(ob1left)
Waiting until you’re leaving the store with a purchase to defy Best Buy’s receipt-checking policy makes for entertaining stories, but a more effective long-term solution is to go to the source and let your voice be heard.
Best Buy’s IdeaX suggestions page — seemingly the latest incarnation of the old “Idea Box” — is a way to complain in a focused way that Best Buy might hear. Reader Mike is calling for a Consumerist commenter campaign to flood IdeaX with suggestions that the company rethink its doorman policy. Users can vote up ideas they agree with, increasing the likelihood they’ll catch the eyes of decision makers.
What do you think is the best way to get a corporation to change an unpopular policy?
(Thanks, Mike!)
Previously: Cop Threatens To Arrest Guy For Refusing To Show Receipt At Best Buy
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I’m not one of those rabid anti-checker people, but I don’t see why Best Buy would check anyone’s receipt unless they were trying to carry stuff out from a non-register area of the store. The damn cashiers are right by the door, the receipt checker can WATCH you buy your stuff, with no real need to verify anything. Unless they’re having problems with cashiers pulling shenannies, like slipping their friends free stuff. But I understand why they’d wanna see a receipt from someone wheeling out a TV or trying to walk out with a bag of stuff from the back of the store.
it can’t be the consumers’ rights that are violated if other “guests” are coming in with the intent to steal
thats why as a true customer, i always point out shady actions…that way, i won’t be subjected to receipt checks or higher prices
You know there are better ways….
ONE checkout point. Everybody must go through the checkout point and then immediately exit the store.
Or
The old Service Merchandise formula of checking out and then receiving the goods.
Or do what we do in our store….
Everybody has to drive around to the warehouse to pickup their stuff. You better have your receipt ready or we don’t know which pile of junk to give you.
I’d happily share my ideas with Best Buy if I didn’t have to create an account.
Until then, I’ll continue not shopping there.
Thanks for the better deals, Costco and Amazon!
Because their price was $60 lower than I could find anywhere else, I recently bought a cell phone at a local Best Buy after getting them to match their own web site’s price– the shelf price was higher than their Internet price. Anyway, the phone packaging had an alarm around it, which could only be removed by the receipt checker at the exit. That seems like a reasonable way to enforce the receipt check policy and reducing employee theft too.
you guys are going to have to shop a lot more at best buy to make them care….
receipt checking saves them quite a bit of money i have a sneaking feeling.
My best buy never checks the receipt at the door. They do have a guy at the door. I walk past and the sensor goes off and he just waves me on through.
Put the cash registers at the exit doors. When you check out you leave. End of trouble….
WAAAAHHH WAHHHH BOOO HOOOO I HAD TO SPEND TWO SECONDS SHOWING A PIECE OF PAPER TO A COMPANY MY RIGHTS HAVE VANISHED MY LIFE IS OVER BETTER KICK SOME OLD GREETERS ASS DURING MY TEMPER TANTRUM BECAUSE ITS OBVIOUSLY THE GREETERS POLICY AND THEREFORE THE GREETER SHOULD TAKE THE FORCE OF MY CHILDISH ABUSE WAAAAHHH
Ahh, I feel better.
1) When I leave a store, I hold the receipt visibly in my hand. 9 times out of 10 they don’t check it as I smile and walk by. In fact, I shop at both BBuy and Wal-mart frequently and have not been asked in ages because of this.
2) The check is stupid, however, because even when they do check it they don’t seem to be looking at anything. The last few times I was checked (and again, it’s been awhile, since I use the “smile as you walk by” method) they didn’t even look at the bags, just glanced at the ticket. Security theater at it’s best.
3) The problem for me is when they aren’t at the door to check, you walk out, and then they think they have the right to follow you out to the parking lot. This happened to me at Wal-mart about five years ago. Hot, miserable day – and I bought an A/C. I was virtually the only one in the store, was checked out, and walked out. There was no one even near the door. Next thing I know, I’m almost to my car and someone comes yelling after me for my receipt.
I refused. By the time the man got to me, I was lifting the item into my vehicle. I had the receipt in my hand, actually. But I was not about to let some guy who wasn’t doing his job (he was probably off flirting with someone at the customer service desk instead of at his post) run after me in a parking lot yelling at me. The guy was a complete idiot and did not understand when I told him, “You cannot confront me in a parking lot and demand anything”. After explaining this twice I laughed at him and said I was leaving, “G’head, call the cops.”
Normally I’ll play their little game of security theater, but once I’m out of your store, if you think I’ve shoplifted an appliance, tough nuggies. I refuse to be harassed in a parking lot because the employees weren’t doing their job.
Talk about overboard.
I rarely shop at Best Buy but in the times I have, I have only had my receipt checked for one purchase – a 52″ Sharp Quattron LED LCD. And then only so the guy could sign out the purchase. Every other recent time, they’ve just waved me on through even if I’ve offered to have the receipt checked.
The store location matters. The one I go to is in an upper middle class area that has such low crime that we don’t even have a local police station. I used to go to another one that is in white trash central and I would get flagged all the time.