Sounds like a typical CC experience...

Isn't B&H's ad on 1010Wins "You go to B&H?"

In hindsight, isn't 4 stops on the Q faster than 4 hours at CC?

Bad service notwithstanding, good job throwing an f-ing temper tantrum.

What's the story about the scorpion and the turtle?

Yet another example of piss-poor CC customer service. It seems to me that they are completely incapable of offering quality support. In my case, I'm not sure if I would have gone off quite like that, but I can definitely see how that would be infuriating.

Fix it quick, CC, or you're toast!

on a related note, B&H in NYC is really the best store to price match with. circuit city and best buy HATE when customers try to do it.

recently, best buy price matched with B&H for me on a camera memory card. this was only after two people in the photography department told me "no way, under no circumstances" would they match B&H (the B&H price was 60% cheaper and not even on sale). these guys were clueless, tried to imtimidate me, and unconvincingly tried to act like they did not believe me that this very same best buy price matched B&H when i bought my television.

in the end, i ignored them and the woman working at customer service ended up doing it for me no questions asked.

after the first or second fail box you open, you should have learned your lesson. why go for the third fail?

Yeah, sorry the tech had no idea wtf he was talking about, but that's no reason to be a jerk and yell at him for 30 minutes. Seriously, is it impossible to just calmly point out the problem?

That being said, I agree.

1) Hire idiots, train exclusively for "customer is the enemy."
2) ???
3) Profit.

I see what they did there.

This guy sounds like a real jack ass. Sucks to shop at CC but why explode at the incompetent help? Not their fault no one trained them. Assclown.

Wow, first of all, I have to tell you all that I work in retail in the photo department in a major pharmacy. If somebody had yelled at me like that for printing their photos on the wrong paper or something like that, I honestly would be less likely to help you and reprint them.

I totally see where he is coming from however that they are nothing but ignorant at CC. That's the problem with these technology big box stores like CC and Worst Buy. They hire high school and college students who know absolutely nothing about the department they are working in. If you are offered a job at one of these 2 stores, you should be assigned to a department and before you begin working, you must pass a test about the department you are working in. If you want to work in another department, you have to pass the test for that department.

For example, for me to let somebody work in the photo lab at my store, I have to know that I can trust them alone with the equipment meaning they have to know how to do anything and everything. I won't let them run the lab alone until they have passed all their certification tests from corporate. I think CC and BB need to do the same thing with their different departments in the store.

newegg.com....nuff said.

What do you expect? Those are the people they replaced their qualified staff with.

@Zeniq: Sometimes people are so dense, they have to be yelled at to penetrate that thick noggin resting on their shoulders.

ya, try buying a $1000 laptop with cash and taking it back on the same day. they would only give me $200 cash and made me take the rest in store credit. otherwise i would have had to wait 2 weeks for a check. the credit was ok as i was just going to get a new desktop instead.

@PrestonBerryworth: When you are in the moment, sometimes all it takes is for one stupid comment to send you over the damn edge. In this particular case, the tech made several stupid comments. I would be upset as well.

That's what you get for ripping movies and storing them. You steal, they steal....eye for an eye IMHO

@Zeniq: Yep, I have to concur.

If you go completely crazy, they've won.

@BrianDaBrain: It's a story about a piss-poor customer, too.

It's really disappointing. The CC near me used to be AWESOME, but over the past 2-3 years they've fallen apart. Lots of the old employees are gone, and even the ones that are still there have fallen down a lot.

@wyssaj01: I don't think there are many people that agree with his tone. I understand where he was coming from - sometimes stupid comments send people over the edge. You have to consider the source of someone's anger and frustration. Granted, there are going to be dicks that would be miserable regardless of what you say or do, but I feel that there are a great deal more that would just be happy if you did the job right the first try, or finally inserted someone along the way that could, and without giving the customer grief.

@RonDiaz: I agree, but it seemed like the guy had to have it right then and there.

I went to CC looking for a VGA monitor cable for my mom. He dog decided to chew into her old VGA cable.

I could not find one VGA cable in the entire store.
I relented and decided to go find someone and ask for help. To my luck to Firedog guys were chatting about the hot checkout girl and I was able to interrupt. I was told that all computers now use DVI and VGA cables are 'a thing of the past'. I walked over to the first display computer and turned to monitor around to expose an archaic VGA cable. Then I went to the second and did the same. I asked Mr Firedog if they always use out of date hardware to demo computers to their customers. He told me that those must be remnants from old builds.
Old builds?
Long story made not so short, Mr Firedog found a VGA cable! 6FT long, gray in color. $65.
I went home, fired up the laptop and hit monowire. I then called mom and told her she had to wait three days until her new cable came in the mail.

I believe it. I needed a very quick and cheap fix one weekend for a desktop PC that had a bad video card. The guy at CC and surprisingly BEST BUY had the same confusion about AGP and PCI Express. Whats worse is they had no idea about the power requirements of the cards.

I wasnt returning and the tech at best buy wanted to learn a bit so I chatted with him. I also learned about stock items you have to ask for that are not on the floor.

Info for info I guess.

@wyssaj01: Wow, first of all, I have to tell you all that I work in retail in the photo department in a major pharmacy. If somebody had yelled at me like that for printing their photos on the wrong paper and then have the temerity to argue with me when I tell them "it's SUPPOSED to be on the wrong paper!", I honestly would be less likely to help you and give the proper customer service any normal human being would expect.

There, fixed that for you.

@milty45654: It's a wonder we're not all blind!

@Bozman8: Tell me more about this B&H...are they only in NYC? Do they retail online as well?

Heck no! He shouldn't have wandered out of the store with his tail between his legs. Stupidity should be painful and these morons needed to be shown how fkn stupid they are.

I commend you on your actions. Ignorance is one thing, you just need to inform them. Insisting that you're right despite not graduating high school is a complete separate issue.

@tmlfan81:
There is something to be said for instant satisfaction, but I didn't get out of the story he needed it right there.

Circuit City is a model lesson for anyone who thinks you can, in the long run, save money by paying less on infrastructure (i.e., competent, trained, experienced employees).

This should be part of the lesson plan for any other companies thinking they can make the same boneheaded move.

"Also, where in the manual do it say that it includes the connectors?"

Huh? Sorry, I don't speak jive.

I'm done with Circuit Sh?ty. They need to close all their doors, asap. Look away, they are hideous.

Q; Why are all you guys price matching B&H instead of just going to B&H? It's like a Jewish version of Santa's Toyshop in there.

@Zeniq: Yeah, I have to agree with you on the shouting. I have a feeling, though, that after being forced to return a drive, then finding another drive without the controller on the bottom, then having the FireDog tech talking down to him like he doesn't know what he's talking about was about enough to make him snap.

On the other hand, however, I certainly hope the OP is shamed publicly the next time he makes a mistake, too, since nobody deserves that.

@PrestonBerryworth: It's easy to speak self-righteously seeing as you're outside the situation, not spending your money to buy a product that shouldn't take 4 hours to purchase in store.

How about stepping off your high-horse and cut the guy some slack. He's not knocking over displays or walking back in with a weapon; he's simply expecting a fkn retailer to act on their promises and not employ idiotic douchebags that would rather stand by their ignorance than direct the customer to someone that knows what they are talking about.

@tmlfan81: No it didn't; he needed to put movies on the drive. That's not an urgent matter. Would've saved money, time and energy with newegg -- the first place to look for this sorta stuff.

@GilloD: Maybe he went on Saturday?

@PrestonBerryworth: pretty surprised that roz hasn't disemvoweled you or banned you outright for this one.

@Kitteridge: Don't worry. Another company or retailer will repeat it anyhow.

They'll do better than Circuit City, except... they realize that they're doing even worse after all.

Repeat.

nicely written.

"about 30 minutes of which consisted of shouting,"

ah yes, give 'em the old 'bill o'reilly'

@BuddyGuyMontag: Either that or early Friday afternoon.

The one here looks like it's closed. Like 2-5 cars in the parking lot on a Saturday. Those are prob the employees.

Seriously, it's mighty clear you were peeved about having to come back. But as you noted, that wasn't CC's fault and it also wasn't their fault that the second drive was missing its PCB, right? They matched the competitor's price after a bit of a showdown, but I've had those same showdowns at BB Staples, and on and on. Why? These things barely have any margin to start with. Match is up and you are in negative margin territory. No store is excited by that prospect so they drag you down hoping you'll give up. It sucks, but looking at in an even-handed manner, they are losing money. That's why we want it,: we know it's a 'steal.'

Now you say 'they didn't handle it well,' and it's true the tech was confused about what you were saying and very likely didn't expect that a drive would ship out without a PCB - actually what's that about? No PCB! So he thought he knew better than you. After all, he's Firedog. That's all crystal clear. But I think you could have made your case in a far more civil manner.

Ben, I sure wouldn't take this as a case for why CC is going to fail. I'd bet nearly any consumer electronics store you walked into would've responded the same on the price match and also had a moment to digest that a hard drive was shipped without its PCB - that's just piss poor quality control. Actually, I'd bet BB might have said on the first swap, sorry you bought that brick, that brick is yours now.

Customers come is saying all kinds of things and unfortunately the underpaid folks that staff these stores, most all of them, think they know better over time. I guess they need some way to get some value out of their jobs. But this guy, the Firedog 'tech,' thought he'd got it all figured out and he was wrong. But he went through it with the customer, never shouted, and in the end provided the customer with the proper product.

Maybe the OP was sensing some attitude he's not communicated here, but I'd venture that treating someone decently is good all around. The OP didn't 'teach' that tech anything. He just shat on a system that's dysfunctional to begin with. CC has some issues, okay a lot of them. But Ben, you think this is why CC is going down? Really? Come on. CC used to have highly paid experts on staff paid on commission that made six figures. It's true. BB came around, paid an hourly wage (right above the subsidy amount of CC commissioned sales staff), kept training to a minimum, and slowly began to beat CC down on margins. The Mart was right in there soon after them beating them all on LCD sales, with margins getting thinner and the employees getting less money and by extension caring less and knowing less.

It's sad but we love us some low prices. This is how we go down.

@prag: Golly!

I find that buying online from them is the easiest way. Surprisingly, the only trouble I've ever had from them is the crappy ACER they sold me which was as good as useless in a year.

(Did you know that laptop temps can go as high as 104? if it was a person it would be dead)

@jonnyobrien: no, it's not.

@dohspc: This is exactly what the CC near my house looks like. Never seen more than 5 customers in there at a time with the exception of the holiday season when people were coming to CC only because other stores were out of the gift they needed.

The funny thing is that Fryes didn't have to kick them around either. They failed all by themselves. Maybe Fryes or MicroCenter can take them over.

Any bets as to the failure bonus Mr. Bruce H. Besanko and his cronies will get before it folds? I bet he'll get at least a million and the rest will fight over a couple mill each.

CC might be in the wrong, but seriously? A temper tantrum?

@slipnby: But are they worse than BB?