Some of those sound fake. And by fake, I mean bored nerds that are trying to one-up the other nerds on things that could have happened yet most likely never did.

Best Buy is terrible. Recently, they just told me they won't honor their warranty for my camera. That's OK, 'cause now they can explain to the judge why.

Most of the people who work there don't have a clue as to what they are trying to sell. Now who is the dumb ass bitch?

Yeah, us consumers suck for having to ask where the bathroom is.

"IT DOESN'T MAKE TOAST!"

I bet she forgot to plug it in...

@pegr: either that or she doesn't actually exist. Dash is probably right.

Of course, that doesn't mean that many consumers aren't dumb as toast.

@vastrightwing: I had a similiar run-in with them on their warranties. Geek Squad actually tried to tell me that they wouldn't repair my computer (under their additional extended warranty) and then fell back to say that they wouldn't honor a Best Buy warranty.

Just blow up the part of the warranty that covers you and the receipt on day of purchase to poster size and sit back and laugh.

In the end, they repaired it. And paid court fees.

I can just picture it now: Best Buy employee helping a young man pick out a new computer system for mom and dad for Christmas. The Best Buy employee brings up the extended warranty. The young man grabs the display model of the computer, shakes it violently, screaming:

"But will it BLEND!?"

I used to work at an amusement park where the employees where treated so horribly, someone actually created a website/bulletin board for employees to log on and talk to one another and/or about one another and management. Best stress reliever ever created. Now new employees are forced to sign an agreement to never log on to the site nor post anything, as if they are able to monitor your web-surfing at home. This Best Buy forum looks like it's the same thing, just a way to relieve the stress/boredom of the job they work.

"IT DOESN'T MAKE TOAST!"

Well known urban legend. Usually it appears as a customer who thinks the CD ROM drive is a cupholder. See snopes.com which has a whole page of computer stupidity stories.

hahah actuall I wouldn't be surprised if these were true. I worked at bestbuy for about a year and I saw some pretty stupid stuff that went on.

i was asked (when i worked in digital imaging/cameras)

"DOES THIS CAMERA TAKE PICTURES?"

i mean come on.
it's.
a
camera.

I wish I knew of a site like that to vent on when I worked at Target.

Dumbest thing a customer ever said to me - a relatively old man brought up a CD to the register. Don't remember what CD it was but it doesn't really matter. I rang it up, it was $12.99 or whatever, but he stopped me. "That price isn't right, it's supposed to be on sale." Well, that happens occasionally. I asked him how much it was supposed to be. "Fifty cents" he tells me. Um, that really doesn't sound right. "I'm sure, there was a big sign up advertising CDs for fifty cents!" Knowing there was no way that could be true, I asked someone to run back to Music to take a look. Of course, they came back and told me there was no such sale or sign. But the customer was still insistent. So he offered to walk back with me personally and show me the sign. We get back there and sure enough, there was the sign: it was advertising the release of the latest album from 50 cent.

Hmm, i don't see the photo albums where they upload stolen pr0n from people's computers they've "fixed".

Having worked with the buying public, I can't help but believe that a majority of these stories are true. People can be so rude at times, let alone uninformed, uneducated and/or simply crazy.

However, I'm sure many will agree that many a Best Buy employee has little room to question the smarts of their customers.

As far as Best Buy is concerned, see what happens when you hire a bunch of kids at cut-rate wages? You get embarrassing moments on the internet.

While working at EB we had those LCD touchscreens you're supposed to sign your name onto using a stylus.

She swiped her credit card, and I turned around to grab a bag. She pulled out a pen from her purse, signed the screen but was upset that it didn't work, so she started gouging her name into the screen before I turned around and yelled at her to stop.

The stylus was in the little stylus holder directly above the screen.

Yeah, the toast is an old urban legend.

But if employees need to vent, let them. Although someone asking where the bathroom is isn't outrageous, I can understand how the frustration of working retail can add up.

When I worked at a big box pet store in college, the thing that always bugged me was when people would swear that we had moved something that had been in the same place forever. "Where is the dog food? Well you moved it! It wasn't there a month ago! I don't know why you're always moving things!" I guess these people were just embarrassed that they couldn't remember where a section was?

@DashTheHand: If you've ever been to any sort of videogame message board, you'll see this practice repeated over. and over. and over.

You basically hit it dead on. I always like the "what stupid things do soccer moms say when u r buying videogames lol?". All the stories tend to follow the same plotline:

Soccer Mom: Do you have 'Game X' for the Nintendo 360?
Clerk: Well, ma'am
Original Poster of Thread/Nerd: ACTUALLY, game x is only for the playstation, and it's an XBOX360. Tell your kid to stop being loud in the store.

Ad nauseum. I feel as though this is what's happening at this bestbuy forum.

Want more?

[customerssuck.livejournal.com]

At least they're not demeaning enough to call it 'consumerssuck' like we're all mindless automatons, or walking wallets.

@svreader: "Where's the bathroom?" is a perfectly valid question, since not everyone has been to a store before or has walked past the sign, and if you're desperate you have no time to look for it.

Stores DO move things around, too...

These employees obviously don't have time to do their job because they are so busy talking about the customers.

Just because they serve you, doesn't mean they have to like you.

There was a period about ten years ago where no matter what big-box store I was shopping in, no matter how I was dressed, within minutes, without fail, at least one person would just assume I worked in said store and ask where such-and-such section was or if the store had this or that consumer item. It just flabbergasted me. It wasn't as if I was wearing brightly-colored vest or a nametag, the usually signifiers of HELLO-I-WORK-HERE-CAN-I-HELP-YOU. I have no idea what was so inherently store-clerky about my appearance or demeanor. Or if I naturally attracted D-U-M-B customers.

@Buran: Um, I didn't say it wasn't valid, and I offered a personal example in which things were not moved around. Read, dear.

The toast-in-the-VCR story is old and most likely apocryphal, but I did witness first hand an old 5 1/4 floppy drive with a graham cracker in it. Of course, as any parents out there have already figured out, the customer had young kids.

I used to work at a big box bookstore, and I'd believe most of those stories. People can be incredibly dumb -- and nasty about it. A frequent example was "that book on TV, with the blue cover." Sometimes they couldn't even specify a channel, and a lot would ask if we couldn't just search for blue books, and chew you out because typing "blue" into the search engine wasn't very useful.

One of my personal favorites, though, was the customer who came in adamantly demanding "that book by Jane Eyre. No, not the one about her, the one she wrote."

You can't make this stuff up.

The comment about the lady and the toast sounds urban legendy to me.

Since consumers are human beings just like store clerks and CSRs, they can be stupid and unreasonable too! (surprise, surprise)

I wouldn't be surprised if all of these stories were true. If I worked in retail and had to put up with crap like this every day I'd be posting right up there with them.

@Buran: ""Where's the bathroom?" is a perfectly valid question..."

It is, yes. But you try answering that question several times a day, five days a week, for 6 months straight and tell me it doesn't get old. (Hint: It does.)

I think some customers are busy and/or lazy, and just look for someone who works at the store rather than look around. Also, some stores are a bit overwhelming if you're looking for something specific and have very little time.

Ah, I miss my BB days. Nothing beat being an EE during the day and then a retail sales zombie at night. Oh, how I miss the rampant abuse of the discount. I made so much money buying things for people and taking a cut of their savings. I used to go into BB on my days off and just walk out with a shopping cart full of stuff. And they couldn't say anything since my day job paid more than what the store manager made.

My favorite BB story was this cheap @ss guy who came in and demanded the rear projection TV off the floor. We sold it to him and I suggested that we deliver it since it was A) huge and B) $75 (when delivering a $2K TV it's worth it). He refused and said he'd take it home tonight. I asked what he drove, used to love seeing people cram big TVs in Toyota Corollas, and he said a truck.

We roll it up front and he pulls up in this Sanford & Son looking beater pickup that had sh!t piled in the back. Rusted fencing tools, and I think part of a bathroom sink. We helped him load it and off he went. I wonder how far he got before it either got punctured by the crap in the back or flipped out the back of the bed.

I don't really know about the Best Buy site, but in the defense of the above-mentioned Customers Suck! site, they don't rip into customers in general, 99% of posts are about either people who just don't treat others like human beings or those who just make total fools of themselves. The stories there are actually wicked funny. It's right after Consumerist in my bookmarks. [I'm not a troll for them, just a lurker. I don't even have a login there.]

Actually, I just skimmed the Best Buy one. Wow, do 12-year-olds write those posts? Please don't lump these two sites together.

[www.techcomedy.com]
Techies have to deal with this stuff all of the time.

I feel for these guys, I really do. There are some truly stupid people walking around. On the other hand, the reality of the situation here is that these people work at Best Buy. What did they expect from these mouth breathers? The kind of people who spend their money on video games and slipknot cd's are exactly the kind of people who can't find a bathroom or think a VCR makes toast.

It doesn't make toast!

Ma'am, if you read the instruction manual you'd know that if you want toast, you have to plug the toaster in and pour water into the slots on the top.

@sixseeds: I was totally thinking the same thing. I worked at B&N for years, and my favorite were people who heard about a book yesterday on NPR but don't remember the name or author, or wanted the new book with the orange cover. I always wanted to say "You're in luck, we organize our books by color. We'll just go browse the orange section."

when I was at best buy back in the days I was stocking a new release CD in the very front and a customer came up and asked if we had the exact item I had in my hand. I shook my head and sadly said we were sold out...

Half of these sound fake. I've worked in electronic retail before and half the time, I actually witness incidents with 'stupid' customers and when my coworkers tell everyone about it later, they always make the customer seem at least 20x more rude and stupid than they actually were, even to the point of saying the customer cussed them out of started throwing a hissy fit when they didn't.

Almost forgot: Sharkbait and Shark Tank for similarly-themed site where they actually post legitimate greviences. Best Buy did it wrong, but in other cases it's justified venting.

I didn't even know best-buys have a customer accessible bathroom, don't think that I've ever seen a sign. In a store that big and that confusing, makes sense to put a sign..

@vastrightwing:

Please keep us updated on this.

Stupid customer's deserve to be called out just as much as stupid employees and stupid corporations.

I've been there, I've seen stupid things. I had a lady read me the serial number for her computer. Naturally it was a different format than the vendor used... upon further investigation it was deemed she had been reading the UPC code from a box of cereal. "Read me the serial number from the box" Okay, well there we go.

Just because you don't run into stupid people everyday does not mean they do not exist.

No self respecting company would allow its employees make such comments about its customers --- "stupid" or not.

@savdavid: Yeah, throw it right back at 'em. Because they have an online forum where they can complain. And they probably "have too much time on their hands." Just like bitchy consumers.

Sometime in 1988 I met my first laser printer, an Apple Laserwriter. The attached computer was a IIcx I think. I was playing with maybe Mac Paint. There was a template there for business cards. On the template were some dotted lines and a tiny little scissors icon. The intent, I believe now, was that when you printed your business card you'd cut there with the scissors. At the time I was convinced... hey, "laser" printer, its gonna cut this out for me on those lines with the laser! So I lassoed those dotted lines and copied them into the clip board, and then pasted them back down in a blank file into a shape I was pleased with. As if those black and white bits carried with them some magic laser printer "cut here" codes. When I printed that document, I expected the paper to come out of there precut, razor clean, along the path I'd drawn, using whatever laser was in that printer. Duh.

Can I ask a stupid question? Never having worked at Best Buy (and I can see that they are obviously all well educated people who can spell and form proper sentences there) or any retail store I have no idea what they are talking about when they refer to an LP. I know they aren't suggestion that giant records are working at Best Buy so can someone fill me in?

I work in a library and people do ask for certain colored books. Google the name "chris cobb" and the words books and color to see a great art project where one guy went into a bookstore and actually arranged all the books by color for a publicity stunt.

Here is one article about it -
[www.superherodesigns.com]

I found a better site for the exhibit by Chris Cobb. I should have gone to Flickr in the first place.
[www.flickr.com]

@LTS!: I agree with this. If consumers can make fun of companies, then companies can make fun of consumers - if there is a valid reaon. I do not shop at Best Buy often but I was there last Christmas when someone in my family asked for a Best Buy gift card. I waited in their gift card line for at least ten minutes while the poor employee that was selling them attempted to explain how gift cards work to two people. It was beyond ridiculous. Judging by their questions they had never even heard of these revolutionary, straight from the future items known as "gift cards." When they had finally left the Best Buy employee looked like he was ready to cry and having heard what they were saying I could definitely sympathize.

For more hilarity, check out the customers_suck community on LiveJournal. It's always fun to figure out which posts are real and which ones are bullshit.

Hahaha. Right own. Half the stuff we hear about bad consumer experiences comes from unintelligent consumers.