learn from my mistake and never, ever, buy an extended warranty from Best Buy. I bought this warranty based on simple math – I knew the battery would eventually die and cost $100 to replace and the warranty was only $40 so it made sense – but I didn’t anticipate Best Buy’s complete and utter refusal to honor the terms of the warranty, nor their ability to pull mysterious, unwritten, anti-consumer policies out of their hats at every opportunity, nor their willingness to make every service event last for 4 to 6 weeks or longer. Perhaps telling my story to several million people will spur some internal reform.
Hey, here’s hoping. We haven’t read the terms of your service plan or anything, but it sounds small claims court might be a hot and sexy idea. It might even be fun. Make sure to keep your buddies at The Consumerist updated.
(Photo:DCVision2006)
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Wait, Best Buy Replacement Plans Don’t Fix Or Replace Discontinued Gadgets?
Mind you this guy is entitled to a replacement product under FEDERAL LAW. The Magnusson-Moss warranty act clearly defines the rules for ANYBODY warranting a consumer product, be it the manufacturer or third party.
Part of the act says that a consumer is entitled to refund or replacement after a reasonable number of repairs have been made (or if repairs can’t be made in a timely fashion). It doesn’t state a specific number, but 7 times is generally not reasonable. And 6 weeks is HARDLY a timely repair for an iPod.
The service centers are certainly not un-reachable, when I was a geek squad supervisor we regularly called the service centers to find out what was going on.
Ipods are shipped to a service center owned and operated by bestbuy, typically the famed ‘geek squad city’ service center.
There, you have technicians who have to diagnose and repair the problem in about 10-20 minutes under a great deal of pressure in order to get to the next in a pile of hundreds of ipods in their queue for that day.
Because of this, there’s a 50/50 chance of a legitimately bad ipod being sent back to the store as ‘NFF’ or no fault found.
NFF claims don’t count against your 3 no lemon tickets, in fact the only thing that does count toward the 3 no lemon requests is a repair order with a part replaced, and the only parts to replace in an ipod are the battery and hard drive and maybe the interface pack. Everything else warrants replacing the entire unit, which would fulfill the service plan, even if the replacement is refurb or you’re given store credit for the current value of the particular SKU in their retek system.
The funny thing is most ipod repairs end up being replacements, and the stores don’t want to eat the replacements so they keep sending it back over and over again. You may wish to demand the history of each of your service orders to see what’s being written in there.
BTW the mag-moss warranty act doesn’t apply to ‘service plans’ …see what I did there?
I’m not saying this is how it happened, but this is how it’s happened before.
The majority of customers who have “sent their ipod in 7 times” have done so because they drop it off saying the battery doesn’t work. It gets charged overnight, and played back in store, getting signed off on every hours.
then the playback time gets compared with a spreadsheet from apple comparing models, ages, and projected battery life. ie customer brings it in saying it lasts for 30 minutes, it ends up playing for 12 hours of playback.
They are then send them home with the ipod
No repair was done
Repeat 6 times
I’m not sure what this customer means by “in for service seven times.”
Does that mean it was actually sent to the service center seven times? Or just brought into the store? I work for Best Buy, and let me tell you, this is a great cause for confusion. The no lemon only applies if it goes to the service center, they find something wrong with the hardware, and fix it.
If the customer brings it into the store because they unplugged it without doing “Safely Remove Hardware” a million times and corrupted the firmware, Geek Squad will restore the firmware. Problem fixed. That is NOT a qualified repair. There’s nothing wrong with the iPod. This happens all the time where the customer screws up the firmware on it. The firmware is purely software and does not screw itself up. A qualified repair is when it actually leaves the store, goes to service, and they fix a hardware problem. If it goes to service and all they do is restores the firmware, it is No Fault Found and is not a qualified repair.
So just because they brought it in seven times, does not mean it had hardware replaced several times! This is all in the service agreement.
If hardware was replaced seven times, then yes, junkout should have happened by now.
I would go to the store and ask for printouts of all the services you have had done on the iPod. Ask for them to tell you what was replaced each time.
If there are three qualified repairs (hardware was replaced at service) and the time it is in for now is the forth hardware problem, you should get your no lemon. Ask for the General Manager, explain what happened, show him the service orders, and ask that he make a special case and authorize a junkout. In some cases, the manager does have power to do that.
If, however, it has not had hardware replaced three times and is in for the forth, under the terms of the service plan, they are not allowed to no lemon your iPod. Service plans do not cover software problems. You have no legal grounds in small claims court. Ask them to submit an escalation to repair your iPod and send it back so you can have it.
I have a 3 year PSP plan on the ipod, and it has been repaired 4 times.
I brought it in last night and inquired about the lemon policy since it said after 3 repairs i am entitled to an exchange… etc.
They bring up that it needs to be the same hardware failure to be qualified so then i bring up all the service receipts showing the hard drive has been replaced FOUR times.
The associate tells me that i the lemon policy should have kicked in the last visit.. etc.
He tells me to go ahead and grab something thats comparable to the one i have (40GB 4G ipod i bought for 399.99). I went ahead and got the 160gb brought it up to the counter.
I was literally minutes away from getting a brand new one but as the store manager comes for an override he calls someone and does something diffrent a “RAPID EXCHANGE” program for the ipod.
Basically i was told that ill be getting a NEW one mailed to me instead of an in-store exchange. I go home and research it to find out they mail you a REFURB one..
It is obvious that the manager had the authority to do such an in-store exchange but changed his mind for some reason… I have my heart set on getting the 160gb one since they had proposed that exchange to begin with.
Does best buy not honor their warranties/lemon policies?
So to any best buy employees… what can i do here? oh and the refurb one is in worst shape than the one i gave to them, the back is polished to all hell with the logo not even visible or the serial #…. identical hard drive problems that pose more of a problem than the one i sent in.
I work for Geek Squad and know that the standard procedure for the “No Lemon Policy” is that the product must have 3 hardware (does not have to be same issue) repairs and on the 4th repair the tech is supposed (after looking up previous repairs) to ask for a no lemon on the service order tag and then send the product out to service. There usually isn’t any problem getting it approved as long as the 3 prior repairs qualify. The repairs cannot be reconnecting parts, restoring software or “no fault found”, which are common solutions for Ipods. Common qualifying repairs are new hard drive installs and new batteries. If for some reason the device (not just Ipods) is repaired and not “No Lemoned”, I would recommend immediately getting a Geek Squad Supervisor or any Manager involved. Usually any of these mentioned will allow an exchange and then just send the device out to service so Best Buy still gets money for the product. Sometimes one of the above will ask the customer to allow for one more attempt and send an “Escalation” which gives the service order more attention. This all depends on the competancy of the Leadership in the store I would guess though. I’m a Geek Squad Senior and try to do what I can to get the product No Lemoned but am up front with the customer when there aren’t enough qualifying Service Orders. Also common recently is a “Rapid Exchange” where the customer agrees to get a different, refurbished Ipod of equal or better specs in about 4-5 business days as opposed to the repair which is typically 2-3 weeks.
What ever happened to “The customer is always right”? Some companies really get this. Look at Costco for instance? I’ve never seen a company more interested in keeping their customers happy. I’m guessing it’s working since they seem to still be growing fast and have a very low turn over.
Reading the comments here I see a lot of former BestBuy employees, and probably some current ones, arguing this issue back and forth. Isn’t that exactly what is the ongoing theme of BestBuy and their crappy service? Rather than finding out how to help their money-spending customers and keeping them happy they argue and nit-pick clauses to avoid incurring small costs.
I’m pretty sure this post alone is hurting BestBuy a lot more than just replacing the individuals iPod. This is a perfect example of how a large retailer gets it wrong.
Guess where I am not going to be buying my electronics?
Performance Service Plan: It’s a Sham
I can’t watch Red Sox play in the world series at my home tv.I am so frustrated with best buy perfomance service plan. Its been close to two months and my tv is still broken. The vendor showed up on 09/17 and said they would be back with parts. On 10/23, they showed up and it didn’t help. Now they need to order the full panel. I am not sure, why they would not order a replacement or give me a tv in exchange till they fix it.
At Best Buy stores, performance service plan is sold as an immediate fix or replacement for your broken tv. But, in reality its a sham. I have wasted so much of my time with Best Buy customer care and its vendor, Tops electronics. I would have been much better of without the plan.
I had to stay home two days for the vendor to come in and fix my tv. Both days, I had to take dayoff from my work, I am still paying my cable bill and Best Buy has nothing to do with it. It’s all my mistake. A lesson learnt, never get into trap of purchasing the performance service plan.
Glad to see that I am not alone.
My issue is with Best Buy’s computer three year extended warranty. My daughter’s computer has been in their hands (for repairs) almost longer than it’s been in her hands (for use at college).
Literally, almost every other month her computer has been back to Best Buy. One screen issue, two battery/port issues, supposed hardware issue, supposed virus where they reinstalled everything (a month ago) now the screen is going to blue – and saying there’s a hardware issue. Incredible.
On one of these ventures they had the laptop two months because – surprise – they lost it. Otherwise, it’s with them for mere weeks.
The last time (#5) I asked about getting a new one – telling them this one is obviously a lemon. They’ve just about replaced everything on and in the computer – and it still doesn’t work. Nope, has to be THE same issue.
My husband just took his nine month old desk-top in to have a new hard drive installed. It’s crashed twice now.
This family is fed up with Best Buy. He even told the Manager (after they said two days to repair his machine and it was nine days) that these computers will be the last things we purchase from Best Buy. When these warranties run out (for all of the good they do not do) we will never buy anything else from them – and we’ve been loyal customers for years. Apparently they don’t care.
In the meantime, I was seriously considering, in regard to my daughters computer, filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. The massive amount of time we have all wasted on this is worth more than the silly computer! Enough is enough!
Thanks for having this forum so people can be assured they’re not alone in their problems with Best Buy. They will no doubt go the way of Sun TV – buh bye – for abusing their customers trust.
I work at Best Buy as a supervisor and occasionally fill in at customer service. I am truly sorry at the maddening experience you’re having. That said, some stores, no doubt affected by poor leadership, bad judgment, or both, will refuse to do the right thing. In this case, that would be upgrading you to a new 80G, apologizing for holding your iPod hostage, and sending you on your way.
From purely financial reasoning, your bad experience will probably send you to Circuit or Costco when it’s time to buy that plasma, cost to Best Buy $2000, your appliances will come from Sears, another $3000.
I find it helps to just try another store and see if they’ll work with you, or call 888 BEST-BUY and talk to consumer relations. BTW, it helps of you’re nice, and understanding of the fact that as lowly store employees, we have as much authority as a hot dog vendor sometimes.
We’re not all evil, I promise you. Some of us even go above and beyond to keep you happy.
And the service centers can’t be contacted. Believe me, I’ve tried to fish for that myself.