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Update On Woman Sent To Jail For Using Gift Cards At Best Buy
(NY1)
Last month, New York City's NY1 news channel produced a news segment on the woman who was arrested for paying with AMEX gift cards at a Best Buy. If you read our earlier post with Ilona's email, you already know most of the basics, but you can see the problematic gift cards and hear Ilona describe the experience in her own words. It turns out that after she was released, she went back to Best Buy for either a refund or the DVD player, but had to leave without either one--she was told she'd have to contact American Express to resolve the problem. More »
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Best Buy Sends Customer To Jail For Paying With AMEX Gift Card
Update: The news channel New York 1 has prepared a video segment about Ilona's experience with Best Buy and the NYC police.
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A shopper just told us thatlast night last month at a Best Buy in NYC, she was taken to a back room, then cuffed by police officers and taken to a precinct for "further investigation," because she tried to pay with an American Express gift card her father had bought for her. More »
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Customer Escapes Best Buy Laptop Purchase Without Optimization Fees
During a recent trip to Best Buy to purchase a new laptop, Kristene was pleasantly surprised. She discovered that what our anonymous employee tipster told us in the post "Employee: Best Buy Scrambling To Clean Up Optimization Mess" is true, and customers at at least one Best Buy aren't being forced to buy optimized computers. More »
Employee: Best Buy Scrambling To Clean Up Optimization Mess
A mysterious email from someone claiming to be a Best Buy employee has emerged from the mist of our inbox. In it, the sender claims that Best Buy is threatening termination for employees that try to force the optimization fee on unwilling customers... More »
Best Buy Employee Surprises Customer With Free Replacement Earbuds
(Photo: bdjsb7)
Gonzalo went in to buy some replacement earbuds for his iPhone, and recieved some pretty amazing customer service from an anonymous Best Buy employee. More »
Don't Ask Geek Squad To Reset Your Password
(Photo: geeksquad.com)
Two not-very-sharp thieves walked into a Chattanooga Best Buy toting three PCs, and asked one of the resident Geeks to help override the passwords on the boxes. Instead, the Geek, who had heard that a local school had been robbed the previous night, tried logging in, and saw that the username on the PCs was the name of the school. The store confiscated the computers, and the the alleged perps were arrested. The lesson here: reset the password yourself at home, using open-source cracking tools, instead of paying Best Buy to do it for you. Just kidding! We salute this agent for his vigilance, and hope he gets snapped up for a career in forensic PC security. More »
Apple, Best Buy Driven By Arrogance
(Photo: Chymer)
A stinging analysis on WalletPop makes the obvious but poignant argument that too-big-for-their-britches corporations such as Apple and Best Buy have let hubris cloud their customer service vision. More »
Best Buy Employee Told Me To Shut Up When I Said I Didn't Have To Show Receipt
(Photo: ob1left)
Beth didn't feel like showing her receipt to a New Jersey Best Buy employee who approached her as she left the store on Black Friday. More »
Geek Squad: Best Buy Software Installer Is Ugly, Nags Customers
(Image: Best Buy)
Now that Best Buy's shiny new Software Installer is showing up on PCs sold by the retailer, we're starting to see more reviews of the tool, including this one, from Geek Squad Agent Matt Van Dusen, who declares that the software has a "horrible" user interface and "suffers from too many of the same problems many of the trials preinstalled on computers today." Van Dusen's verdict: "If this was being offered by any company other than the one we work for, it would be at the very least disabled, and most likely uninstalled from each computer during the optimization." More »
Geek Squad Finally Replaces My Linux-Infested Laptop
(Photo: Maulleigh)
An anonymous Best Buy customer told us in December that the Geek Squad refused to honor his extended warranty on his laptop because he had installed (horrors!) Linux. More »
Best Buy Software Installer Makes Early, Annoying Appearance
(Photo: Toshiba)
Although it's not scheduled to make its debut until this Sunday, Best Buy's new non-optimization tool, the Best Buy Software Installer, has made at least one preview appearance -- on a review unit supplied to a computer journalist, who wasn't exactly thrilled with the software's attempt to "radically simplify how you set up and customize your new PC." More »
Secret Credit Card Backdoor Numbers To Get Your Credit Increased, APR Changed, Etc!
(Photo: bubble dumpster)
Want your credit line increased, APR lowered, or your declined credit card application approved? Begging and pleading with customer service not getting you anywhere except front row seats to your personal puddle of shame? Then give some of the "backdoor numbers" a shot.
Customer Waits Six Weeks For Best Buy To Not Fix His TV
(Photo: schmilblick)
A Best Buy customer has posted his ongoing TV repair saga over at Best Buy's own forums, and it's quite a read. Green blotches! Smoke! Parts were ordered! No parts were ordered! The wrong parts were ordered! Botched repairs! This all started back in November and his $3,000 TV still isn't fixed--although the last time a Geek Squad tech came out, he handed the customer a sheet that said Best Buy had already spent $1,500 on repairs. More »
Is Best Buy About To Ditch Optimization To Sell Crapware?
Best Buy is apparently dropping some of its "optimization" services, and will instead provide the "Best Buy Software Installer," a new tool that the company says will "radically simplify how you set up and customize your new PC or upgrade an existing one." Translation: Instead of you paying Best Buy to delete trialware from your new PC, Best Buy will get paid by software makers to try to get you to install it. More »
If You Actually Want What You Ordered, Maybe Best Buy Isn't For You
(Photo:Stephen Hackett)
Reader Ryan and his wife tried to order several expensive things from Best Buy. They were not able to actually get any of them. More »
Shocking: Best Buy's "Mac Optimization" Sucks Also
We didn't include Best Buy's Apple optimization services in our investigation, but Heidi N. Moore of Slate.com took a look at the service and as she tells Consumerist in an email, "unscientifically came to the same conclusion." More »
Best Buy: We Won't Replace Your Broken Netbook, But We Will 'Service' It
(Photo: Ian Muttoo)
UPDATE: Best Buy has replaced the laptop. More »
Best Buy Optimization Is A Big Stupid Annoying Waste Of Money
This "warning" appears on a Geek Squad sales info folder.
Over the past year, a number of you have been telling us that, due to "pre-optimization" of computers, it's difficult -- sometimes impossible -- to walk into a Best Buy and leave with the advertised deal (in effect, you would be paying a $39.99 surcharge over the computer's advertised price). We decided to look into your complaints. We sent the Consumer Reports secret shoppers to 18 different Best Buys in 11 states, and one of our shoppers was denied the price advertised for a specific model because only pre-optimized computers were available. When the Consumer Reports engineers compared three "optimized" computers to ones with default factory settings, there was no performance improvement. In one case, an optimized laptop actually performed 32% worse than the factory model. The results of our in-depth investigation, inside... More »
Geek Squad Founder Wishes He Would Have 'Put Foot Down More'
(Photo: Maulleigh)
In a 2008 interview Geek Squad CEO Robert Stephens said he had some regrets about the customer-unfriendly behemoth he created, he told Fortune Small Business in a story posted on CNNMoney. More »
Best Of Return Policies, Worst Of Return Polices
(Photo: quinn.anya)
To aid you in your post-Christmas return-a-thon, WalletPop has put together a capsule list of the best and worst return policies. More »
