Posts about Best Buy
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Please Join Us In Welcoming Your Worst Company In America 2012 Sweet 16!
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CEO Brian Dunn
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7 Things Ex-Geek Squad Employee Wishes Every Computer Novice Knew
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A shopper just told us that
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This "warning" appears on a Geek Squad sales info folder.
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—>The announcement that Best Buy plans to open a Geek Squad outlet inside the Children's Hospital in Minneapolis seems, at first, incongruous. "Geek Squad?" we said. "Haven't these families already suffered enough?" Except this Geek Squad isn't there to profit off sick kids—they're there to help. No, really. More »
—>Reader Taylor is a little concerned about his laptop. It died on Halloween and he took it in to Best Buy the next day. Two weeks later, he typed his order number into the Geek Squad website and found that a little Halloween magic had taken place. His laptop was now an XBOX 360. More »
—>The usefulness of Best Buy's Geek Squad depends entirely on the competence of the employee you get when you go in for help, and unfortunately Scott landed one of the lazier ones. Here's his sales pitch to Scott over a laptop that wouldn't start: "It's going to take at least 10 minutes for me to get the multimeter or another adapter. It's going to be a problem inside the computer, let's just send it in." More »
—>Kelli bought an HDTV from Best Buy, and the set broke in June. Now it's almost November, and despite scads of phone calls and appointments, her TV is no closer to being fixed today than it was way back when. More »
—>A class action lawsuit has been filed in Illinois against Best Buy. The suit's claims? That the company has an official policy against price-matching their own web site. You don't say. That claim of a special Intranet site to prevent price-matching against the chain's Web site sounds familiar. So do most of the suit's allegations, for loyal readers of Consumerist. More »
—>If you like Best Buy, come to New York City! In November the company will open its first 24-hour store, in the remodeled carcass of the Circuit City that formerly anchored Union Square. In fact, it's probably best we call it the Circuit City Best Buy to avoid confusion. According to Best Buy's PR department, the store will also feature "the largest Best Buy Musical Instruments Department in the United States." More »
—>Ian wants your permission to keep the Xbox 360 Best Buy gave him by accident. More »
—>While shopping at Best Buy, Chris spotted this wacky sticker on Mario Party 8, no doubt an accident, in which the benevolent Geek Squad offers to do the impossible for you and install the game onto your Wii, which doesn't let you install disc-based games. More »
—>We're a little concerned about Best Buy's employees. Particularly, the employee at reader Eric's local store who posted this shelf tag, thinking that nothing was wrong. More »
—>Jameson snapped this photo of a camera "sale" at an Illinois Best Buy. More »
—>Reader L951B951 saw our recent posts about Best Buy's dubious "optimization" services, so he went to the store armed and ready to demand an unopened laptop. The trouble is — he says Best Buy had opened them all. Did this stop our hero from coming away with a laptop without paying the optimization fee? Of course not. More »
—>James Lileks bought some fancy-ass Electrolux appliances from Best Buy. Unfortunately. they've turned out to be a bit of a headache. Mr. Lileks thought perhaps since he was a valuable customer who bought fancy-ass items, Best Buy would help him out and swap the problematic dishwasher for a more reliable cheaper brand (turns out that that the washer's control panel is susceptible to moisture, of all things.) He was wrong. They'd rather keep fixing it. Over. And Over. And Over. More »
—>Bryan sent us this photo he shot at a local Best Buy that shows a helpful employee named Kim has opened an Xbox 360, hooked it up to the internet and pressed the "X" button, downloading the latest system update. For all this hard, un-requested work, she also added $29.99 to the sticker price. More »
—>Shopping for laptops in Missouri, Patrick noticed an odd, unwelcome feature — a sticker on the box, pictured, identified the computer as 'optimized' by the staff. More »
—>According to our friends at HDGuru.com, Best Buy now has drastic price differences on TVs between its web site and stores. The difference can be as much as $200, but Best Buy will price match its own prices for customers who happen to glance at the site before purchasing a TV. More »
—>A Kotaku tipster notified the video game blog that Best Buy's Geek Squad is offering what can only be described as the deal of the century. Something even better than that awe-inspiring CD ripping service. More »
—>Sticking to its proud tradition of charging for services that take a couple button clicks to accomplish, i.e. HDTV and video game console "optimization," Best Buy is now offering to rip music off your CDs and transfer it to an MP3 player or DVD. More »
—>Remember that couple who tried to get Best Buy to fix their CD drive, only to have lost all their data and be charged $1,500? More »
—>A recent flurry of reports on the internets claim that Microsoft has been training Best Buy employees to push customers away from Linux and Mac systems to those running Windows. While some posts claim that the Gatesians are teaching Best Buy workers to become "Linux assassins," most of what's going on looks like typical retail marketing: a deep-pocketed supplier working with a chain to hawk its products more aggressively. However, Linux pros are up in arms about "inaccuracies" in the Microsoft program that walks customers through the advantages of Windows vs. Linux. More »
—>Reader Michael went to Best Buy to pick up a hard drive that he saw on sale. The website said that the item was in stock, but when he got to the store there were none on the shelf. The employee he questioned said that the item was out of stock but explained that the website was slow to update. So Michael went home, ordered it for in store pick up and... can you guess what happened next? More »
—>Russ used to have a TV, but now all he has are problems. He summarizes his 52-inch Insignia (Best Buy's House Brand) HDTV's decision to check out, then goes into Best Buy's bumbling attempts to fix it. More »
—>It all started out as a good-natured, if ill-advised Best Buy promotion to encourage employees to entice customers into signing up for store credit cards. But it ended up in a fracas of verbal and physical assaults. Allow Best Buy employee "X" to tell a tale of mayhem at what was supposed to be a pleasant evening at Best Buy. More »
—>People just aren't buying ginormous TVs like they used to. At least not from Best Buy. That's why there's going to be some great deals this week at Best Buy on large-screen HDTVs. HDGuru got an advance copy of their Sunday circular, which advertises discounts that bring the big TVs down to an almost reasonable price! More »
—>Diane and Jo say they brought their computer to Best Buy's Geek Squad to get the CD drive fixed, but the Squad had some other ideas. After the dust cleared, the couple had gained a new hard drive they didn't want and lost all their data. More »
—>The PS3 Slim is hitting stores next week, or even sooner at some stores, so it's natural that recent buyers of older-model, fatter, more expensive PS3s will be returning their consoles en masse. More »
—>If you work at Best Buy, don't tackle any knife-wielding shoplifters or you'll be fired. That's what happened to two Best Buy employees who chased a couple shoplifters who were fleeing with armloads of merchandise towards a waiting car. More »
—>Best Buy has been downgraded to neutral from "buy" by Goldman Sachs on concerns that Amazon.com and Walmart are poised to begin a serious asskicking. More »
—>It looks like Best Buy's servers decided to call in sick this morning—Casey writes, "This was on their site this morning for about 45 minutes before they corrected the ad." We have a feeling Best Buy isn't going to pull a neat "just keep it, our bad" maneuver like ThinkGeek, however. More »
—>It took an Executive Email Carpet Bomb to convince Best Buy to replace Bryan's Panasonic LiFi LCD Projection TV after it ate through four lamps. Bryan had purchased Best Buy's extended warranty, which contains a no lemon clause that promises a replacement after three failed repairs. Best Buy conveniently insisted that replacing the broken lamp did not count as a "qualified repair." Bryan first escalated his complaint through normal channels; when he had no other choice, he launched the mighty EECB. More »
—>HD Guru took a deeper look at the extended warranties and service plans Best Buy pushes on customers who buy expensive electronics like hi-def TVs. You probably won't be surprised to find out that the fine print negates a lot of what the person or pamphlet on the sales floor will try to promise you—but you might be surprised at just how useless these plans can be when you get right down to it. More »
—>I noticed something interesting recently when signing up for a RewardZone account at Best Buy. Either it was a glitch or this is an ongoing issue, but I couldn't tie together my RewardZone number and my account to purchase things on the site. More »
—>For a brief, shining moment, in-store ads at Best Buy stores advertised a Palm Pre for $99 with a new two-year Sprint contract. Potential Pre customers were stoked. Recent Pre purchasers were incensed. And today, Best Buy was scrambling to fix the situation, since the price drop was really due to an error in the system. Oops. More »
—>Best Buy is an electronics store. The purpose of such a store is to allow customers to exchange money for electronic devices, then take those devices home and use them. Unfortunately, the Best Buy in Yuma, Arizona doesn't seem to take this mission seriously, and has given reader Elizabeth such a run-around that she isn't interested in buying a computer at all anymore. More »
—>Have you ever wished that you could combine the competent, organized staff of your local Best Buy with the gentle, no-pressure sales environment of a vehicle showroom? You're in luck! Best Buy is now selling motorcycles. Motorcycles? More »
—>Victor got an email from Best Buy telling him "up to 100" PC games were on sale for members of the company's Gamers Club, so he took his son down to their local store to see what was available. Nothing, that's what, because the store hadn't been told about the sale, even though it's been going on for nearly a week. More »
—>Ah, the perils of having a credit card issued by an electronic store that dies a slow, painful death, only to come back, haunt you and resist all attempts at seances and exorcisms. More »
—>Gizmodo paired up a former Best Buy employee with a professional illustrator and created a taxonomy of seven Best Buy employees you're likely to meet whenever you shop there. The two who probably get the most coverage on our site (and who are probably the most annoying in general): Pervy Geek Squad Guy and Slick Careerist Manager. More »
—>Disregarding our sage advice, former Best Buy employee Patrick wanted to cash out his 401(k) when he left the company. But he found getting ahold of the money was tougher than getting out of the store without being offered an extended service plan: More »
—>Reader IfThenElvis forwarded us the following email he received alerting him to changes in the Reward Zone program from Best Buy. He adds, "I can't tell if this is good new or not. I suspect not." It's not the end of the world or anything, but it definitely marks a slight constriction in the program. More »
—>Geek Squad tried to repair a broken fan in Brian's Sony laptop, but somehow managed to instead break the laptop's motherboard, processor, and much of the internal cabling. Though Geek Squad replaced all the damaged parts, Brian soon realized that the laptop's new processor was slower and cheaper than the original model... More »
—>Owners of Best Buy credit cards (via HSBC) are being charged $15 to pay their bill on time online. The only way to avoid the fee? Pay at least two business days early. More »
—>Not to be outdone by Wal-Mart, Best Buy is rolling out a used-game kiosk program that sucks up your abandoned discs and spits out store credit in return. More »
—>If a man says he's a police officer and flashes a badge at you, then tells you to have sex with him or he'll arrest you, make sure the badge doesn't say Geek Squad on it first. That's what a woman says happened to her in Parsippany, New Jersey last week. More »
—>Best Buy is still selling a defective Harry Potter Blu-Ray set that contains a HD-DVD version of the Goblet of Fire. The bumbled bundles were first discovered in 2007, but reader Bill found one sitting on a Best Buy shelf in Grand Junction, CO. More »
—>Jon wrote back with the results of his attempt to redeem a gift certificate that's over a decade old. More »
—>Funny or Die has a pretty funny, nsfw parody of the current Microsoft "You find it, you keep it" commercials. Jake's in the market for a decent laptop that can meet his needs, which include a big screen, the ability to go online, and enough cash left over for some subscriptions to certain adult websites. It's basically what the real commercial would look like in a world without TV censors. More »
—>Jon writes:
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—>Sure, Best Buy emerged victorious over Circuit City in the Battle of the Big-Box Electronics Stores, but they still have to compete with general discounters like Walmart. Which is why in a new ad campaign, Best Buy calls out Walmart specifically, attacking their employees' presumed lack of product knowledge compared to Best Buy employees. More »
—>Reader Phil is annoyed. He called Best Buy to see if they carried MiniSD memory cards. He was told that they did, but when he got to the store — all they had was MicroSD. Instead of just apologizing and letting Phil get on with his day — they tried to convince him that he was wrong, and his camera took MicroSD. It doesn't. More »
—>Over on CNET, blogger and former Best Buy salesperson Sharon Vaknin shares her acquired wisdom with the Internet, putting together a list of the "7 things electronics salespeople won't tell you." What are they? More »
—>A Consumerist reader (actually, several of you) e-mailed us the shipping confirmation message that is sent out by CDBaby, the 'utopian' online music site that promotes independent musicians (yet is partnered with Best Buy). More »
—>We asked John, who wrote to us earlier this week about replacing the motherboard in his HP laptop, to send us a link to the listing he found for $150. Below is his response. More »
—>John's wife's laptop died, and his local Geek Squad wants $800 total to replace the motherboard. John says he found the motherboard for $150, and he wants to know why Geek Squad thinks it will require $650 in labor. So all you IT and geek readers out there, we ask you: is this a fair price? More »
—>Looking for an insane deal on a laptop? Look no further than Best Buy. They have a sale going on now that you wouldn't believe. We got a screencap just in case you miss it. More »
—>A man in St. Louis dropped off his computer for repair at the area Best Buy, but apparently forgot that he was also using it as a bank. "Employees at a Best Buy store in South County discovered about $10,000 cash inside," writes the St. Louis Post Dispatch. More »
—>Our reader The_Lone_Gunman just had a great experience with the Best Buy in Irving, Texas. Snark fails us at a time like this, so we'll just humbly print his email. More »
—>Why does HSBC charge $15 to make a payment over the phone? Other, often smaller, companies charge $3 or less, as MG notes in his email below. In this case, since the alternative is so unwelcome—a possible late payment, and a corresponding hit on MG's credit score—it seems pretty outrageous to hold him hostage to a $15 fee. More »
—>An anonymous tipster sent in an updated list of contact info for some of the people working at the top of the Best Buy food chain. Remember, don't bug them until you've exhausted all other options. More »
—>Jason's refrigerator wouldn't work correctly, no matter how many times it was repaired. Eventually, Best Buy had to intervene. Yes, that Best Buy. More »
—>Reader Charlton went to Best Buy to buy some games. He successfully accomplished his task, only to find that opening his purchase was going to be a little difficult. More »
—>A lot of readers sent us the story of a Florida teen who received the awesome birthday gift of some rocks and crumpled up Chinese newspapers inside a Nintendo DS box. After some fuss and the discovery that another customer had already returned the same box of rocks, Wal-Mart made the situation right. Reader Ryan found himself in a similar situation, but without the happy ending (yet!): a Texas Best Buy sold him a paving stone instead of a Macbook Pro. More »
—>Sidd tried to fill out a Best Buy post-purchase survey online, but he suspects it might be skewed toward specific ratings. We know, it's just a glitch, but this would explain that report that Best Buy is demoting 8,000 senior sales associates. More »
—>A report from New York investment firm Sanford Bernstein says that Best Buy will be eliminating 1,000 assistant manager positions and demoting 8,000 senior sales associates to regular sales positions that would pay 25 percent to 50 percent less than their current salary — causing some to compare them to Circuit City. More »
—>Reader Andrew was trying to post a question on Best Buy's forums, but he made the horrible, offensive mistake of putting a space between "Best" and "Buy.com." More »
—>A business ethics institute named Ethisphere has released its annual list of the 99 "World's Most Ethical Companies." We have to take exception to some of their choices. More »
—>Jon spent $250 on a Western Digital VelociRaptor but what he received from Best Buy was a Quantum Fireball, a discontinued hard drive that hasn't been sold for nine years. Best Buy, of course, took no responsibility for the odd swap, and said that Western Digital must have accidentally sold a competitor's discontinued drive. Western Digital, of course, said that a Best Buy employee stole Jon's hard drive. We've seen this happen before with Best Buy, and Jon has made it clear that he knows how to bite back... More »
—> Which big blue monolith bugs you more? More »
—>After Lisa's story of how she bought an ostensibly new DVD player from Best Buy only to find an adult DVD already in it went up on Consumerist, the retailer contacted her and sent her a $30 gift card. The original DVD player cost $29.99. That was nice of them, as Lisa was more amused than bothered at the situation in the first place. She wrote, "It was pretty funny! At first my husband was thinking, "Sweet!!! Score..." when we opened it up. We got a good laugh, but then I started thinking, "Wait a second, we bought it as a regular item, not open boxed. Why is there a DVD in there then?" More »
—>"Good news about your credit card account," proclaims the letter Wilman recently received from Chase. Starting in May, you'll be able to use that Circuit City card to make purchases at Best Buy. We think this is more like "mixed feelings" news, but on the plus side you won't have an otherwise good credit card account closed (assuming you care about your FICO score). See the Chase letter below. More »
—>Please don't pull the cord on Howard's laptop or it will die. Best Buy's Geek Squad has failed five times to coax his laptop's ailing battery into holding a charge, replacing both the battery and the hard drive, and shipping Howard the same incorrect replacement battery three times. Howard now wants Best Buy to honor their lemon policy by giving him a new laptop, but it seems like every Geek Squad agent has a different copy of the replacement policy, and none of them apply to Howard. It's almost like he's asking for a price match! Let's read his story, inside... More »
—>An international cellphone giant VS the big blue monster... what is your whim? More »
—>The Best Buy where Toni bought a laptop earlier this month has no record of the sale, and it won't collect the funds that have already been released from her account. This sounds like a fun problem to have—$1500 extra dollars, free laptop, woo hoo!—but it's actually pretty annoying. Toni doesn't want this phantom $1500 messing up her balance indefinitely, and she doesn't want to feel like she's stolen a laptop. More »
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- Best Buy provided financial bonuses based, in part, on denying proper price match requests.
- Best Buy denied more than 100 proper price match requests per store per week.
—>Not to be outdone by all the negative publicity Office Depot is getting over their "not in stock" lies, Best Buy stores in the New York area have been uncovered refusing to price match TV prices in accordance with their official policy. When pressed, the sales associates said that the TVs weren't covered due to imaginary exclusions that aren't included in the official policy language. An employee at one of the stores gave in, but then made up a new imaginary policy that said free delivery would cost $100. More »
—>Michael is happy to report that he got a really great resolution from Best Buy, who had sold his grandma a broken camera as new and then accused them of breaking it themselves. The shots of Best Buy employees Michael found on the camera, and the repugnant attitude he encountered when they tried to return it and disinterest when he complained to corporate multiple times, only made the story that much juicier. After Micheal's story went up on Consumerist and hit Digg, Best Buy contacted him. Here's what they did to make nice: More »
—>Best Buy charged Nicole $99 to backup her data but then replaced her hard drive without backing up a single byte. Nicole's service contract clearly stated that Best Buy would perform the backup before any other service. Now Best Buy is claiming that her old hard drive is their property and that she has no right to the data that they failed to backup or restore. More »
—>Today I went to the doctor. All I wanted was a prescription to continue to go to physical therapy for my pulled groin muscles. The assistant said that the doctor likes to give new patients a full physical, which includes blood tests, EKG, and a chest x-ray. I said I had a physical recently (true) and those tests sounded unnecessary. She seemed disappointed. Unless I have wheezing or chest pains, I don't see the need for a chest x-ray. See, doctors are like Best Buy. If you go in informed knowing exactly what you need, you're fine. Otherwise they're like oh you need Monster Cables and an extended warranty for your heart. More »
—>UPDATE: Best Buy Goes Above And Beyond To Make Up For Selling Busted Camera As New More »
—>The Chicago Tribune says that Russell Cole calls his $2.75 million Deerfield, IL home "the house that Best Buy built," but now investigators are claiming that the Best Buy money was obtained through fraud. More »
—>Porn and Electronics. They go together about as well as Peanut butter and Salmonella. Now Rudy Phillips is intimately aware of this connection; after sending out her phone to be serviced by Best Buy Mobile, she received a loaner phone that was filled with... well, you know. More »
—>Uh oh, another Best Buy employee has been caught swiping data from customers. Unlike the woman last August who went on small time shopping sprees, this woman was caught using a card reader to swipe and store info on as many as 4,000 customers at the Best Buy store located at 1880 Palm Beach Lakes Blvd in Palm Beach, Florida. More »
—>Geek Squad told reader Dave that he didn't have the "technical expertise" to diagnose his clearly-broken iPod. The 30 GB unit wouldn't play when docked or connected by USB cord, something Dave though might be covered by Best Buy's Product Service Plan. Geek Squad first tried replacing the hard drive. This solved nothing. Dave brought the still-broken iPod back and asked the agent to write into the notes a request to call him if the problem was misunderstood. Without calling, Geek Squad again returned the iPod with a note saying that the agent "could not duplicate the problem." With this firm diagnosis in hand, Geek Squad decided they were done and wouldn't perform any additional work. When Dave objected, he was told that his 'only option was to pay for a third-party to test the iPod and prove the Geek Squad technician wrong.' More »
—>An insider tells us the best way to get back at a bad Best Buy employee is a bag of potato chips: More »
—>Reader Sean tried to order a TV that was on sale at Best Buy, but for some reason his order didn't go through. Now the TV isn't on sale anymore and Best Buy is claiming to have no record of the transaction. More »
—>John ordered a washer and a dryer from Best Buy. First, he says Best Buy showed up early for the delivery, so naturally, John wasn't home. Then they assembled the pedestals for the washer and dryer on some gravel in front of his house, damaging them. After that, they left the appliances with his neighbor. More »
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, whose excellent Best Buy and Target coverage we really appreciate, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. [Reuters] More »
—>Best Buy's same store sales were down 6.5% as their discounts failed to convince you to buy, says Bloomberg. More »
—>Reader Erin writes in to warn readers that Best Buy is offering a thirty-dollar firmware update to certain Blu-Ray players, and warning that without the update, some newer titles might not work. Erin checked the manufacturer's website and found no announced firmware updates, and the newer titles play just fine. More »
—>I always love to see a fellow Consumer fight back against large corporations. However, when that consumer is trying to return stolen goods - stolen from me, that is - it's harder to get excited. More »
—>Another electronics store was taken for millions by an invoice-fixing scheme: a buyer for Best Buy and a vendor have been charged with overcharging Best Buy $31 million over four years. More »
—> Remember when Best Buy was using HD channels to make "Calibrated" televisions seem miraculously better? Well, their methods have changed, but using different cables to improve definition doesn't mean they've improved. More »
—>This Fry's in Texas apparently wants you to pay for them to replace their inventory. Or they think their customers are idiots. Maybe both? More »
—>Buying something from Best Buy? Check your receipt, you may have been signed up for a magazine subscription and you didn't even know it. More »
—>"Best Buy Co. Inc. offered voluntary severance packages to virtually all its 4,000 corporate employees Tuesday as the nation's largest consumer electronics chain announced its third-quarter profit skidded 77 percent," says the AP. [Forbes] More »
—>With the launch of monsterminigolftruth.com MonsterCable has offered a wilted olive branch to Monster Mini Golf. In summary: More »
—>If you would like to tell Monster Cable that they're jerks for trying to shut down the family owned and operated Monster MiniGolf... More »
—>Monster Cable has decided to sue Monster MiniGolf for trademark infringement. Monster MiniGolf is a family startup by Patrick & Christina Vitagliano glow-in-the-dark monster-themed minigolf franchise with 23 locations. Monster Cable, which has an illustrious history of suing anything and everything with Monster in its name, makes the expensive cables that Best Buy is always trying to upsell you on that are no better than coat hangers. More »
—>Reader John writes in with a story about "upselling" at Best Buy. He saw a TomTom GPS unit for $99.99 on sale at Best Buy, so he headed over to the store to pick one up. What follows is his account of how much trouble it was to actually buy the item. We think we counted 9 times that John had to tell various and sundry Best Buy employees that, yes, he was sure that he didn't want to buy a slightly more expensive model of the same device. More »
—>Here's a good example of how to write an effective Executive Email Carpet Bomb, or EECB, to break through the "please hold" purgatory of the company's phone system. Alicia's car's bumper was scratched by a Best Buy employee, and calling consumer relations as directed proved fruitless. Now she's got a check in her hands from Best Buy to pay for the repairs. More »
—>Reader James is upset. His TV is broken and Geek Squad can't fix it. He bought the TV and Best Buy's performance service plan — which hypothetically should replace his TV in the event that it cannot be repaired. Now, after 2 months, 27 days, a botched repair job and 6 unreturned phone calls, James is annoyed. He's launched an Executive Email Carpet Bomb on Best Buy and CC'd us. The best part comes near the end of the letter, when Best Buy calls James to ask if he was satisfied with a Geek Squad appointment that had never even happened... More »
—>Today Best Buy announced that it was officially freaking out about the current financial meltdown: "In 42 years of retailing, we've never seen such difficult times for the consumer," Brian Dunn, president and chief operating officer of Best Buy, said in a statement. "People are making dramatic changes in how much they spend, and we're not immune from those forces." A Best Buy employee forwarded us an email that went out to all associates this morning — stressing that a renewed commitment to customer service was the way forward during these troubled times. More »
—>Inside, email addresses, phone numbers, and addresses for over 100 different companies to inject your customer service complaints into their corporate executive offices, and get it well on the way to success. More »
—>Best Buy sold Clif a "new" laptop one of their employees had bought, used, and returned. They made up for it by giving him an actually new laptop with a slightly better configuration, then tried to upsell him to the Best Buy extended warranty. Two things I enjoyed about this story: 1) The clerk he went to return the laptop to was the same employee who had used the laptop (Clif knew this because he saw the guy's resume on the laptop) 2) Clif then subsequently asked to speak to the manager in private and explained the situation there. That's the classy way to do it. More »
—>Is there a difference between a Sony TZ ultraportable laptop and an Asus Eee PC? Reader Ignacio bought Best Buy's accidental damage protection plan for his $2200 Sony TZ laptop, and when he did, indeed, drop it — Best Buy threatened to replace it with a $600 Asus Eee PC, and finally decided to issue a $1200 gift card — the price of a 15" Dell notebook. Fair? More »
—>Retailers are scared this year, what with the whole economy coming crashing down around their ears and all, and the Black Friday marketing frenzy should be crazier than ever this year. Best Buy is even holding an essay contest. The topic? Why Black Friday shopping is an "important family ritual." Yes, seriously. More »
—>Everyone seems to agree— this year will be the year of the cheap big-screen tv. The only question remains... will anyone buy them? More »
—>I've read some bad Best Buy stories in my time here at The Consumerist, but this one really takes the asshole cake. To sell its special HDTV calibration service, this Best Buy in NC set up two identical model HDTVs, both showing ESPN. As seen in the picture tipster Robert took, the "calibrated" one is noticeably better. That's because it's showing ESPN HD and the one on the left is showing just regular ESPN. You can also see how a set of box have been placed in front of the non-calibrated tv on the left so you can't see that's it not ESPN HD. That, my friends, is quintessential deceptive marketing. Robert's story of what he saw, and the rivers of bullshit and non-answer that came out of the Best Buy employees' mouths when he confronted them about it, inside... More »
—>Emails are shooting around to Geek Squad employees, encouraging them to join the Communications Workers of America union, so Best Buy retorts with emails of its own to voice its concerns. In an email sent by corporate management, Best Buy spoke of its concerns about unions, that unions would hinder its ability to speak with and negotiate with each Geek Squad employee individually. For, there's nothing like the closeness created when one employee negotiates with a hydra. That's just one fun piece of FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) in the email, posted inside... More »
—>Best Buy is tired of their logo, so they're testing a new one on those local guinea pigs at the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN. (Best Buy is headquartered in Minnesota, land of lutefisk, Garrison Keillor and Target.) More »
Best Buy has apparently launched a new "woman-friendly" store where the "Home Theater" section is marked "Family Room" and there is a "lower sink for children in the bathroom, lotion near the paper towels, and a private room for new mothers, with carpeting, a rocking chair, free diapers and softer lighting." [Minneapolis Star-Tribune] More »
—>Best Buy didn't want to honor the sale price of the 2GB flash drive Matt ordered through their website, so when Matt arrived to pick-up his purchase, the store's assistant manager called customer service and, pretending to be Matt, asked to cancel the order. Let's read Matt's story and see how it violates Massachusetts law, inside... More »
—>The copy on this Best Buy ad sent in by tipster Jordan reads, "A woman has needs. And right now, I need this wild cherry steam thing." Oh, it's a washer. And a dryer too, you say? Golly! I'll take two. Let me just give you some of these emerald rectangle monetary devices out of my ebony zippery pouch device here... Full size inside. More »
—>While we're waiting on our video boys to harvest the clip of Whoopie's rant against DirecTV on The View this morning, here's a little reader-submitted DirecTV install nightmare to tide you over. Andy used to think DirecTV was pretty good, but his experience trying to get them to hook up an HD/DVR to his TV has felt him feeling like he is "going to explode, or destroy pieces of furniture." More »
—>We just got an email from reader Mike, who claims to be a former Best Buy employee who regrets selling all those extended warranties now that he's actually trying to use the one that he purchased. More »
- Apple: Refurbished iPod touches on sale, 8GB for $180, 16GB for $240, 32GB for $320
- Amazon: Rewards points upgrade for existing Amazon.com Visa holders
- Apple: Free Select iTunes TV Shows in HD (requires iTunes 8
- Travelocity: United Airlines Sale: Round-trip flights from $108
- Amazon.com: Amazon.com Men's Watch Deals: Timex, Marc Ecko, more from $40 + free shipping
- Sears: Seven7 Women's Jeans for $18 + $6 s&h, more
- Budget Truck Rental: $50 Gift card when paying w/American Express
- Reverie: T-Shirt Sale: Buy 1 TEE get 1 free TEE
- BestBuy: Westinghouse 42" 1080p LCD HDTV and portable DVD Player for $749.99 + shipping
- Drugstore.com: New Customers: Save $5 or $10 off First Order
- Vann's: Panasonic FZ28 10.2MP Digital Camera $340 Shipped
- Amazon: Get Savings of up to 75% off Bargain Books
A number of readers chimed in on the Best Buy-branded wishlist browser add-on post with the alternatives they prefer instead. They were: 1) Amazon's Universal Wishlist, 2) Del.icio.us, 3) Wishlist.com, 4) Wishlistr.com. Got any others? As far as what most Consumerist's thought of the Best Buy add-on, commenter dragonfire81 probably captured it best... More »
—>Best Buy launched a new "retailer neutral" gift registry browser add-on Monday called Giftag. The idea is that you can visit any online retailer and click an icon to put it in your gift registry, as well as highlight specific parts of the page for potential gift-givers. In the open-source program, you can choose whether you want to make your gifts public, and shareable via social network sites and the like, or private. However, whether you select private or public, Best Buy will be able to see every purchase you make, whether you buy from them or their competition. Mmm, juicy buckets of data. More »
- 6PM.com: DC Brand Shoes $20 + S/H, all sizes/styles, 856 to choose from
- Nicorette: free pack of Nicorette White Ice Mint (warning, site is slow)
- Circuit City: Panasonic SH-FX85 Wireless Multi-Room Speaker Kit for $44.96, requires in-store pickup
- Hewlett Packard: $400 Off $999 or more for Desktop Purchase w/ coupon code: DT1158 (Good for 2250 uses)
- NewEgg: Targus Notebook Wireless Optical Mouse for $8.99 w/ Free shipping after $20 off coupon code: EMCAKAKAK
- Buy.com: Av Lab Solar Backpack Charger for $29.99 w/ Free shipping after rebate
- Best Buy: Toshiba Satellite Dual Core Notebook PC $500
- Geeks.com: Canon Pixma iP6210D Color Inkjet Photo Printer $35 with Coupon
- Musicnotes.com: 20% or 30% off Guitar Guru Interactive Lessons with Coupons
—>Obviously, stores sell items that has been returned by other customers as "open box" merchandise, but before reader David left the store, he specifically asked if the phone he was buying was "new" and was told it was. When he got home and found addresses saved on the phone and a few scratches he was understandably annoyed. He launched an EECB on Best Buy and after a little negotiation, he got a $120 gift card. Now he's writing to compliment Best Buy on the way they handled his complaint. More »
—> We get a lot of complaints about people buying things from stores like Best Buy and Target and finding that once they get them home — there's a bunch of bathroom tiles in the box instead of the item, or that the item is used, broken or smashed. When they try to return the thing, the store tells them that they're out of luck. When you ask why they think they can get away with selling you a paperweight instead of an XBOX, they point to some bullsh*t policy and send you on your way. You don't have to put up with this. In this post, we'll tell you a) How to keep this from happening to you in the first place. b) How to equip yourself with tools that will help you in the event that this does happen to you. c) How to take advantage of these tools so that you never get stuck with someone's old broken PS3. More »
—>Not that it's any big surprise, but Best Buy has now gotten around to taking back that "elite" status that they accidentally gave all of their Rewards Zone members yesterday. We knew that 45 day return policy was too good to be true... Best Buy's "whoops" email inside: More »
—>Reader Andrew forwarded an email he just got from Best Buy letting him know that he now qualified for an even more special fantastic elite reward zone level. One in which he would be granted access to something called a "Premier Black Concierge." We're assuming this is like Reward Zone Silver but, more so. More »
—>Mike's friend gave Best Buy $200 to install anti-virus software and an HDMI input, but Best Buy somehow sent him home with the wrong power adapter. Mike works in IT and knows how to feed and bathe himself, but Best Buy insisted that he had the right adapter and that Mike had to be "doing something wrong." Guess how this ends... More »
—>It's always fun when you spot people you know in the paper. Like when one reader saw an article about his former Best Buy manager, charged with seventeen counts of third-degree identity thief. Mariusz Paliwoda of Conneticut was arrested recently for stealing over 100 pieces of mail from rural folks', then using the information to create credit card accounts. Only the cream of the crop, or former Domino's managers, make it to the top of Best Buy!
Milford man charged in ID theft operation [New Haven Register] (Photo: Getty) More »
—>Only use this contact info if you can't get help from the store and the regular customer service line isn't doing it for ya. More »
This Best Buy coupon for free Apple software for students isn't a very good deal after all—you can get educational discounts at the Apple store, and through September 15th you can get a free iPod Touch or Nano with your computer purchase. Our advice: skip Best Buy and go directly through Apple. (Thanks to Matt and yasth!) More »
—>A Customer Associate for a Best Buy in Las Cruces, New Mexico, was indicted on Thursday for credit card fraud—three counts of making fraudulent purchases over $2500, three counts of making fraudulent purchases over $500, over 20 counts of falsely signing credit card slips, and 1 count of disposing of stolen property. More »
—>An alleged Best Buy employee tells us that the company has stopped including inlet water hoses in some Inglis, Whirlpool and Maytag top-loading washers it sells. According to the blurry photos he sent us, employees are now supposed to push this $27 accessory hose product on customers who buy the washers. Update: we don't know if the decision originated with the manufacturers or Best Buy. More »
Best Buy will start selling the iPhone on September 7th, making it the only retailer other than Apple and AT&T to offer the device. [Associated Press] More »
—>Umar bought a DLP in 2005 with a $400 Best Buy Performance Service Plan. The TV keeps blowing through expensive bulbs (Umar has replaced 7 $275 bulbs in 3 years,) and rather than wait 2 weeks for a technician every time this happens, Best Buy provided a telephone number and told him to order and replace the bulbs himself. Now, because he followed their directions, Best Buy is refusing to cover the TV under the "lemon" provision of the service agreement. More »
—>After driving all over Chicagoland with his 7 month old son looking for a DirecTV receiver, reader Bobby was called an asshole for not stopping and showing his receipt to a Best Buy employee. He's a little ticked off, and he CC'd us on his letter to Best Buy. Let's listen in: More »
—>Reader Kevin forwarded us this story from Dave, a I.T. consultant friend of his who helps people with their computer problems in exchange for hardware donations to the school he works at. Dave's "propane guy" said he recently took a desktop computer to Geek Squad after it failed, and "great Geek Squad guys were AWESOME and had been able to retrieve all of his family pictures for him," before selling him a new laptop. Dave offered to take a look at the desktop and try to retrieve the rest of the important files— the "7 years of QuickBooks 2005 data" that Best Buy wasn't able to save, but when Dave opened up the computer he says he was surprised to see that someone had cut some important cables. More »
- Amazon: Lego sale. 50% off 8 Different Items
- Walgreens: 6 Sharpies for $2 (in-store only)
- eforcity: iPod/iPhone charging cable for $7.99 (down from $43.99)
- DealExtreme: iPod/iPhone charging cable for $3.46
- Woot: It's a woot-off!
- Best Buy: Dynex DX-LCD32 32-inch LCD HDTV $490
- Tiger Direct: Unlocked Motorola RAZR V3 GSM Cell Phone $100
- Buy.com: Kodak Z1285 12 Megapixel Digital Camera $90 Shipped
Best Buy will start selling musical equipment—guitars, drum kits, sheet music, groupies—in up to 85 stores across the U.S. this year. They'll also offer group music lessons. Is there anything the Geek Squad can't do? [Associated Press] More »
—>While cramming a remote starter into Andrew's new Nissan Altima, Best Buy managed to break the car's locking system, window controls, and a brake light. Andrew hauled the crippled car back to the dealership, which immediately blamed Best Buy for burning out the car's wiring, and told Andrew that the parasitic system had to go. Best Buy defended their quality workmanship, and refused to issue a refund unless Andrew signed a waiver absolving them of any responsibility for damaging the car. More »
—>What began as a troubling rumor has evolved into a troubling fact. Walmart will soon be launching its own version of the Geek Squad as pilot program in 15 stores in the Dallas area. The new "Solution Stations" will supposedly help customers with such tasks as flat panel TV installation and computer repair and will be managed with Dell Inc. Details, inside... More »
—>Reader Nick doesn't want you to pay too much for Apple iPod headphones, so he's asked us to let you know that Best Buy is charging $49.99 for basic white iPod earbuds and they're only $29.99 at the Apple Store. Let it be known that Best Buy is not the best place to buy accessories. More »
—>Reader Brandon is obviously familiar with number 3 in the 10 Things You Might Not Know About Your Credit Card post, holding firm in the face of a retailer who wanted Brandon to give his driver's license when he bought something with a credit card: More »
—>Dries Janssens, a computer repair shop owner in Allen, Texas, is worried that a 2007 law passed by the state legislature requires computer repair technicians to have private investigator licenses to perform "simple computer repairs such as malware removal." We're not sure if the law was just badly written or written on purpose at the urging of the state's private investigator lobby (which Janssens suggests), but it certainly seems like a bad idea. Update: according to this article sent by our weekend editor Carey, it's just badly written ("It needs some tightening up," says one lawmaker) and should only apply to the private security industry. More »
—>The way coupons are taxed is different in every state— and believe us — it gets really complicated. The general rule, in most (but not all) states is that consumers are taxed on the full amount of the transaction — including any reimbursement that the store gets. More »
—>Reader Mike consulted Best Buy about removing a Trojan that was infecting his computer. They suggested that he buy an external hard drive, pay Best Buy to back up his data, and use his computer's restore disc. Mike agreed. 5 days later he got his computer and his external hard drive back — mostly empty, except for the shortcut to the folder where the data was stored. None of the files within the folder had actually been transferred. More »
—>A reader wrote in to tell us that the Western Digital hard drive he recently bought new from Best Buy had hidden dirty pics buried on it. He was running a program to retrieve some accidentally deleted images when he discovered the secret files. Read his story below. [Update: our tipster has written back in to clarify that the HD was not necessarily "brand new."] More »
—>Is it ok for stores to sell food that's expired? It depends. It is illegal for stores to sell food past its "Use By" date. However, stores are allowed to sell food after it has passed the "Best Until" "Best Before" "Sell By" or "Display Until" dates stamped on the sides of packages. As the name suggests, it just might not be its best, in terms of flavor, consistency, or texture. Still, why get the old stuff when you can get the fresh for the same price? Always check the expiration dates on food packages to make sure you're getting the best value for your dollar. More »
—>A few days ago we reported that Cliff didn't receive a $100 gift card when he purchased a PS3 bundle from Best Buy, despite an unpublicized corporate memo that seemed to say otherwise. The manager at Cliff's Best Buy said "You can buy any other PlayStation and you can get the gift card, but not on that one." This didn't match up with what others were reporting, so Cliff sent an email blast to the executive level asking why the offer wasn't honored. Yesterday a Best Buy rep called Cliff and said that they'd be mailing him a $100 gift card. We're impressed the Best Buy resolved this so quickly. More »
—>When Cliff sent us his story about the denied $100 gift card from Best Buy, he also sent it to over a dozen addresses at Best Buy HQ. A few hours ago we got this email cc'ed to us from a VP of Executive Customer Care: More »
—>According to this conversation over at the SlickDeals forum, Wal-Mart was offering a $100 gift card with any Blu-ray player purchase, including the PS3—and Best Buy Corporate issued a memo saying they would match Wal-Mart's deal and offer $100 gift cards as well. Cliff tried to take advantage of this unadvertised special when he purchased a Metal Gear Solid PS3 bundle a couple of days ago, but the manager of the store refused, saying the bundle was off-limits: "You can buy any other Playstation and you can get the gift card, but not on that one." Oddly, though, other members of SlickDeals were reporting success with the very same bundle around the country. More »
—>Like shopping at Best Buy but don't like their lack of customer service and crappy return policy? They've got an offer for you. Spend $2,500 per calendar year and you'll be considered a "Reward Zone Program Premier Silver Member." The benefits of this membership are immediately apparent. You'll get your own dedicated customer service line that's only for Premier Silver Members, and a more generous return policy as well. Why should good customer service be available to bad customers? We've got the text of a Best Buy Reward Zone Silver Training Document, inside. More »
—>MarketWatch says that Wal-Mart is "very interested in expanding into installation and repair services in its fast-growing electronics segment." More »
—>EECBs are scoring direct hits on HSBC and Best Buy. Reader Chad was having the same problem with his Best Buy credit card that reader Jason wrote in about. After he saw Jason's successful EECB he launched one of his own. Reade Chad's letter and Best Buy's response inside. More »
—>If you read yesterday's article Best Buy's "Same As Cash" Credit Card Conceals Major Hidden Fees, you should remember Jason who got socked with some serious fees on his Best Buy/HSBC credit card. Jason wrote back to us to say that within a mere 3 hours after the deployment of his EECB, Best Buy reversed all of his fees. Jason's and Best Buy's letter, inside... More »
Best Buy, Circuit City, and Sears are all contesting the FCC's recent fines against them for not properly following analog transition rules in their stores, reports Ars Technica. Last week, Best Buy submitted a 41-page response (PDF) that claimed among other things that the FCC has no authority to fine them. More »
—>A commenter to our Worst Company in America nominations picked Best Buy, his employer of six years, to win it all. His reasons, including the credit card fraud, phony bundling scams, and other schemes they made him do to keep his job he heard rumors about happening at other Best Buys, inside. UPDATE: The original commenter has contacted us to say that these things did not actually happen to him and he was not trained to do them by Best Buy. Rather, he heard about them happening at other Best Buys or read about them in other Consumerist articles, and, in a pique of anger, wrote a long comment that remixed all this information together and framed it as if it happened to him. Consumerist regrets the error, and the commenter has been banned. More »
—>This is Round 37 in our Worst Company in America contest, Best Buy vs CompUSA!Inside, readers comments from previous rounds on why they hate each company... More »
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—>The Star Tribune reports a woman is suing Best Buy for $50,000 after the Best Buy/Geek Squad repair service stole her naked photos from her computer, shared them with other Geek Squad agents, and even copied them onto the hard drives of other customers (this is hardly the first time Geek Squad has been caught stealing porn from customer's computers). William E. Giffels admitted in a written statement that he copied Kaylee Hall's nude photos from her computer onto his personal flash drive. On this drive, he also kept the most up-to-date version of the Geek Squad diagnostic tools and told other agents to copy from it. Then other Geek Squad made CD copies of the drive and installed the tools, along with Kaylee's photos, onto other customers' computers in the Traverse City, Michigan area. Inside, Giffels's written confession... More »
—>Cole discovered that by simply incrementing a numerical string by one in a url Best Buy sent out, he could pull up screen after screen of random customer info. Fortunately, all he could see were customer names, their home addresses, and their order numbers. It's still surprising that Best Buy—or more specifically, Postpublisher.net, the email company they outsourced this to—wasn't more careful with customer security. More »
—>Have you purchased a computer from Best Buy, only to find that it had no internal parts? No hard drive. No video card. No motherboard? If so, you (allegedly) have Joseph Denice of Silver Spring, MD to thank for your gutted PC. His hobby is buying computers from Best Buy, removing the parts, and then returning the empty shell. Best Buy's employees would then put the computer husks back on store shelves where they would be repurchased by unwitting consumers such as... you. More »
(Photo: Getty)
—>A Denver TV crew unseated a RAM chip and then took it to seven different repair centers for a diagnosis. The resulting displays of incompetence were pretty evenly distributed, with two Best Buy Geek Squads, one Circuit City Firedog, and one locally owned repair center (CTI) all failing miserably ("It's the motherboard!" they each said). Of the three locations that correctly diagnosed and fixed the problem, Action Computers charged $50, Geek Squad charged $30, and the Firedog tech who hands-down won the challenge "reinstalled the memory cards in less than two minutes, free of charge." More »
—>A few weeks ago, Zach emailed us to say that his Rewards Zone Mastercard hasn't worked properly in the five months he's had it, and no one at Best Buy had been able to help. We pointed him to our Guide To Fighting Back, and he responded tonight with an update. More »
Tipster Michael writes:
Apparently the local Best Buy has an unbeatable service option for you. Looks like they will come to your house and insert your game to your 360 for you. Wonder how much they would charge to turn it on and put the controller in my hand?Fie on anyone who says these signs are misplaced. This is a revolutionary new service that will do for game installation what Game Genie did for gameplay. Just you wait and see... More »
—>This strange little item found its way into our inbox with no explanation or back-story. More »
I was wandering around Best Buy yesterday here in Missouri when we came across this. Essentially, the back of this "open box" tagged computer was completely broken off. I realize that this may indeed be the nature of "open box" product, but seriously... 1700 dollars for a computer with this kind of blatant damage? More »
—>Save 10% on your visit to Best Buy by bringing along this printable, reusable coupon that doesn't seem to expire. The coupon is accessible to the public, but it is meant to serve as a chintzy government house-warming gift from the Post Office to people who recently moved. More »
UPDATE: Geek Squad Replaces Soaked Computer For Free More »
—>The FCC handed out a whole basketful of fines to electronics retailers today: $1.1 million for Sears and Kmart; $992,000 for Wal-Mart; $712,000 for Circuit City; and amounts between $168,000-384,000 for Target, Best Buy, CompUSA, and Fry's Electronics. What made Christmas come so early? They were all failing to warn consumers that analog-only TVs and tuners will stop working on their own when the digital switchover comes next year. More »
—>Yet another valiant former Firedog writes in to share insider info that will help you successfully navigate the rough waters of big box computer repair. The most important takeaway—Don't let them "preinstall" anything on your new computer. According to our tipster, it's both expensive and pointless. Lots of good stuff inside. More »
—>Best Buy leveraging its business acumen into the exciting field of venture capital investing. Called Best Buy Capital, it will, according to several job postings, "serve as a source of innovative growth options for the enterprise rooted in smaller, more innovative, and potentially disruptive opportunities." Sounds great! I have an idea for a new kind of digital tortilla chip clip. You know how you get down to the bottom of the bag of tortillas and you get the chip pieces that are small? And then when you try to dip them in salsa you get salsa all over your fingers? Well with my chip clip you would be able to grab a bunch of the chip pieces together. All dip, no drip! Plus, your fingers won't start to burn from the salsa exposure, irregardless of how long you use it. It would also have a digital timer and be USB-powered. Best Buy Capital, if you're interested, drop me a line. Inside, via DiversityInc Careers, a job posting for Best Buy Capital so maybe one of our readers can get a job there and then invest in my project... More »
—>Some shillyshallying office worker came across some papers jammed in the Best Buy shredder that purport to show that Best Buy is going to buy Wal-Mart. Normally I wouldn't sully the pages of The Conglomerist with such treacherous murk, but, irregardless, the news is just too good to keep to myself. If true, this would be the best thing ever to happen to consumers as two of the most kickass companies in America combine forces. Just thinking of of the cost-saving efficiencies provided by the vertical integration makes pleasure crystals ooze shoot out from my pores and explode all over my cat's face (don't worry, he's ok). Oh, and so he can be fired, this traitor's name is Ryan Smith More »
—>You don't become the number one retailer of electronics to American consumers without getting a few things right awesome, as Daniel shows us in this letter of compliment he sent The Conglomerist about a recent experience at Best Buy:
I stopped in the other night because my old HD DVD player died so I went in hoping to get a deal. On the shelf I found 2 open box Toshiba HD-A30 HD DVD players. Looking around I found the department head Derrik and we went back over to the DVD player aisle. More »
—>When personal finance magazine Kiplinger asked the Geek Squad about our video that caught one of their technicians stealing porn from our harddrive (peeping tomism, hardly limited to Geek Squad, is just as rampant in the computer repair industry as the photo developing industry), an unidentified Geek Squad spokeswoman ingenuously responded, "We have been the target of a blog that prefers to focus on the exceptions to our service and not the overall, vast majority of successful services we provide to clients." That's like saying dirt is unfairly targeted by a broom. Where there's a valid complaint, we'll post. Where there's a consumer whose rights aren't respected, we will defend. We don't have a vendetta against the Geek Squad, or any other company. We have a vendetta against bad customer service. That's our bottom line. After the jump, the original undercover video... More »
—>An internal Best Buy training document sent to The Consumerist reveals Best Buy's position on the "Extended Warranty" debate. Best Buy says they don't sell those pesky "extended warranties" that get so much bad press— instead they sell "performance service plans." The document also instructs Best Buy employees on how to sell these warranties to Upscale Suburban "Barry" and "Jill." It's important for consumers to be familiar with these tactics so they are able to recognize them while shopping in a high pressure sales environment such as Best Buy. Understanding the sales pitch puts you on equal ground with the salesperson. More »
—> Reader George is having serious trouble with Geek Squad. It started when he bought a laptop from Best Buy a few years ago. He sent it in to get a loose AC jack replaced. They replace it. Two months later, it's loose again. It's replaced again, but this time, when his picks it up, the door to the DVD/CD drive is warped and won't open. George's in a hurry, so he asked the Geek to make a note about the damage, and he'll bring it back for repair. From here on out, nothing goes right. First they can't find his account, then they can't find the note, then they can't find his computer, then they can't work their own computers. His full story, inside. More »
—>Best Buy called the cops on Alex because he told another shopper that the Jawbone headset he was considering was poor quality and marked up $30 from the manufacturer's price. Alex went to Best Buy to purchase a new Bluetooth headset because the Jawbone he recently purchased from Verizon wasn't cutting it. While browsing the headsets, he struck up a conversation with another customer who was checking out the Jawbone. Alex told his fellow customer that he had been disappointed in the quality of the Jawbone, and that Best Buy was charging $30 more than the manufacturer or Verizon. A sales associate overheard this and told the manager, who asked Alex to leave the store, then threatened to call the police, then did. More »
I saw something a little weird at our local Best Buy [redacted]. While on my break from work I decided to stop by the store and pick up the latest copy of Rainbow Six Vegas 2. While walking through the audio section of the Home Theater department I passed by a computer terminal next to some stereo equipment and an open filing cabinet in the middle with a tray on-top. At first I thought it was just storage for binders, pamphlets, sales ad's and stuff they might need on the floor, but when I looked into the tray I saw completed credit card forms, with peoples names, addresses, social security # and etc...More »
—>The Times is reporting that recession-fearing chain stores like Best Buy, Home Depot, and Circuit City are increasingly more desperate to clinch sales by negotiating prices. Hit the jump to see how ordinary shoppers are wielding research and charisma to knock added savings out of retailers. More »
—>Best Buy is offering $50 gift cards to people who bought HD-DVD players before Feb 23. say CNN.
The retailer said it will identify customers through its Reward Zone program, performance service plans and through online purchases and will mail out the gift cards to those individuals by May 1. More »
—>Attention Profiled Shoppers: Consumerist is now in possession of an internal training document that teaches Best Buy blue shirts how to stereotype customers. While Best Buy's use of personas has been known for several years, our exclusively obtained document contains several brand-new Best Buy personas, including "Maria Middle America" and "Empty Nesters" Helen and Charlie. More »
—>The aisles of Best Buy, Home Depot, and other retail stores are beginning to look more like a Turkish bazaar. Haggling is back, baby, at least based on some initial reports we've heard. People are talking about being able to say to walk into a retail store and say to sales people, "Hmm, I like, but it's a little more than I was hoping to pay. Can't you do any better on the price?" It seems the salesmen have some wiggle room on the price, especially if you opt for the extended warranty package. I'm helping out a reporter at a large publication, so if this has happened to you and you're willing to share your story on the record, drop me a line at ben@consumerist.com or leave a comment along with your contact info. More »
CBC Marketplace compared Monster cables with a midrange and a $12 HDMI cable. Both to the naked eye and to a computerized hardware test all the cable performed flawlessly. The only difference was the price. [CBC Marketplace] More »
—> An employee of Best Buy apparently thinks too many days have gone without us posting something about the store, so he sent in his list of 10 things he thinks every customer should know when shopping there. Items 10 through 7 are all about warranties and service plans, so the usual caveats apply (make sure you know what's really covered, and that it's worth the extra cost to you). #4, however, is good to know: "Its pretty much pointless to call Corporate/Customer Service Hotline—they can not override a store's decision. Best bet is to call or email a District Manager or higher." More »
—>The Best Buy in Secaucus, NJ refused to match J&R's price for a Bluetooth headset, claiming that J&R was not covered by Best Buy's price match guarantee. Best Buy employees first called J&R—a large New York electronics retailer—a wholesaler. A manager later insisted that J&R was a Mom & Pop store and refused to match the lower price. When reader Steven attempted to cut through the absurdity by calling corporate, he was told that the price match is provided at each store's discretion. Read his full story, inside. More »
—> A fire broke out in a Best Buy in Quincy, Illinois, over the weekend, and although the sprinkler system put it out promptly, it flooded the entire store in an inch and a half of water. The store manager told the local news station that it would take a few days to clean up and restock inventory—but we prefer to imagine that there's going to be an awful lot of CompUSA-style "AS IS" deals in the Quincy Best Buy very soon. More »
—>Can you tell the difference between music that passed through a pricey Monster stereo Cable, and a coat hanger? A reader forwarded us a post from the Audioholics Home Theater Forum and its author says no. He says his brother ran an experiment on him and four other audio aficionados listening to a new CD from a new group blindfolded. Seven different songs were played, each time heard with the speaker hooked up to Monster Cables, and the other time, hooked up to coat hanger wire. Nobody could determine which was the Monster Cable and which was the coat hanger. The kicker? None of the subjects even knew that coat hangers were going to be used. This is, of course, "nothing new," a Google of "monster cables vs coat hangers" shows that some users have been saying this for a while. Still, this is an experiment begging to be recreated under controlled conditions (say, for instance, a double-blind test). Science fair project! Read how it went down, inside... More »
—>Should it take several months and a small claims lawsuit to get Best Buy to take back their defective washing machine? No, but that's what it did take for reader Keith. More »
—>Channel 10 out of Columbus, Ohio recently conducted a sting operation in which they equipped themselves with an easily repaired laptop and took it to Geek Squad, FireDog and Micro Center to see who could figure out what was wrong. More »
—>Silly Bill. He thought Bank of America would let him spend $5,800 on a home theater system just because he had over $10,000 in the bank. He tried to charge the system to his Bank of America Visa Platinum Check Card but was declined. Confused, Bill called Bank of America customer support for an explanation and had the sort of conversation that makes you want to drive a fork through your ear. More »
Best Buy's sales are down.
Best Buy said it expects sales at stores open at least 14 months, or same-store sales, to fall slightly in the fourth quarter on lower revenue for advanced televisions, MP3 devices and video games. More »
—> On November 26th, a 35-year-old woman was shopping at Best Buy in Daytona Beach, Florida when there was some sort of communication breakdown, and a police officer who was at the store tasered her. We wrote about it here, and it turns out there's a video of the event here. At the time there were few details, but the full story has since been pieced together and resolved, and last week the Florida state attorney said "charges won't be pursued because there is no evidence that Beeland committed a crime." More »
—>Raelyn Campbell is suing Best Buy for $54 million for losing her laptop and lying to her for months about it. She bought a laptop from Best Buy with an extended warranty, it broke, she sent it in for repairs, months later she didn't have her laptop and after getting the runaround the store finally said it had lost her laptop and offered her a $900 gift card. She paid over $1,100 for the laptop, she paid for software on it, and it had irreplaceable photos, music, and personal information, including her tax returns. She freely admits she chose the high figure to attract media attention. She tells the Red Tape Chronicles "I can't help but wonder how many other people have had their computer stolen (or) lost by Best Buy and then been bullied into accepting lowball compensation offers for replacement expenses and no compensation for identity theft protection expenses." She also has a blog. More »
—>On May 3, 2007 a reader wrote in to explain an issue he was having with Best Buy's Geek Squad. His computer was randomly shutting off and generally acting crazy. His warranty was with Geek Squad so he took the computer in for repair. Geek Squad wiped his hard drive and returned the computer without fixing the problem. More »
—>Reader Jennifer wanted a new stove so she could cook delicious vittles for noshing during the SuperBowl. Sadly, she bought her stove from Best Buy, so instead of having a new stove for her party, she had a new stove delivered during the SuperBowl while she had a house full of guests. She launched an EECB (Executive Email Carpet Bomb) on them and CC'd us so we could listen in. More »
—>Stewart spent $105 on what he thought was a spindle of Memorex burnable DVDs. What he actually received was one burnable DVD sitting proudly atop a stack of CDs. More »
—>KNBC did an undercover investigation into tech repair services and found that, yep, they routinely overcharge customers, charge for services not rendered, make shit up, and look through your personal videos and pictures. They tested Circuit City, Fry's, some local repair places, and Best Buy. Surprisingly enough, Best Buy is the only place that correctly diagnosed the problem and didn't peek through their pictures (Probably because bossman Robert Stephens had vowed to fry peepers with the giant laser he has hidden on top of the Geek Squad HQ if any more techs got caught). More »
—>Reader and Flickr Pool member Steve has 6 kids and no fridge thanks to Best Buy. He's currently waiting around the house for his 4th repair guy in 8 months. More »
—> Jed's Gateway MX6030 laptop worked pretty well for a couple of years, then the problems started—faulty power adapter, kaput motherboard, dead hard drive. Luckily, he'd bought a 3-year extended service plan. Unluckily, when his motherboard was replaced, the bottom of the laptop—where the serial and model numbers are located—was swapped out with one from a different model, so that when he brought it back for the hard drive repair, the store manager accused him of fraud. More »
—>A few days ago Jason's story about Best Buy's bait-and-switch shot to internet prominence (137,166 pageviews on Consumerist and 4668 diggs), and now he's happy, has a $200 gift card to Best Buy, and a free copy of Saw IV. Let's recap: Jason went to Best Buy and saw a tag in-store advertising 2 DVDs for $25. He chose to buy two copies of 3:10 to Yuma. At checkout, it rang up for $19.99 a piece. When contested, the clerk pulled out a different circular that said "Buy Saw IV with any of these 3 movies for $25." Jason and a series of store employees disagreed for a long time about whether the circular applied to the tag, and Jason left the store with a $19.99 copy of 3:10 to Yuma, and a story, which he sent to The Consumerist. Then the internets happened. How did he go from screwed to elated? Find out in the exciting conclusion to his customer service misadventure, inside... More »
—> Matt writes in with a tip if you're unlucky enough to have a Best Buy credit card and plan on using it any time soon: check whether the brick and mortar store near you has any special promotions running first. If so, buy the item from their store instead of online or you'll be bound by Best Buy's 90 days same-as-cash terms regardless of whether or not the store is offering a better deal. More »
—>Ex-Best Buy manager Michael Oliveri, may "suck," but he's pretty darn clever. After he was fired from Best Buy he applied with Circuit City and Target, but became suspicious when job offers from those companies were abruptly terminated. More »
—>Silly Jason. He thought a Best Buy sign reading "2 for $25" meant he could buy two DVDs for $25. He obviously didn't read the part of the sign that requires customers to buy Saw IV. More »
—> A reader over at Best Week Ever spotted this little makeshift "tribute" to recently deceased actor Heath Ledger in a San Diego Best Buy. More »
—>Engadget reports that they have a leaked internal memo from Best Buy about a digital photo frame that shipped with a Trojan pre-installed More »
—>Best Buy's Geek Squad tech repair service helped bust a middle-school custodian for having child porn on his hard-drive. Fox9 reports:
Geek Squad employees viewed over 800 images contained in a folder titled XXXYOUNGS. The images featured young girls believed to be between the ages of 7 and 15. In some of the pictures the children were nude; in others, they were engaged in sexual acts with adult males.You would think they could stop after the first couple or so. Pedophiles should die a thousand deaths, but no doubt police appreciate that some tech services are now performing warrantless searches of citizen's hard drives for them. More »
—>Reader Travis would like to purchase an XM radio from Best Buy. Sadly for him, Best Buy refused to sell him the radio without first learning his phone number. Travis does not want to share his phone number with Best Buy, therefore Travis has no radio. More »
—>Matt writes:
Yesterday I went through the horror of taking my 15 year old brother to the Best Buy in Orland Park, IL on LaGrange Ave. I had close to $100 in Best Buy Gift Certificates given to me for Christmas. My brother and I were en route to dinner and we decided to swing by the aforementioned Best Buy to pick up a video game, Assassin's Creed, and XBOX Live Gold. We entered the store. I browsed the camera aisle looking for a cable to possibly purchase for our flat screen then headed to the video game section. I picked up the said items and headed to check out where hell will shortly ensue.More »
—>Chris writes: "I had been last minute Christmas shopping on Saturday morning with my younger brother and sister and we happened upon Best Buy where we were looking for a digital picture frame for my Dad as a Christmas present. We got to the section near the digital cameras and noticed a decent deal. "7" Digital Picture Frame Touch" 79.99 was the label. A whole slew of product (NuTouch 7" Touch button Frames) were neatly stocked on the shelf. Note: STOCKED not STACKED. I quickly picked one up and proceeded to the register. At the register- the product rung up for the incorrect price (179.99)- here in CT, when that happens, so long as the item is labeled as such in the store (mistake or not) the retailer is legally supposed to give you the product for free (if food items) or at the marked price if it is any other type of consumer product..." More »
—>For those of you who were wondering why you recently bought an empty box from Best Buy, look no further for your answer. Three Best Buy employees from a Bridgewater, NJ store were busted for removing items from their boxes and placing them inside the boxes of less expensive items, which they would then buy. More »
—> Happy New Year, Canada! Here's a special treat for our neighbors to the north: More »
—>Once again a reader contacts us to complain about Best Buy misleading their customers with an in-store only website that looks identical to the "real" website—except for the prices. More »
—>Reader Nick writes in with a bit of social engineering. More »
—>Best Buy still uses a secret internal website to deceive customers, according to the L.A. Times. The website appearing on in-store kiosks resembles Best Buy's official site in every way, except for the prices. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal was surprised to hear that his investigation failed to end Best Buy's bait-and-switch, telling the L.A. Times: "We thought Best Buy had addressed this. That's what they said to us. Apparently that's not the case." A tipster in Virginia also reports the continued existence of the secret website. More »
—>We get quite a few photos of funny open box "mistakes," but this is the first one that came with a complaint. More »
—> The XBOX that I bought on Black Friday had recently been scratching my discs. More »
—>Best Buy has backed off and apologized for sending the Laughing Squid blog a cease and desist letter over their posting on other group's Best Buy parody shirts. Initially, Best Buy didn't feel the blogger's free speech rights were of importance, saying Laughing Squid was "promoting" rather than reporting." Now Best Buy says, "...we do not object to fair and accurate reporting of fact, and respect the First Amendment rights of Laughing Squid and other bloggers to provide articles or commentary on current events. Now that we have a better understanding of your website, we regret sending you the demand letter." Hooray, the internet wins again! More »
—>My problem started yesterday morning when my wife and I decided we would either purchase 3 Microsoft Zunes or 3 iPods from Best Buy for part of our children's Christmas gifts. I checked prices by going to bestbuy.com and searching Zune. [ed.note— item no longer on sale.] More »
—>Ok, so there's these guys called Improv Everywhere and they like to do mass coordinated pranks inside stores. They did one where they sent a whole bunch of people in blue polo shirts and khakis to go to Best Buy and stand around. Genius. Anyway, they made some Tshirts that parody the Best Buy logo. Unfortunately, they're selling them, so they're infringing on Best Buy's intellectual copyright. They get a cease and desist letter. Fair enough. Where it gets freaky is that Laughing Squid blogged about their Tshirts, and Laughing Squid got a cease and desist letter too. Bwuh? Best Buy PR said the problem was that Laughing Squid wasn't "reporting" but was "promoting." Ok... So bloggers aren't journalists now, we're promoters? Duly noted. We'll get right on ordering kilos of coke and cutting up our enemies and dumping them in the East River. More »
—>Last Tuesday, based on industry-insider information provided "on background," we told you that this could be coming, and here it is: CompUSA announced Friday it will close all its stores after the Christmas shopping season. So to all you doubters, we offer a rousing, "nyah, nyah." Rumor of the impending shutdown was also given to The Boy Genius Report via a leaked internal Best Buy memo. More »
—>Best Buy, Sears, and Circuit City all promise fast and easy in-store pickup for online orders and are willing to pay if they fail to deliver. Mouseprint scoured the fine print of each guarantee in search of loopholes. More »
—>Dell is going to start selling laptop and desktop computers at 900 Best Buy locations in the U.S. says the WSJ. Dell has already started hocking their wares at Walmart, and has deals with "Staples Inc., France's Carrefour SA and Gome, China's largest electronics retailer." More »
—>The Daytona Beach Police Department say that a woman was tasered last Monday inside of a Best Buy store after attempting to use someone else's credit card to make a purchase. More »
—>After reading "How Geek Squad Investigated Its Own Porn Thieves," another fired Geek Squad tech has chimed in to tell us how the internal witch hunt for porn thieves proceeded.
I had worked for Geek Squad for over a year, and Best Buy a year and a half before that and was recently let go. Back when they started scanning computers, they said they found downloaded music and movies on our machine and we were to send them the hard drives. So we boxed them up and sent them out. More »
—>Best Buy launched a nation-wide internal investigation after we published a video sting op capturing one of their techs stealing porn from our computer. A fired Geek Squad supervisor tells how it all went down...Innocents fired... Liars kept jobs... Store hard drives seized... Pants shat...
The start of the internal Geek Squad investigation began this summer as all of the locations throughout the country were entered through remote connection and scanned for violations. The Geek Squad "precincts" that had bench machines containing serious violations had their hard drives removed and shipped to the corporate office. All of this was done rapidly and under the watchful eye of salary managers who had their jobs threatened if this was not executed properly. My store was lucky enough to have scored well enough on the remote scans to keep our hard drives. I knew at this point that there was serious cause for concern if Best Buy was willing to spend the kind of cash necessary to execute remote scans throughout ALL of its stores in one day.More »
—>The Los Angeles Times is reporting that traffic was up in stores around the country, but that shoppers were spending about 3.5% less per person than last year, or about $347.44. More »
—>Here's a letter that just goes to show that customer service depends on which employee you get. Reader Cody works at Best Buy (in the Apple department, apparently) and his brother is getting the runaround at the Apple store. Is this the ultimate retail showdown? More »
—>What's the deal with Best Buy? Reader Brian ordered the first eight seasons of Seinfeld, but instead of shipping seasons one, two, or seven, Best Buy decided to send two copies of seasons three and eight. Best Buy was willing to correct its shipping error, but when Brian noticed that several DVD cases were crumpled, Best Buy asked him to keep all eight seasons wrapped for eight business days while UPS conducted an investigation. More »
—>There's a forum on social networking site Myspace where Best Buy employees share the dumbest things customers have ever said to them. They range from the "I probably should find another job:"
wheres the bathroom More »
—>Could there actually be a secret program afoot to improve Best Buy's customer service and make amends for their bad ways? Marjorie writes:
Something is going on at Best Buy. I noticed that the phone for the local store, which used to be maddening with it's endless options that never seemed to route to a real live person, is actually answered by a real live person now. On top of that, I actually got good customer service from corporate. And it wasn't a hassle!More »
—>Reader John tells us that he witnessed some Best Buy employees announcing "the very last Wii" over and over again. Oh those crafty kids at Best Buy! More »
—>Dan bought an Aquos LC-32D40U 32" LCD TV' and one month out of warranty it developed a thin black line on the right side of the screen. Sharp didn't want to talk to him. Best Buy wanted to charge him $100 just to come out and look at it. Something had to be done. Dan writes: More »
—>Reader Zak writes to tell us that his copy of Call of Duty 4 was blank. Thankfully, he opened it while he was still inside the Best Buy, so exchanging it wasn't a problem. (Though some random Geek Squad guy did accuse him of being a scammer.)
I generally read a few of the network sites, Giz, LH and of course for a chuckle I also read Consumerist. Now I lack photo proof of this as I immediately did an illegal u-turn and took my product back to the store, but I'll let you know anyways. More »
—>The RIAA defendant who lost her jury trial, Jammie Thomas, is telling her side of the story on p2pnet. Of particular interest: She claims that Best Buy made the decision to replace her hard drive, under the terms of her extended warranty, 6 months before she was served with the RIAA's subpoena. More »
—>Best Buy met one of Walmart's "secret deals" punch for punch but soon found itself in a bind trying to go up against the discount retailer. Walmart was selling Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD players for $98.97. BestBuy countered by dropping the price on theirs to $99.99. There was a run in-store and online quickly ran into backorders, backorders which would probably be never fulfilled, seeing as the Toshiba HD-A2 is a discontinued product. BestBuy could have told all the shoppers to shove it, but instead Best Buy said they would fulfill the orders with the HD-A3, retailing normally for $299.99. More »
—>We love a happy ending. Sam has written in with the good news that Amex was able to get a full refund from Best Buy after they sold him a box of bathroom tiles instead of a hard drive. More »
—>It's always important to check the price tags in the store to make sure you're not getting ripped off. Alan writes:
I was in Best Buy yesterday, purchasing an external hard drive at Best Buy, and caught this little pricing glitch. Nothing like paying an extra $10 and not even getting the original packaging or the "new out of the box" feeling.Hey maybe that's the fee for insuring that there's actually a hard drive inside instead of ceramic bath tiles. More »
PREVIOUSLY: Sting Op Of 10 Different Computer Repair Companies Finds 70% Don't Know What They're Doing More »
—>Sam says that he went to BestBuy.com and bought a hard drive for in-store pick up. What he got was a box of bathroom tiles. Now Best Buy is saying he'd better take it up with manufacturer and that they're not going to issue a refund and that Sam should just take his loss. We don't think he should. We think it's not legal to sell someone a box full of bathroom tiles instead of a hard drive. More »
Sean writes:
I am "The Computer Guy" in my family and my mother needed a laptop for work. My wife and I went to Best Buy in Bel Air, MD with her to pick out one that would fit her budget and allowed her to work from home. I found a Compaq for a little more than $700 on sale without rebates. I signaled for an employee and told her the laptop we wanted. The employee got the laptop and went on about needing the service plan. I let her drone on because I wanted to see if it covered accidental breakage (it doesn't). During the speech she talked about the battery, how it's like a cell phone battery, and that they would replace it once a year for the length of the contract. She then mentioned that the battery would cost my Mother $500 if she had to buy it separately...More »
—>Best Buy has recently come under fire for selling people "restoration cds" at the ridiculous price of $29 dollars. PC World caught 3 of 5 Best Buy salespeople insisting that consumers couldn't make the recovery discs themselves and would either need to buy them from Best Buy or the manufacturer (for more than Best Buy charges.) This just simply isn't true. More »
Consumerist, More »
—> At first when reader Brian sent this photo of an open item that cost more than a new one, we thought, "HA! Stupid!" More »
Hi Ben & Meghann, More »
—>Best Buy has decided to (finally) stop selling soon-to-be-obsolete analog televisions, according to the AP. The FCC has been on the war path, sending secret agents to surf the web and inspect product displays to make sure that consumers are being warned not to buy analog TVs with the expectation that they will work properly without a converter box after 2009. More »
A friend of ours bought a Sharp Aquos LC-32D40U last year. Its warranty expired in August. Naturally, this month, it developed a strange liberation. There's a thin black line on the right side of the screen. It sorta looks like it's not completely hiding the letter boxes when you go to full screen format. When he called Sharp, they didn't want to help him because his warranty was over. Best Buy, where he bought it, will charge $100 to come out and look and it. More »
Previously, Carey posted a photograph of a Geek Squad car on a sidewalk as if it were some sort of problem. We have informed Carey that this is in fact a Best Buy sidewalk, and it's done to promote Geek Squad services inside the store. This has been so noted this on the original post, and we've encouraged him to get out into the countryside more often. The Consumerist regrets the error. More »
A man got 135 months in jail and a $10,000 fine after Geek Squad reported the computer he brought in for servicing had child pornography on it. More »
—>CBC Marketplace did a kickass hidden camera investigation into computer repair companies and found only 30% were able to correctly diagnose their problem. More »
—>Best Buy hired a firm to take a survey of the state of the American public's knowledge of HDTV, and sad results are in. You don't know what the hell is going on with your television. More »
—> In response to being sued and humiliated on the internet over their "secret website," reader MK says Best Buy has added a disclaimer that warns customers that the in-store kiosk doesn't display the same prices as the public website. More »
—>[September 22. Image thanks to Roche!] More »
—>Several of our readers received this email from Best Buy, explaining that they won't be honoring a mistake in the upcoming September 23, 2007 Best Buy ad. More »
—>Here's a weird situation from Orland Park, IL. Mike Quilty, who works for a subcontractor for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, went to Best Buy to purchase a refrigerator. More »
—>A former Best Buy employee and Consumerist tipster in good standing shared some insider insights about why store employees are so zealous in checking your receipt, and so zealously underinformed as to how they have no legal right to make you show it. More »
This 60 minutes bit on the rise of "geek" tech support service companies confirms one thing: if you don't know how to use electronic gadgets, maybe you shouldn't be buying them. [60 Minutes] More »
—>Best Buy employee Olivia Bailey, 18, was accused last week of stealing $13,000 from a Best Buy store in Lawrence, NY by using fraudulently obtained credit card numbers to purchase gift cards. More »
—>PC World wants to let you know that you don't need to buy the "recovery disks" that Best Buy and Circuit City are always trying to sell you. PC World says they've heard from consumers that Circuit City is telling people that they need FireDog to create these disks and that they can't do it themselves. More »
—>In addition to having Best Buy Geeks Squad locations hook up store computers to headquarters to check for porn and music stolen from customer's computers, and pirated software, they're also sending "audit teams" to investigate hard-drives at the stores in-person, reports an insider. More »
—>As of July 25, Lorraine still didn't have her original laptop back from Best Buy. It seems to have vanished into the nether of a 3rd party repair center. Inside, you can read the update to her story posted on July 13th More »
—>Jenn's husband Dave bought a game on BestBuy.com then picked it up in store. By doing this he saved $10. Sadly for Dave and Jenn, the game was missing its manual and you need a code from the manual to play the game. Simple, enough, right? Just exchange the defective game for a new one at Best Buy. More »
—>If you love the great porn-stealing and privacy-invading services currently offered by Geek Squad's in-store and in-home tech support, have cheer: Best Buy is rebranding all its service departments into Geek Squads, according to an inside source. They're testing it out in the New York metro area in preparation for a possible nation-wide rollout. More »
—>Best Buy is scanning Geek Squad computers for signs of porn infestation, as part of their continuing witch hunt. According to reports from four different Geek Squad employees, an edict was issued from corporate requiring precincts to connect every computer in every precinct to Agent Johnny Utah. More »
—>Agent Johnny Utah, aside from being the name of Keanu Reeves' character in Point Break, is an outsourcing technique used by Geek Squad to keep labor costs low. More »
—>Best Buy is on the offense, launching an internal witch hunt to unmask the "rogue employees" responsible for exposing Geek Squad's pervasive culture of porn pilfering. Their first victim is the Geek Squad supervisor of the Santa Clarita store, one of the only Best Buy locations whose former employees were quoted in recent articles, print as being a center for porn pilfering. More »
Word on the street is that following negative stories in the LA Daily News, and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Best Buy interrogated employees at the Santa Clarita store where former Geek Squad agent and Consumerist reader Brett Haddock used to work, and could be gearing up, or at least, wants people to think it's gearing up, to seek damages against Geeks who spoke out about the porn pilfering. More »
Just did a phone interview with CBS2 in LA. Looks like they're picking up our Geek Squad sting operation story. The piece might air at 6, but it could be later, too. We know many of you are sick of hearing about it but there's a whole bunch of America that hasn't. A still image of monsieur Popken with a crackly phone conversation playing underneath shall be their reward. More »
—>Reader Jeff could not convince Circuit City to honor its "Unbeatable Price Guarantee." Circuit City's stated policy is to beat any competitor's price by 10%. Jeff found the same 19" Acer monitor retailing for $219 at Circuit City for only $129 at a nearby Best Buy, yet Circuit City: "would not price match this item because the cost was too low." Jeff writes: More »
—>David brought two laptops to Best Buy for repair; neither was ever seen or heard from again. Best Buy sent David's first laptop, a Sony Vaio, back to Sony for repairs. Unable to find the laptop after one month, Best Buy declared it irretrievably lost and offered David an upgraded Vaio for $200. One year later, the second laptop broke. Like the first, it disappeared forever after being dispatched to Sony. David writes:
I just recently started reading The Consumerist, and Lorraine's nightmare with her laptop repair reminded me of my own nightmare of Best Buy completely losing two laptops I sent in for repair, leaving me without any laptop for a total of 4 months, as well as all the data I lost on the first laptop. It all started a little over 3 years ago when a relative bought me a top-of-the-line Sony Vaio at a Best Buy. More »
—>Today's Minneapolis Star Tribune confirmed our reports of widespread privacy violations and thievery at Best Buy's Geek Squad. The Star Tribune interviewed several Geek Squad agents on the record, and their findings mirror our own:
More »
—>According to an insider, these are the tools, programs, and procedures one Geek Squad precinct exploits to snarf up your porn: More »
—>Reader Lorraine would like her laptop back. Geek Squad sent it to HP for repair then never contacted Lorraine again. Eventually she drove over to the Best Buy (she couldn't get anyone on the phone) where they told her that her laptop would be replaced, but only after HP sent it back. When would HP send it back? No one knows. It is a mystery for the ages. More »
—>"Hi, my name is Holly Forman-Petersen and I used to be a Special Agent at The Geek Squad. I am eBaying my Special Agent badge. More »
—>"I worked for Best Buy 285 several years ago (2003-2005) and was both a Blackshirt and an Agent once the Geek Squad rolled out. More »
Antonio Cangiano says he bought a brand new Aspire 5100 as a gift for his wife and barely touched it before a giant crystal liquid leak appeared on its screen. A Best Buy tech insisted it was customer abuse, but after an hour of arguing, he got them to agree to look at it in the warranty inspection depot. There is no lesson here, no takeaway, only one man's vented spleen. More »
—>hashand: I used to work at a computer repair place. All the stuff you're finding isn't limited to Best Buy. We had a 2 TB [terabyte] server of mp3s. More »
—>Two more individuals identifying themselves as former Geek Squad employees have stepped forward with allegations about the repair company's employees unauthorized copying of personal information from customer's hard-drives. More »
A sampling of what they're saying on the Geek Squad internal message board about "Consumerist Catches Geek Squad Stealing Porn From Customer's Computer." More »
—>Here's how we rigged our computer to make a video of itself and caught the Geek Squad stealing porn from it. More »
It's coming so very soon. Technology, the politics of delegation, in-vain attempts at perfection, all these slowed what we thought was gonna be a lot quicker. Sorry for the delay, we know some of you've been antsy. Bear with us! More »
Let me state clearly what they are having us do: I had to return the camera at the store, the cost of which will be refunded to my brother's card. Then I have to call my brother and explain to him why I am exchanging his gift and ask him to please go back online and purchase a different camera for me. Talk about a pain for my brother who was just trying to get me a nice wedding gift! More »
—>Here's something of a "eff you" to consumers, according to Pitchfork Media. More »
Still working on the video. Here's a small taste of what's to come... More »
—>We received an internal Geek Squad memo that acclaims the world-renowned service for which they are "notorious." The Oxford English Dictionary defines notorious as: "famous or well known, typically for some bad quality or deed." More »
—>The racketeering case against Best Buy and Microsoft has taken an ugly turn. An attorney for Best Buy has admitted to altering emails that were to be used as evidence in the case. If you're new to this class action lawsuit, Microsoft is accused of paying Best Buy to collect and use customer's credit card information without their permission, signing them up for "free trials" of MSN that they didn't want and or weren't aware existed. When the free trial period was up, MSN began to bill them without their knowledge or consent. A former Best Buy employee wrote in to confess to pulling this sort of scheme on customers, if you're looking for more detail on how it all worked. More »
—>Geek Squad CEO Robert Stephens just emailed us: More »
—>The Connecticut Attorney General has announced a lawsuit against Best Buy in regards to a secret internal website that is identical to their public website except for the prices. Consumerist has received reports of this website being used to attempt to trick our readers as recently as March 19, 2007. More »
—>Apparently, FedEx Kinkos will not rest until it adds every possible name to its title, because now in addition to being a FedEx... and a Kinkos... it'll be a Geek Squad. That is, if "Project Xerox" is successful. More »
The young man behind the counter told me that the techs weren't in yet, but that he would take down my info by hand and the computer and that they would call me when they came in for the day. (I figured if it was more then a couple hundred I would just spring for a new one). Well, at noon today having not heard back I called over to find out the status, and the gentleman who I spoke to told me, and this is a quote "We dont have that computer".Uh. What? Read E's entire email inside. More »
—>When Charlie's iPod died, again, she took it to Best Buy, again, as it was under one of those extended warranties they push. What she got back in the mail was an even more messed up iPod. When she took it to the store, they were kinda jerks about it. After her complaint got posted here, Best Buy swooped in. More »
—>When you think RICO you think Al Capone, or maybe Tony Soprano if you watch too much HBO. You don't really think of Best Buy and Microsoft, do you? James Odom does. He's the original plaintiff in a now 4 year old class action lawsuit that just won't go away for Best Buy and Microsoft, one that now includes racketeering charges. More »
—>Here at the Consumerist we tell you not to spend your hard-earned money on things like "Extended Warranties" or "Replacement Plans." Why? Because you can get a credit card with extended warranty protection and double your warranty for free. Still, many people buy into the replacement/warranty plans and then are disappointed when using them is a hassle. Like Reader Matt, for example. Matt found out the hard way that Best Buy will go out of their way to sell you the plan, but are uninterested in helping you take advantage of it. More »
—>Charlie gave her 4th gen iPod to Geek Squad for warranty repair. They promised her a new iPod in return. Instead, she received an iPod with a sad face screen. When she shook it, its hard drive rattled around. There was a ding in the side. The back of the iPod was buffed shiny, so much so you couldn't hardly see the iPod logo. When she took it back to the store, she says they were kinda obnoxious to her. The iPod is sent away again, but her hopes are not high. More »
—>Child porn is a most heinous exploitation and its publishers and consumers should be boiled in blood, then stabbed in the face, then fed to wolverines. The Geek Squad is helping feed those wolverines by reporting child porn they find on customer's computers to the police, the St Louis Dispatch reports: More »
The results were varied and shocking: More »
A Minneapolis news site decided to follow up on whether Geek Squad really harvests your porn from your computer when you take it in for repairs. Since Geek Squad started amidst the state's frozen drifts, its denizens take a special interest in its doings. More »
—>Looking through comments both here and on Digg, it seems that finding and saving customer's porn from their laptops is one of the perks of the job, and it's hardly limited to the Geek Squad. More »
—>This is the ultimate Geek Squad insider confession. It's 10 pages long. More »
In past decades, deejays and music critics helped shape musical trends. Today, many music industry executives agree, the big boxes have become the new tastemakers. Even as compact disc sales fall, their choices dictate which CDs are widely available on store shelves across the U.S. Big boxes are the industry's biggest distribution channel — and the rock, hip-hop, jazz and classical music titles they choose not to carry face drastically reduced chances of reaching mass audiences. More »
—>UPDATE: Dan gets sweet sweet resolution. More »
—>We just received the court transcript detailing former Geek Squad Agent Hao Kuo Chi "no-contest" plea in the case of his alleged setting up a cameraphone while on call in a customer's house and recording a young woman taking a shower. More »
—>When reached for comment, Geek Squad founder Robert Stephens said he knew nothing about 40% tech staff reduction / have-more-repairs-done-remotely-by-techs-in-India memo as described by our tipster. In fact, he said he'd like to see it if we did ever end up getting it. Anyhow, as far as staff reductions go Stephens said, "There has been restructuring since we launched within Best Buy and the most recent was back in Jan/Feb but that's old news - and quite public." More »
—>UPDATE: 40% Geek Squad Downsizing Memo? Not That I Know Of, Says Founder More »
—>When former Geek Squad Agent Hao Kuo Chi appeared in court on April 3rd, 2007, he plead "no contest" to one count of unlawful invasion of privacy, according to the LA County DA's office. He received this sentence: More »
—>Though he stands accused of a disgusting act, secretly recording a customer taking a shower, Geek Squad Agent Hao Kuo Chi was held in high esteem by customers and among his fellow employees. More »
—>If Hao Kuo Chi really did tape the 22-year-old daughter of a customer taking a shower, the phone propped up in the bathroom might have been a PPC-6700. These PocketPC phones are standard-issue to the Geek Squad techs who perform in-home repairs — known as "DA's" or "Double Agents" in Geek Squad parlance. More »
Hao Kuo Chi was paying a house call when Sarah Vasquez says he set his camera phone up in the bathroom, left it running, and recorded her bathing. More »
In the ensuing months, through May 2005 and up until the present, three separate installation companies hired and retained by Best Buy to deliver and install the purchased goods made some effort to install the Morris' home theater, including: National Installation Company, K.A.T. Communications, and Digital Technology, Inc.," the suit says. More »
—>56% of Geek Squad employees responding to a poll on a company online forum said they found "no reason" to use anti-static wrist straps when repairing customer's computers. More »
—>Here's 6 more Geek Squad manuals. Combine this with the 6 we've already posted and soon we'll have enough info to open our own franchise. More »
Best Buy said consumers can expect to see prices remain low because the consumer electronics industry is so highly competitive. Instead of seeing fewer discounts, it could mean both retailers and suppliers take a hit on their bottom line. "I think you're going to see us eat a little bit of it and the vendors eat a little bit of it," Lotman said. More »
—>Five ways Best Buy drives the costs out of the system, sullying Geek Squad CEO Robert Stephen's vision of superlative computer repair, as told by a former Geek Squad Senior Agent. More »
—>Here's 5 more Geek Squad manuals. They're not a fascinating as the troubleshooting manual, but perhaps if you use the Geek Squad you can use them to make sure they're doing their job right. Or you could learn how to open up your own Geek Squad store. Sort of like a lemonade stand, except instead of turning lemons into a tasty beverage, you turn laptops into lemons. More »
—>Best Buy today agreed to purchase leading independent DSL provider Speakeasy, starting Q1 2008. More »
The clerk told the customer that Microsoft handles all warranties on the Xbox360 and that Microsoft would not allow BestBuy to exchange the device. More »
I have read on your website about deceptive practices involving Best Buy where they advertise one thing on their website for a price, and then it is different when you go in the store. More »
Saks, whose flagship is down the street, generates sales of $362 per square foot a year. Best Buy (Charts) stores turn $930 - tops for electronics retailers - while Tiffany & Co. (Charts) takes in $2,666.Fortune also says that if Apple sells its goal of 10 million iPhones in 2008, Apple stores will make as much as Best Buy overall, in a fraction of the space. More »
—>A common refrain we hear from the former and current Geek Squad employees we've been talking to is that Geek Squad used to be awesome. Robert Stephens built up an award-winning company with a reputation for being the best in the business. Then he sold it to Best Buy and they turned it to garbage. More »
—>Chris has a parry and thrust to the Geek Squad founder's response to his original confession. More »
—>Did you know Best Buy got rid of their robot menus? Now when you call 1-888-BEST-BUY, all you have to do is press 2 and a human operator will direct your call. This is fantastic. Customers often cite being enraged by pushing button after button, especially when they're already pissed off to begin with. More »
—>Best Buy quoted four different policies to Mark when he tried to exchange his step-daugher's iPod speaker. The speaker was purchased as a gift from BestBuy.com by her father, who is currently serving in Afghanistan.
After we received the items, we decided that she would take back the iPod speaker set because we already had one in the house. That way she could get something that she would enjoy, and she could still use our speakers. It sounded simple, just return the item, get a store credit, and let her pick something out. We were so wrong on that one.Mark brought the speaker to Best Buy, where he was told that the stores could only return, not exchange items purchased through the website. Not wanting to argue, Mark went home and called customer service. A supervisor said only the corporate office could help. When Mark reached corporate, he was told stores could accept exchanges. The CSR gave Mark a case number and an 800 number to call if there was a problem exchanging the speaker at the store. More »
The state attorney general's office has started an investigation into whether Best Buy maintains a secret intranet site that may have been used by some salesmen to deny customers discounts that appear on the company's public Internet site.We applaud the CT State's Attorney for moving so quickly on this, but wonder if the investigation will have any teeth. As commenter something_amazing pointed out, Best Buy's price matching guidelines explicitly state that the website does not match store pricing, and the store only matches "a lower advertised price offered by a local retail competitor on the same available brand and model." More »
—>Have you ever found a deal at Best Buy's website only to travel to the store and find that the "sale" is over? Did the Best Buy employee show you "proof" on their "website"? It now seems that there are really TWO websites, and they're identical except for the prices. Here's the deal: More »
- • Most CompUSA stores will be open from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. (New Jersey stores will not be open because of state retailing laws.) More »
- Had some trouble getting them, apparently me doing this 2 other times has sparked the interest of the management and they've received an e-mail not to let anyone do this anymore. I'd like to think this is solely because of me because this was an original idea of mine. I'm sure someone may have done this before, but I have not heard of anyone else doing such a thing. In any case, I was informed about not being able to do such a thing last night when I tried, my mom went in a quite a rage and I told her we'll just try again today and hopefully it will be like when Hillary did it for me the 2nd time with no questions of whether or not you can do it. Nikki (left) was more than happy to, we got to around 38 when another cashier recognized me from last night, she said we couldn't and she called up the manager. The manager tried telling us that we couldn't do this without us even giving a say in the matter. Thats when my mom became upset again and she pointed out how often we come here and how much we spend, and that she had talked to the number they gave us last night to give it approved and they said it was okay. The manager was silent after that, I wanted to laugh, but I held it in.
Jorge spends over $2000 for a new JVC TV from Best Buy, based on an ad which said the price included a stand. TV arrives, no stand. Jorge goes to his Best Buy in Denver, Co, asks for it, and the assistant manager refuses to honor the ad. More »
Reader something_amazing was having less than amazing luck reaching Best Buy. He wanted to know what Roombas they had in stock. When he called, he would wait on hold for five minutes, only to be disconnected. He could actually hear the phone being picked up and then hung up. He had success after we told him to dial extension 2180. More »
Best Buy calls 911 after Consumerist reader RJH asks for a refund on a nonworking Tony Bennet CD. More »
Charles Yu wanted a plasma tv, so when he learned about Best Buy's reward program, he thought he'd better sign up. Trouble is, Best Buy's website requires a last name to be at least 3 letters long. When he called to complain, the Best Buy CSR suggested he change his last name. More »
Best Buy drills its salespeople to size up incoming customers, label based on type, and sell accordingly. This news is two years old but is new to us. Here's the breakdown: More »
By insisting on his consumer rights, Sandar got Best Buy to sell him a $1999 plasma HDTV for $1499. More »
Reader Alex sends us a tip about the a scam that he learned about while working at Best Buy. Here's the scam: More »
Finally, a spaghetti western that doesn't end in a flurry of bullets. — BEN POPKEN More »
Retailers are getting stricter with their return policies this year. If you're not hot about the Marshmallow Shooter or Toshiba SD-4990 DVD Player grams got you, keep the receipt and don't take it out of the package. Here's the return policies of some of the major retailers. — BEN POPKEN More »
After looking at a variety of laptops on-line, we went to Best Buy to see some IRL, so we'd know what to order from whomever we decided to order from. This is a tactic we use often, because a picture of a laptop is not enough information for us. After wandering down to the crowded laptop section, we noticed that the small Toshiba laptop that we'd wanted to check out was not working. It appeared to be locked down by some sort of BestBuyWare. So, we broke our cardinal rule of shopping and asked for "help." More »
Remember, don't go to Best Buy without doing your product research first. The only thing you should ask a BB employee is "where is this item located?" Or, "where is the exit?" — BEN POPKEN More »
—>UPDATE: According to KTVI/Fox in St. Louis, "A Sony representative has confirmed to Fox 2, the company is processing the shipment of a replacement camera to the Rittenbergs. They just have to send in the box as they found it — sauce and all." (Thanks to Triteon!) More »
Flat panel TVs are shaping up to be the most popular purchase this holiday season. Why? You consumers are too "confused" (read: too smart to get drawn in) by the format wars between HD DVD and Blu-ray, and you can't get your hands on a Wii or a PS3. That leaves your ugly, bulky old TV. Ugh! Time for a new one. Also, in addition to a flat screen, you want a bigger TV. "Screen size is very important to consumers this season, with a majority of them looking at screens of 30 inches or more and spending an average of $1,950. The 42-inch size will be the most popular of all, IDC said. " More »
With hidden camera, we prowled the aisles of Best Buy and absorbed the horror and glory of Black Friday. More »
Reader Carlton writes in with a query: More »
According to the Globe and Mail, Canadian Best Buys are holding back part of their shipment of Nintendo Wiis. Why are they doing this? More »
—>All the newscasts seem determined to show Black Friday shoppers as an orderly stream of value-conscious consumers, en masse as they are. More »
NORTHEASTERN ILLINOIS - Reader Humphrmi reports on how his Best Buy handled demand for the doorbuster deals. More »
—>PINEVILLE, NC - When we reached the Best Buy checkout, we asked the clerk what time they made her get there that morning. "4:30" she said. More »
—>PINEVILLE, NC - A goodly number of people said that a great way to skip lines at Best Buy on Black Friday is go to the customer service desk. More »
—>PINEVILLE, NC - More than 500 shoppers lined up at the doors of Best Buy this morning for their chance at Black Friday savings. Some had been there since 8pm last night. More »
—>Reader Ryan writes in with a link to some extra Best Buy Black Friday action. All deals expire at noon on Black Friday. Enjoy!—MEGHANN MARCO More »
CRMLowdown sifted through countless customer service surveys, studies, and real-life experiences to come up with a pretty damn impressive list of the best/worst companies for customer service. More »
—>With the image fidelity of a Sasquatch sighting, Best Buy's Black Friday Ad has arrived. More »
If you were one of the lucky few who ordered a PS3 at Best Buy's website...guess what? They fucked up. "Best Buy never intended for customers to preorder a PS3 on its website, and so all those orders have been canceled by the retailer. As compensation for the mistake, Best Buy will be giving US$10 coupons to those folks who preordered the system" Ha HA HAHA HA, geeks. Enjoy your ten bucks. More »
Will Walmart's extremely early holiday price cuts, or "rollbacks," inspire other retailers to follow suit? More »
—>Hand in glove with our independently arrived Fabio wunderloveness this morning, it seems Gizmodo was actually at that darn Geek Squad city unveiling. They got to interview Fabio (he loves Xbox360) and watch him solder. More »
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This is a Multivu PR newsreel about the unveiling of Best Buy's Geek Squad new central headquarters. Geek Squad City sounds awesome. By all appearances, the video is an upload of the footage supplied to TV news stations that helps them from having to do any reporting of their own. More »
Does Best Buy have a policy designed to trick you into not using your gift card? More »
Up in Canuckville, Best Buy is an amazing institution. No, we're just kidding: crossing the border does not actually take you to another dimension. It's still one of the worst companies in the world. More »
If you're trying to call Best Buy and none of the blue shirts will pick up the damn phone, here's a lil' trick that may help. More »
For some reason, we never really pieced it together when we posted about Best Buy's gremlin-like pilfering of a reader hard drive chock full of personal information, but we've previously reported on Best Buy's practice of selling these reclaimed hard drives. More »
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—>The number one rule of responsible consumerism: know more about what you're buying than the guy selling it to you. But it's a counterintuitive one. After all, you buy based on someone's pitch to you, that you need what he's selling. You get something repaired with the understanding that you don't have the knowledge to fix a problem yourself. But it's the number one rule of consumerism for a reason: you just can't trust the guy taking your money to be honest. More »
Over the weekend, an error on the Best Buy website returned very curious results. Searching for "Cybershot 7.2" returned not only no direct results, but what they suggested instead was quite, shall we say, unbecoming. More »
Instead, he used the oldest black hat consumer trick and bought a new video ipod, put the old ipod in, and returned it. More »
—>Loyal Consumerist Danilo slowly accrued Best Buy points, only to be foiled by retarded web design. More »
—>At first we were excited by Lisa's story. It seemed that Best Buy was running a scam, tricking consumers into buying vacuums and service plans and then not fixing the vacuums when they broke. Lisa complained, "until she was blue in the face" to multiple supervisors, to no avail More »
Last month, Nikki wrote in complaining about her refrigerator, and Best Buy's, failings. After finally getting her frigo fixed, it went out again (we think you have a bum frigo, Nikki) and all her food, especially 4th of July meats, was spoiled. Subsequently, she squeezed the Best Buy and Frigidarie people until ekking out food gift cards as reimbursement, though we've seen bloodier stones. Nikki writes: More »
—>Our most popular posts this week that had nothing to do with retention policies or call centers. More »
—>Here at Gawker Tower (actually, a giant disused school bus turned vertically that was used by local teens for sex parties until the smell got too bad), we really love the circle jerk. So it was nice when our geeky, mouth-breathing colleagues over at Kotaku took time out of their busy schedule of writing about video games and wondering what it might be like to touch the soft mound of a woman's breast while she was conscious to pass on a reader email, indicating a new protection plan scam from our buddies at Best Buy. More »
—>Being an environmentally conscious good Samaritan, Erika Anders recycled her cell phone after she was done with it at a local Best Buy. The next month, she received a bill for $20,590.67. Many of the calls originated from Brazil. More »
There is some use crying over spilt ice cream, though Best Buy won't shed too many tears over it. That's just as well. The resulting mix would leave a bad taste in your mouth, just like their customer service, as Nikki found when trying to get her refrigerator repaired. More »
—>To tell this story, I need to point out that, when I was a bachelor, I sometimes went to various web sites to satisfy my more elicit and transient urges. Probably nuff said, unless any of our sexy single female readers want to email me requesting a more vivid description. More »
Maybe the Geek Squad's pocket protectors are strapped on too tight. More »
—>Man goes to Best Buy. Has pleasant time. Universe implodes. Again. More »
Man goes to Best Buy. Buys iPod. Has good experience. Universe implodes. More »
—>Gothamgal purchased an iPod from Best Buy, along with the product replacement plan. Times passes, product needs replacing. Best Buy says, "no problem, bring it on down." More »
Gus went shopping today at Best Buy and decided to write us. It's not a rant, not necessarily a complaint and probably won't make you a better person. More »
80 members of the Improv Everywhere troupe dressed in blue polos and khakis and pranked the Best Buy store in Manhattan. More »
—>Don't you hate it when you try to go to BestBuy.com and accidentally replace the first vowel with a w? Or put a hyphen between best and buy? And you end up at one of those squatter advertisement sites, designed specifically to garner profits from the typos or ignorance of others? More »
—>[H]Consumer bought 4 computers from 4 different retailers and compared and contrasted the experiences. Then he made a diorama using this week's vocab words. More »
What do you get when you staff your electronics superstore with pimply and gangly minimum wage monkeys? The sort of apathetic customer service that causes even those with monk-like patience to snap the rigid palm of their hand into the base of a Best Buy's employee's nose over and over and over again until blood starts ejaculating from their ears. More »
In a classic bait-and-switch, customers allege that Best Buy tells people they get a free magazine subscription and then charges them for it. More »
—>Although we can't recall ever seeing such a thing, apparently some Best Buy stores have giant numbers up near the register detailing information about that day's sales. A long blogger was intrigued enough to decode the numbers, and has explained their meaning on his site. More »
Best Buy is continuing to revamp their rebates process, according to this press release, providing 'instant savings' on notebook computers at the register, as well as rolling out a new online rebates tool that they claim shortens the rebate turn-around down to just over a week. More »
Although the comments are full of the self-congratulatory jerking that we bloggers do so well, there are some interesting points raised in response to a post by Mike Sansone about a bad experience at CompUSA. Specifically, "Does complaining about an employee online do anything besides push down cloying training materials from the PR and sales departments of large retail operations?" (Actually, that's our question.) More »
Rick B writes:
It may be a bit late for tales of Christmas shopping woe, but what the heck—its slow at work today. [No joke. -Ed.] More »
—>Best Buy's 'Retailer Insider' newsletter, Issue Today, says to expect more Xbox 360s in stores this week. We've cut out the salient bits in the above graphic, but if you'd like to look at the full scan, have a look here. More »
—>First of all, dorky brother site Kotaku is reporting that all the Xbox 360s that were released this weekend at Best Buy have already been sold out. No big surprise there. We have it on good word that there will be one more Xbox 360 shipment into Best Buy before Xmas, so keep checking (here). More »
—>• ThinkGeek really has more fun stuff than they should, although for every 'Tool Logic Office Companion' there's a 'STFU University Tee.' Should you need to stuff a stocking, nothing says 'You are pathetic but I will still copulate with you," like O'Reilly Pillowcases. More »
We're getting a bit tired of the Xbox 360 shopping and we haven't even purchased one. While we will probably camp out in the frigid air Saturday night to get a crack at Best Buy's Sunday morning restock, we will also probably turn right around and sell our excess on eBay, just to spite those who say doing so is mercenary. (Duh!) More »
Reader "C" writes:
Suggestion: You mentioned that Best Buy was selling non-ipod MP3 players and offering a $50 gift card to boot. [We mentioned that here. -Ed.] I bought one and then found out the person I bought it for had just that day got one. So I returned it. Which left me with the $50 gift card. It puts me in a bit of an ethical bind as I'm not sure whether or not that's stealing. But the less ethically challenged might want to think about doing that. Or that may be a bit beyond suggestions you are willing to make.Yes. That's going a bit far, even for us. More »
—>The ol' Xbox 360 inventory tracker is back, this time detailing how many 360's your local Best Buy should be receiving for the December 18th restock (very probably the last chance you'll have to pick up an Xbox before Christmas). According to The Consumerist's top-secret internal Best Buy sources (this dude we know in the stock room), the numbers are legit. More »
—>Poor Best Buy. Just after their president was forced to eat crow about forced bundling of Xbox 360 accessories, they must now face down allegations of discrimination by current and former employees. They allege that women and minorities were excluded from the good jobs in a corporate culture that catered to pasty, white men.
"I was told by several managers that I didn't need to be on the sales floor. I was told females can't sell," Chappel, 48, told reporters at a news conference.When we were young and worked for Best Buy one cold holiday season, our store manager (in fact, much of the upper management) was a mix of mostly minorities and women. More »
—>A classic example of post-Flash minimalism, BestBuySux.org offers customer complaints alongside horror stories from employees. Presented in Plainest Text™, BestBuySux.org even has the good grace to offer a "Pro-BB" section, where customers and employees can offer a balance to the six years of collected vitriol which is indexed month-by-month. More »
—>When new game consoles launch, retailers often choose to sell 'bundles' instead of just the console itself. That's because the markup on the consoles themselves are next to nothing (usually just a couple of dollars when everything is all new and shiny), and also because it allows them to force some of the less popular accessory items on customers who just want the basics. More »
