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

Visions danced through our head of contacting Best Buy and Bissell and Dyson and bringing down the hammer of consumer Thor, a sacred, ancient artifact.

Then we read closer. It turns out Lisa is complaining because she has to suffer for 2-4 weeks while the vacuum goes in for servicing. That’s a half-a-month to a month where she can’t suck up dust and hair around her house. She is demanding a replacement vacuum on the spot, something which, as multiple Best Buy employees have told her, is in no way shape or form in the contract she signed and admits to not reading.

Even the salesperson saying, “If your vacuum cleaner clogs you just bring it in and we will GIVE you a new vacuum. If you were to kick in your vacuum and you break it no problem we give you a new vacuum,” Lisa’s putative smoking gun, is really more of a hiccup than “a big company squashing the little people.”

People, even if you have three long-haired pets, you wait one cycle of the moon for your vacuum to be fixed. Chill.

For what its worth, Lisa’s letter is after the jump…

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Lisa writes:

“My family and I went into a Best Buy in Marin City, CA on the way to a family dinner. We asked the sales clerk to help pick out a vacuum for our family’s needs. She highly recommended a Bissell and then proceeded to sell us a service contract.

Her exact words were “If your vacuum cleaner clogs you just bring it in and we will GIVE you a new vacuum. If you were to kick in your vacuum and you break it no problem we give you a new vacuum.”

I did sign the contract but I never read it because we were in a hurry to get to dinner and their was a lot of small print. I put the contract and receipt in my drawer not thinking to read all the small print because I believed her.

Three months later the vacuum which did not hold up to the test of my 2 long-haired dogs and long-haired cat needed to be returned to get my new vacuum. Instead I was told that they don’t give me a new vacuum they send it away for service and it would take 2 to 4 weeks to get it back! I was so angry that I told them I wanted my money back for the vacuum and I would have never agreed to be without a vacuum for 2 to 4 weeks.

I was talking to supervisors until I was blue in the face but they said it says it in the contract. I said that I didn’t care about the contract it was the fact their sales person sold it to me saying you get a new vacuum on the spot. A man standing in the service line came over and said he had to say something even though he didn’t know me because the same thing happened to him. He bought his Dyson vacuum at the Santa Rosa, CA Best Buy and the salesman told him the same thing. He came in to get his new vacuum because his Dyson wasn’t working right and was now walking away without a vacuum for 2 to 4 weeks.

So they are letting their salespeople lie to sell their contracts and then usually it is past the 30 days to get your money back for their return policy so you are stuck waiting to get your vacuum serviced. I talked to at least 3 supervisors and they don’t budge because the contract states the vacuum goes away but they are training their salespeople to lie with hopes that a lot of people won’t read their contract until the 30 days are expired.

Can you help me with this mess because I felt so wronged and I felt like this big company is just squashing the little people?

thanks for reading my story
Lisa
Petaluma, CA”

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