That headline is not what one might call “surprising.” But when Noelle’s mom found an old, unopened charger bought at Best Buy and still had the receipt, the nice representative on the phone advised her to visit a brick-and-mortar store where they could “buy back” the item instead of accepting it as a return. Except there isn’t any such program, so the duo wasted their time and had to, you know, go to Best Buy. Poor things.

My mother was doing some spring cleaning and found a GPS wall charger that had never been opened. She found the receipt in her files, and called Best Buy customer service to see if she would be able to return the item. She figured its been a few years, it’s a long-shot, but what’s the harm in calling? The customer service person on the phone said they couldn’t do a return, but if we went to the store they can do a “buy back” for the item. We went today to Best Buy so they could “buy back the item”, and the customer service rep acted like we didn’t speak any English. She told us to go to Geek Squad. He couldn’t help us, nor did he have any idea what we were talking about, so he told us to go to Customer service.

Thanks Best Buy! For either not training your corporate customer service, your in-store customer service, and wasting our time!

So basically…if Best Buy’s super-helpful corporate customer service team can’t actually *do* anything for you, they recommend coming into the store so the customer services workers in there can make you feel like an idiot, and waste more of your time. This isn’t the first time this has it’s happened.

Of course, there really is a Buy Back program at Best Buy, through Geek Squad, but you have to purchase your right to sell your gadget back ahead of time.

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