Hopefully Mike gets this resolved. I'm never buying an extended warranty on anything ever again (except perhaps if I buy another Laptop).

TBH I guess this is the sort of thing one has to come to expect from places like Best Buy.

I've never had an issue with their warranties. Maybe I'm just lucky or maybe the fact that I only buy it on things that cost more to repair than the unit itself. I bought a flat screen tv that went out only a year and a half after use. Brought it over to them and they told mt it was unrepairable and that afternoon, I walked out with a new TV. None of this shipping it off business. Of course this was roughly 5 years ago, so things may have changed since then.

What goes around really goes around.

Funny, I felt bad for selling those craps for Circuit City as I was working there.

I hated selling warranties and services and half the time they were just wasted money.

Glad I got outta retail.

He let us know the real deal-cool.But as a salesperson wouldn't you try to find out more about what you are actually selling rather than using the company policy on how it's supposed to work in a theoretical world.

Then again isn't that Geek Squad's or Best Buy's job?

Sucks for the OP, but the cynical part of me can't help but think "Karma, baby!"

The word of the day is: Irony

Just make sure that you will never work for Best Buy again. You don't want to burn that bridge if you could forseeably want to work there again. Complaining to upper management might conceivably make it hard to pass their HR checks, I'd imagine.

Me: "When I first brought this in, you told me 7 to 10 days."
Him: "Business days"
Me: "That was like three weeks ago!"

@Franklin Comes Alive!:

Cuk-Cu-Cuk-Cu-Cuk-Cu-KAW!!!!!!

Just to underline this, MOST credit cards offer automagic warrenty extentions. If you're purchasing a big ticket item, consider this, if only to tell those BB and CC employees (and anyone else who they're trying to sell the warranties too) that your credit card offers it for free. If they can beat free, then you'd buy it.

Isn't it ironic,

don't ya think?

A little too ironic,

and yes I really do think,

It's like raaaaaaain.....

We've had good and bad experience with Best Buy and repairs. Well, mostly bad with repairs, but good with the Product Replacement Plan (PRP).

The bad repair was a center channel from a set of Infinity speakers originally purchased at BB. The power cable had been severed, and we knew we'd have to pay for the repair- and had it sent out to Best Buy's repair center. It came back three weeks later with the power cable *taped* back together instead of being replaced.

On the other hand, I just used the PRP on my out-of-warranty Nintendo DS with a broken screen. Received a gift card to buy a new one in less than a week after I sent the old one off to them.

Best Buy is the Worst Buy. I strongly suggest to anyone that is buying anything from Best Buy to check out Costco or Sam's Club. They usually have better deals AND since you are a member, you get a warranty regardless. I always get better service at Costco. No reason to shop at Best Buy.

Was the monitor sent to a GS repair facility? Usually monitors are repaired/replaced at the factory. For the consumer, a monitor is a throw away item as the mfg does not make parts to sell to service centers. Simple math here. $80 for a power supply for example, and $100 for labor plus shipping and you have gone over the cost of a new monitor.

You think a credit card company is going to let him do a chargeback after 3 years?

"Under promise, over deliver."

That slogan makes no sense to me. Bragging about not making promises to your customers is complete BS. What if your customers took the same approach and decided not to promise to pay you for your crap?

Here's a good slogan and maxim:

"Keep your promises."

When I worked at Futureshop (owned by best buy), it was common knowledge among the staff that warranty work was SLOW. It would take weeks for anything to happen, regardless of what time was quoted (which, we were always told to quote 2 weeks or something). Often times, we'd give a loaner monitor/laptop out if it was an emergency, but mostly customers were screwed.

That being said, all you have to do is complain a bit, and, at least at any of the Futureshop stores in Winnipeg, you'd get almost what ever you wanted. Up to, and including buying a stick of 2gb ram, coming back a few days later with the packaging open and it containing a very dusty stick of 128mb stick of ram and being able to get your money back.

If you don't get what you want at the store level, ask for a manager, and tell them you will send a letter to corporate. 90% of the time, that will work (as corporate just tells the store to "do what it takes to make the customer happy", mostly because they get pissed at having to deal with the riffraff). If the threat doesn't work, call or send a letter to the District manager, and you'll get what ever you want. Including free warranty work.

@harvey_birdman_attorney_at_law:
@Franklin Comes Alive!:
@snoop-blog:

This article is more tragic than ironic or karmic or boomerangesque (new word TM (C) me). This ex-employee drank the Kool-Aid and really believed the corporate rap about the extended warranties.

Kind of like those infomercials... imagine if they were really all honest and worked as well as they pretend it does? Life would be an amazing futuristic place free of stains, overcooked pasta, overpriced beef jerky, leaky pipes, perfectly chopped salsa and cut a millimeter thin slice of tomato this time and every time.

The reality, though, is that it's a scam. A scam that's minimally implemented to prevent outright charges of fraud. Employee [redacted] from store [redacted] received his training and really believed what the corporation promised and it wasn't until it happened to him that the dream-crushing realities of modern life slapped him in the face.

Innocense lost is a pretty unfortunate rite of passage.

@u1itn0w2day: "But as a salesperson wouldn't you try to find out more about what you are actually selling rather than using the company policy on how it's supposed to work in a theoretical world."

Sure, in a perfect world, that's how it would work. But how would you go about finding this out without actually going through the process firsthand? Sure, you could try to research it on the web, where you'd mostly find horror stories. Then what? "No, sir, don't buy that warranty. I read lots of bad stuff online about how people get jerked around when they need a repair." "Oh, thanks for your honesty." "You're fired."

Even if you know the protection plan/extended warranty sucks, it's part of your job to sell it anyway.

I would have taken it up with the manager of the store at that time.

Would type out my long story, but where he stopped, I contintued on and spoke to a manger right then, that got it going in the right direction again, untimately got the TV swapped for a comparable, but slightly better TV

As with any company, there will always be issues where people have shitty service and great service. While I have never worked at a Best Buy store, I have worked for the Best Buy corporation and at Circuit City till they laid me off cause I was too good at my job.

I had no problem selling some of the warranties since I personally believed in them, especially the ones where I knew that they would swap out the equipment. As for the other, it was a cost analysis, and even though it takes ass long for them to repair, at least the item was repaired.

As for the time length, never believe them if they say anything under 2 weeks. The average turn around time was always 2-3 weeks, and if it was an usually long repair, over 6 weeks, you can usually get a loaner (still sucks that you are out for at least 6 weeks).

Always check the manufacture warranty, if it's anywhere near what the extended warranty is, then don't bother buying it. If not, do a cost analysis, it may be worth it, it may not be worth it.

On a side note, many times, even if you do not have a service plan, you can take the item back to Best Buy for service since they are an authorized repair center. Just don't let them try to charge you a "service" fee just in case it's not covered; they tried that on me when I brought in my Acer monitor, and I had them over-ride it once I pulled out the warranty card and showed them that it was covered for 3-years.

@GMFish: Keep your promises is quite similar, actually.

Under promising and overdelivering is actually a good tenet for customer service. I use it all the time, and has given me a good reputation.

Customer needs at least 15 pieces by monday, preferrably more? Promise him he'll get 15, and work extra hard to deliver 20. Always promise them to give them at least enough so you won't be a problem, and try to surpass your promise.

It's not lying, it's not cheating. Its managing expectations.

Actually, if you wish to be honest about keeping your promises all the time, you do need to underpromise - accidents or unforeseeable events will someday bite you in the behind. The difference, of course, is the part about striving to surpass his expectations.

The more I read stories like this, the more I believe in karma.

Hey, thanks for sharing your story. It's great to hear insider stories to shed the light on business practices.

When my camera died before the best buy warranty was up (just under 4yrs) I took it in and expected to have problems. However, I didn't expect to have to argue with the service counter guy that the scratches on the camera were regular wear and tear and not the cause of the problem!

I asked to speak to the GM and they made me wait a good 30-40 minutes before he was "available." I stood at the counter the entire time, even when another customer came up. Finally when the store GM came I asked if he felt that the scratches were regular wear and tear and he agreed, so I made him write it on the invoice and sign his name to it. I got my camera back in a couple of weeks.

I won't buy the warranty ever again.

I worked for Best Bait-n-Switch during a couple of summers and holiday seasons in the mid-'90s. The only time I had to use a warranty, they jerked me around on it too. Worse, because I was a former employee. To get my warranty honored, I had to go to a different store, where they didn't know me.

What I learned the hard way was that they had us misrepresenting the extended warranties, particularly the "no lemon" clause. We sales drones were told to tell the customer that if something breaks three times, it's replaced for free. What they told customer service (and what was in the fine print if you read it carefully) was that it gets replaced the *fourth* time.

So for several years I just wouldn't go there, for any reason. I've backed off a little in recent years, but I think the biggest thing I've bought there since is a $20 pair of speakers.

My advice, as an ex-blue shirt guy: Don't buy the extended warranty unless you're getting a laptop and plan to abuse it. But if you're going to get the extended warranty, get customer service to explain the terms to you. And if the stories don't match, ask the store manager why they don't.

But I think you're really better off getting a credit card that provides an extended warranty on purchases and using that instead.

I've had a good experience at Best Buy and I would gladly purchase their extended warranty again if I was getting some expensive equipment.

What happened was that I had a Compaq laptop that was fairly expensive - $1800, pretty high-end stuff at the time. It broke. And broke. And broke. And finally broke. I had to give it to the Geek Squad to send for repairs almost every time. The first three times it was various things from the fan to the hard drive. On the fourth time, the monitor crapped out.

Now, I don't know exactly what happened, whether it was the high cost of repairing the monitor or their "no lemon" policy that pretty much states that if something gets sent in for repair 3 times, on the fourth you're allowed to exchange it, but I got the eligible for exchange go ahead and I walked out that day with an $1800 Toshiba laptop that has served me well to this day (this was 3 years ago so the warranty is gone now for that unfortunately).

Hey, this is Mike. The guy that sent the story. Thanks to consumerist for posting and enabling comments on my account.

Anyways, I just wanted to address the "karma" issue. While I did sell the service plans like the good little lapdog, I was very open and honest with the customers about what they entailed and what they covered. I read the pamphlets forwards and backwards when I first started working there. Sometimes, this led to sales, sometimes it did not. I was not very liked by management because of this. It was at the point that I was working one night a week because the current manager wanted me gone and hoped I would quit. He wound up transferring and the new manager gave me back regular hours (15-20 at the time). What this did do, is give me great standing with customers. In the 2+ years I worked there, I had only 1 complaint about my service. And that was when I grabbed the wrong model CPU off the shelf by mistake and the customer got all the way home (about an hour drive) before he realized what I had done. I comped the guy a video card install for his troubles. I had many customers come back and ask for me by name. I was not a sleaze ball salesmen.

@dveight: You sound like my old supervisor. Is your name Mike B. ?

Stuff like this, among other reasons, was why I hated selling ESP and TSP plans at Staples. Only there, the minute you go to use them within the first year, you're told flat out to call the manufacturer and don't bother with the store. On rare occasion though, we did try everything possible including calling on behalf of the customer to get stuff replaced.

And for a 3 year old monitor, why even send it into repair when they could have replaced it up front for what is probably less then the cost of the original plan. Then again, this is retail, and profit supercedes customer needs most of the time in cases dealing with electronics. Probably because the markup is so low.

I too also seem to have to go to a different store whenever I want something. I don't know why it is, but I have to find people I don't know in order to get any measure of decent service.

I wanted to like Best Buy. I bought my first laptop there, and of course the extended warranty. The laptop was gorgeous and had all my most desired specs. And then, out of nowhere, the keyboard started typing all by itself. I brought it in to the Geek Squad and they told me 2-3 weeks. I waited for their call (this was before they put the tracking numbers on their site). I waited and waited. I called them to no avail. No one could tell me when it would be back. It was my first semester of college and my computer had been gone for over a month.

I went in after a month and a half and after beating around the bush, they told me they lost it! They offered me a new computer on the spot, but no longer had the model I had specifically chosen. Being a naive young student, and quite desperate for a computer, I agreed to take a cheap Compaq that sort of almost looked like the wonderful HP I had. I regretted it every day after that. The computer was a piece of junk (which I could have known if I had had time to research and Best Buy hadn't strung me along for such a long time) and it went back for repairs nearly every 6 months (2 were recurring and 2 were unique).

After the 3rd repair, I was really hoping to be able to take advantage of their "no lemon" policy and pick out a less crappy computer. When I brought it in for the fourth repair, they claimed that one of the previous repairs didn't qualify because they had been fixing a problem they caused in an earlier repair.

That silly extended warranty saddled me a with computer that was broken more than it was usable, out of my hands more than in it. I work in tech support, but the Geek Squad employees I encountered never knew what they were doing, never knew how to find out the status of my repairs and consistently lied about procedure and turnaround time.

If the computer were still under warranty, I'd use all of the knowledge I'd gained from Consumerist and demand some sort of retribution. As it is, I won't ever buy anything I expect to last from them again. The OP should definitely not let them get away with running him around.

@Pandrogas: Because I paid for the service plan when I bought it 3 years ago. Granted, at 30% off for the employee price, so it was cheap. But when the monitor gets exchanged (which it should), then I paid like 30 bucks for a new monitor 3 years later. It's not a bad deal. It's just been almost 4 weeks since I brought it to them.

@sc2373: When everything went down last Wednesday, I was too angry by the end of it to form a rationale thought to deal with managers. I was more likely to leap over the counter and start strangling them with an ethernet cable while yelling "SERVICE THIS MOTHER FUCKER" than to argue civilly.

I have calmed down in the past 5 days, but I haven't had a chance to get back there yet.

AS AN ASIDE:

I just noticed Consumerist changed parts of my story. They changed part of the conversation I wrote, and I specifically used the wording the he used for a reason. They also cut out the fact that the store I went to for service was a newer store and NOT the one I worked at. And lastly, they left off the fact that the store manager of the new store I went to for service does not like me at all, despite it being 2 years and 1 week since I quit.

An insurance agent once explained service plans to me this way: Service plans are simply an insurance policy. You pay a certain amount of dollars, for a certain amount of coverage. The only difference between a service plan and life insurance is the reason that they pay out.

So given that, if you're smart and shop around for the best cost / coverage ratio, why on earth would you pay relatively huge premiums for an insurance policy against effectively an appliance? Look at the premium-for-coverage ratio, and you'll be appalled at these policies.

Extended warranties are awesome on portable devices with moving parts. Also, they are great if you have a 'PRP' (Product Replacement Plan), as that means you'll get a new item when it breaks instead of having to get it serviced. I always get a warranty on high-end console systems, too, like the XBox 360 (Best Buy has swapped that thing out for me three or four times now).

Geeks Squad policy is to never guarantee a turntime. Ever. And the paperwork they have customers sign explains that turntimes cannot be guaranteed. It is a good thing, because they service center Best Buy users really does blow chunks. He had a bad experience with a bad employee (or several), it seems, but it doesn't reflect the whole (not that I love Best Buy).

If I were in his shoes I'd regret selling warranties if I was trying to convince customers it was worth it to spend $20 on a warranty for their $40 DVD player or something. Or if I was pushing it on, say, a desktop computer user. But not for the stuff it is actually useful for...

Is this more of a Best Buy/Geek Squad problem or a Samsung problem? I just spent three months trying to get a Samsung monitor fixed under warranty, so regardless of how competent (or not) BB/GS is, if all they'll do is hand it off to Samsung, I can see how no good would happen there.

If you think that is bad, check out Best Buy's new deal- they got rid of PSPs/PRPs in lieu of "Black Tie"

The plans themselves are a much better deal, but the pricing is outrageous.

I'm seeing a lot of this in various retail forums these days... people who made more money selling extended warranties or "protection plans" on the merchandise than they did the merchandise itself. A lot of them defended it while they were doing it only to finally admit that in many cases, particularly at Sears where they're priced as high as 50% or even more of the merchandise price, they're nothing but scams designed to boost the unearned income figures for the companies. Not only are they way overpriced in many cases, the services they claim will justify the high prices are usually not forthcoming as promised unless you get a TV station on your side or something.

I only bought one extended warrenty plan when I was young & foolish when buying a tv from best buy. It was my first big tv.

ANd suprisingly enough.... my tv ended up needing it as it malfunctioned to where the picture would get disrupted & would emit this loud noise. I'd have to bang on it near the bottom & it would work. I got it fixed under warranty (cost them about $100). ANd it wrked fine for another year.... and then started doing it again (out of warranty).

Why should the OP deserve this treatment because he worked at Best Buy? Everyone has to pay the bills somehow.

I had nothing but great experiences with my employee-discounted insurance service plans. I used them as much as I could. (Especially the replacement plans: You don't have to prove anything wrng in order to get store credit for purchase price.)

The only trouble I ran into was the time I sold myself a service plan on a open box, 10-year-old, surround-sound receiver. I brought it a few days before the plan expired to have them fix a broken button. (I like to test the system, OK?) After a few weeks, they figured out that parts weren't available for the now 14-year-old receiver.

In short, I do not regret encouraging people to buy the service plans. I emphasized the "performance" part. If your projection TV is dusty, for example, call BBY and they'll come out an clean it. Unfortunately, I doubt most people used them as much as I suggested they should.

@humphrmi: Service plans are simply an insurance policy.

That is correct. The buyer typically pays a huge markup on the premium that Best Buy pays, but it depends on the item. Some of the plans were pretty close, like VCRs. Other plans, like speakers, cost BBY pennies on the dollar.

But I want to know what happens to the BBY Extended Service Plans if AIG goes under? The plans are administered by "AIG Warranty Guard." We always told people that AIG would be always be around, even if BBY went under. Funny times.

@bilge: Best Buy I believe is an authorized Samsung repairer. Therefore, they would not hand the unit over to Samsung, they would attempt to repair the unit themselves.

Again, I do not regret ever selling of any of the service plans when I worked for Circuit City or a Best Buy company. I always recommended it to on things that I personally would have bought it for. But I did always offered it on things that I would not have bought it for myself; I'm not going to tell someone that they couldn't buy a service plan. If they asked, I would tell them my person opinion.

@JustinSane07: Nope, my name is not Mike B.

I buy the cheap throw away electronics now. I expect them to last a couple of years and when they break, I buy a new one. In effect, I underwrite my own warranty. I pay for it if it breaks by getting a new one. Fortunately, I seldom have to replace most items. I purchased a BB warranty for a camera thinking that it would get dropped. Wrong call! Scratches and dents on the case voided the warranty. I was out $50. Lesson learned. Buy no warranty from B.B. No exceptions!

@jackal676: I agree it's part of the job but you mean to tell me that you can't get a judge of what's going by customer comments or the Geek Squad in your store?

At our local Best Buy they frequently have the Geek Squad working the sales floor helping customers.They even tell you I'm normally a repair tech but they have me here tonight.

And just for training purposes you would assume that Best Buy would have Geek Squad offer some training.If nothing else Geek Squad should be giving Best Buy feedback like don't make any promises like a one week repair.Or tell their customers repair times vary with manufacturer or part involved.

I personally don't trust people who use broad statements with no disqualifiers(it sounds too much like a politician).

@vastrightwing: What made you think that it would get covered if you dropped it? If a sales person told you it would, then you were lied to, but there is no way in hell Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry's, etc...service plan is going to cover you if you drop a camera. They are service plan, not accidently damage plans.

Folks, read the fine print if you ever decide to purchase a service plan from one of these stores. Don't rely on the sales person. Sure, they may not be on commission, but they all have sales goals.

My last experience with the Geek Squad has led me to step foot in a Best Buy once in the last three years,and that was only because I had a gift card.

I absolutely used to love Best Buy. I loved shopping there whether it was looking at cd's or electronics. I've bought thousands of dollars of items from them since they opened a store near here in '93.

The Geek Squad member who dealt with my wife and I over our laptop ended all of that. It was that bad,and now I know it's not just an isolated incident.

Rock and a hard place

" Meaning that if a customer asks how long something is going to take, always go with the high end, and if takes less, great! Happy customer that we did something faster than we stated. If it takes the time we quoted, still happy that we did it on time. To see this core idea violated to this degree, it really cheapens what I did for them. "

Tell the worse case scenario and potentially loose the customer, tell the customer what the customer wants to hear and potentially keep the customer.

Yep, classis rock and hardplace.

I went to BestBuy yesterday (yeah, I know) to buy speakers, and they didn't try to sell me an extended warranty or Monster cables or anything! Can you believe it?

Here I have a story for you.

This last Easter holiday, my little cousin was using my laptop, and she's only like 9 years old, but, she gets a pillow thrown at here, and jumps a little, so there goes my laptop, it ends up having a cracked screen, so I take it to Best Buy, to get it repaired, because its only a year old. The turn around for that repair was about 2 weeks, or 11 business days.

Well just last month August 11th, 2008 to be exact my laptop just lost all Internet activity, the wireless card, and the LAN port would not even recognize being turned on. So after a little investigation, I find out that I'm missing the driver for it, and it wont re-install.

So I take it back to Best Buy, to be sent out again on August 15th. The estimated completion date, on the service order is 8/22/08. Well on September 1st, I decide to go in and check up on it, this one guy was very helpful. I looks up my order and sees that its being shipped back, and asks me if I want the tracking number, so I said sure. Low, and behold, my computer was going to arrive within the next day or soo, I'm so exiceted.

I figured I should receive a call on September 3rd, saying to come and pick it up. But, guess what. They received my computer, but it still wasn't picking up all the wireless networks, and somehow part of the keyboard isn't working.

So it gets shipped back out to the repair service, and I'm told its going to be placed on express service, since it was just there, or something like that. Well today is September 15th, 2008, exactly 1 month since I first took it in, and I still do not have it.

I truly don't want to be mean, since I'm not that kind of guy, but this is really bullshit. I was really hoping that I would just be able to exchange it for a different computer, because its a special edition, and was like 1500, and theres this other one for like 800, and smaller screen, that I would rather have, but, know, its just like give me my dam computer back.

Sadly the big trend in sales these days is to OVER promise (to get those shiny commissions) and UNDER deliver.