Sounds like an abusive relationship. Husband slaps wife. Wife crys. Husband buys shiny new necklace for wife. Everybody's happy.

Until...

I think it's too bad that it actually took making Digg and Consumerist before Best Buy contacted him. How many customers have had to deal with this type of customer service with nothing extra done to "make nice"?

Alternative headline:
"Best Buy treats customer right only because of massive, widespread, internet PR shitstorm that gets hundreds of thousands of hits"

It's nice that it got resolved but I wouldn't say Best Buy went "above and beyond" considering they should have replaced it right away instead of waiting for it to get online first. They're basically just doing it to stop the negative publicity.

It is sad that customer service does sound like an abusive relationship sometimes, especially since BB only made good once the neighbors found out and started gossiping about it.
Of course, wife most always takes slap-happy hubby back...

@Diet-Orange-Soda
(since my reply is kaput)

"diamonds, because she'll pretty much have to"

Good job Consumerist. I always find it amazing how bad publicity makes these companies pay up. You would think that corporate would have responded without the backlash from the internet but I guess the web was needed.

I hope that kid picked the EOS-1Ds Mark III, just to teach them a lesson. When is BB going to crack down on their stores? None of them are consistent in the way they treat customers. When I worked for them, it was this sort of ordeal almost every day.

Yeah, it's pretty obnoxious that it takes publicity to make a company do the right thing.

@crazyasianman: That parody was referencing oral sex, not abuse. If you're equating the two, you're doing it wrong.

Agreed, this isn't a 'You Go Girl' comment for Best Buy. This is a recovery from a significant customer service failure. 'Above and Beyond' would apply to those situations where the offending entity responded quickly and offered a significant resolution to the problem.

@ PunditGuy

bah, close enough it's too early for my brain to perform logic and thinking and words.

@PunditGuy: I dunno, my wife probably equates the two...

It looks like "Above and Beyond" is in the headline because that's how Micheal described it in his blog; the story doesn't actually have the "Above and Beyond" tag.

I am amazed that not only is there an apology letter but that the letter includes the word "sorry" but I'm not buying that they didn't knowingly sell a used camera as new since one of the BB employees themselves used it.

That's great news, but what about all of the customers that aren't able to take the fight to this level?

It looks like Best Buy's bribe amounted to about $300 (retail value) of merchandise.

I wonder if anyone was fired over this.

@zachary beck(reply still broken):
it's a Canon PowerShot SX110 IS. still a very nice camera, rmeeber he was helping his grandma get her camera replaced. a powershot is more casual user friendly.

@Joe_Bloe: You married my ex-wife? There's your problem right there.

Best Buy did not go above and beyond anything, they were horrible and screwed up from beginning to end. They only fixed the problem because of the bad press. Shame, consumerist, shame.

One would think that in this crap-hole of an economy that each customer would be met at the door of every business establishment by a throng of women in harem attire, then gently seated onto a plush couch (supported at each corner by a brawny eunuch) and carried aloft throughout the store while being fed grapes and being fanned with a large palm frond.

One shouldn't have to get the President involved just to get some decent customer service.

Anything in there about retraining the customer service people?

@Rectilinear Propagation: Call me a Best Buy shill, but it seems remotely possible to me that not every single employee in the store was involved in whatever shenanigans were going on and might not have noticed that the box had been opened when they sold it.

Both of the Canon Powershot A-Series cameras I bought had boxes that had no shrinkwrap, seals, or anything else to indicate whether or not the box had been opened previously. I vaguely recall that the Pentax film camera body I bought ages ago came in a similar box.

All that aside I don't think any of what Best Buy did was either "Above" or "Beyond." They were as other people said, trying to do damage control on a PR shitstorm.

@Diet-Orange-Soda: As long as Michael and his Grandma never shop at BB again, then it is all good.

Do not reward the antagonist with further spending of your money at the store.

@Diet-Orange-Soda: You know, for a brand new Canon Rebel XSI, I'd be willing to whore myself to Best Buy too. . . .

@PunditGuy: Lol, awesome

@TinyBug: BINGO. There is nothing above and beyond about this. This is nothing more than damage control.

BB went "Above and Beyond" for one customer after trying to perform "Below and Less" as is their usual practice.

So, for one customer (customer's son-in-law) who called their bluff and had the assistance this website and his blog, they spent a few dollars on one customer to stop the negative reviews and generate a positive review of this one action.

Calculate the hundreds or thousands of customers who receive less than stellar service, the hundreds or thousands of customers who are over charged, the hundreds or thousands of products that are misrepresented in some way, the hundreds or thousands of warranty claims that are denied, and this one resolution is fairly inexpensive to the individual store.

"Above and Beyond" should be reserved for good customer service and doing the right this from the get go.
Stop-loss customer service due to media pressure is not above and beyond.

More needs to be done by Best Buy. The people who screwed up need to be fired. In this economy, they are easy to replace.

My bet is they will get a wrist slap for getting caught.

@ThinkerTDM: Don't be crazy--it's not like they're selling liquor.

Sounds like as long as you have the power of the internet, digg, consumerist and yourself you are fine. Everyone else.. Sorry you're fked

has there been any punishment for the store manager who was a complete ass?

I'd settle for his firing over a bunch of extra crap.

Obviously that was a major screw up on Best Buy's part. But what is with all the hate? They made a mistake...and they made up for it
We can all sit back and say how we would handle things...but it is not that simple. For every case like the one above...you have 3 more of people trying to scam a store because they were irresponsible and want that store to pay for their irresponsibility.
Again...not saying Best Buy (or any other retail outlet for that matter) is perfect...but how about some recognition when a store does go "above and beyond" (and what they did was "above and beyond"...sorry)

@Homerjay loves stars. :): This is exactly what I thought too. I mean, I think it's great that Best Buy is making this right, but it should NOT have taken a huge shit storm to make it happen!

Companies need like Best Buy need better baseline service. What happened to the OP above should happen EVERY TIME BB messes up something this bad.

Does this "any camera" offer include DSLRs too?

@Barbarisater: But 35 gift card!

FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a Best Buy employee.

Anyways, screw ups of this magnitude are in fact very few and far between. It's unfortunate that it took the store this long to respond but this is hardly a common issue. I know that a lot about The Consumerist focuses on the negatives and a lot of it does need attention. However, for every problem like this, there are a minimum of a hundred happy customers that leave.

I am glad that they got taken care of.

I noticed it was a little late for them to add up a NDA with their offer...

No, this was not "Above and Beyond". Like many have already said, this was simply a floodgate to stop all the negative PR. Had they responded after they were shown the photos of BB employees on the camera, that would have been something, but this was purely a PR effort. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for the customer, as I'm sure everyone else around here is, but look what all he had to go through just to get a resolution?

I can understand BB not being willing to accept the camera at first. It was completely logical of them to assume that maybe just maybe the guy broke it and was trying to return it. Happens all the time. HOWEVER, once it was proven beyond any shadow of a reasonable doubt that the camera was in used condition when it left the store, the buck should have stopped right there. The store manager should've taken care of the situation, kindly apologized to the customer for the inconvenience, and that would have been it.

It's bad enough when a situation has to be escalated to EECB level (all too often these days it seems), but when even that doesn't work, that's when you know the shit has really hit the fan. Best Buy gets zero brownie points because the posters around here have seen way too many cases of BB being a shady and overall shitty company. That is why we discourage people from shopping there every chance we get.

The only thing "Above and Beyond" about BB is how far out of their way they've gone to earn the hate and scorn of Consumerist commenters.

@Diet-Orange-Soda: Why yes, a bad customer service experience is just like a woman being physically abused by her husband. How astute of you.

@PencilSharp: Your post is incredibly obnoxious.

Am I the only pessimist in the bunch who wonders if Best Buy had a sudden inventory reduction in the late evening hours before the OP's son came by the store to pick out "any camera in the store" he wanted?

Naaaahhh, wouldn't happen. Hope he got a good one.

@El_Fez:

I was totally thinking the same thing. You don't even want to know what I would consider for the XSI and a good Macro lens.

*shame*

@Real Cheese Flavor: I don't think every single employee was involved but I think that at least one employee knowingly put a used camera back out on the floor for sale.

@TheBursar: The article is not tagged with "Above and Beyond". I think you should be making this complaint to Michael.

When is Best Buy going to learn that it costs them a shit-ton more money to try to screw people. If they had handled it appropriately in the first place, they wouldn't have to shell out all that extra stuff, and they'd save themself the public humiliation.

Also, there are a lot of very eager yet unemployed people out there right now. Stop hiring the pricks.

@TinyBug: NAILED IT! Court of public opinion wins every time.

Are you kidding me? They only went above and beyond because the camera had picture of their employee. If it did not have any of those picture, then nothing would of happened

@milrtime83: You are absolutely right but I think it's great because people remember bad things better than the good. So in this case the guy got a great resolution but in people's minds their customer service still sucks and they are just kissing the internet's ass, so it's a win win for everybody except those who have already been screwed.

Canon PowerShot SX110 IS

Nice camera, I bought one late last year to replace my Powershot S3 & I'm very pleased.