The XBOX that I bought on Black Friday had recently been scratching my discs. So i decided to return it. With out a doubt in my mind, I grabbed my receipt the defective unit and all of its packing and walked into the Best Buy. I was very confident that I was going to walk out with another XBOX. However, my worst fears had come to light. Alice, the Customer Service rep, said to me “The serial number on this receipt does not match the XBOX, you cannot return it.” I argued, said that “this is the one I bought you cant be right”.

Afterwards they told me that I can’t return it and theres nothing I can do about it. At this point I was confused and furious. I thought someone had switched out my XBOX for a broken one. I went back to the college where it was kept and I made sure that the XBOX that I brought there that day had the same profile, saved games, guitar hero accomplishments and such. Everything was exactly the same. The hard drive was never removed and the XBOX was the one I bought.

Then I thought to myself “How about I find out whos serial number this really is?”. I looked up the serial number from the XBOX unit. It was made in China in 2006. So after that I looked up the serial that was shown on the receipt. It couldn’t find it! So I decided to Google (bless you Google) the serial number on my receipt. I nearly passed out when I found out what it was. It wasn’t a serial number at all. It was the UPC code for the Guitar Hero bundle!!

So now, I have a score to settle and I had to drive 45 minutes back to the Best Buy. I arrived back, and as I waited in line, (Mike we will call him) was an assistant manager behind me (it seems) and there was an issue of a man who tried to take back a vacuum. They refused it because he didn’t have a receipt.

The man was argumentative and they asked him to leave. As the man walked out, i heard Mike talking to his peers “douchebag” and other names were thrown around about him. I was irght in front of Mike and it heard it loud and clear.

After I waited in line, Alice was back at the register. She said “What is it now?” I told her that the serial number on this receipt wasn’t a serial number at all. I told her it was the UPC. She denied my claim and told me that i couldn’t return it. I told her that I was right, and the person who scanned it didn’t do it correctly. She called another employee over to essentially, argue with me more. She said the same things “they don’t match, you cant take this back”.

So I asked for the manager. I told him the same thing about the UPS mix-up. He told me “Our employees are properly trained and would never do that.” After some conversing behind the counter, I heard that Alice was the person who scanned my product on Black Friday when I bought it.

I then realized that this girl may be trying to save her own skin by lying to me. I asked her, please enter it into your computer, It will come up as the XBOX/Guitar Hero 2 bundle. She refused and told me that I couldn’t return it. I told her, c’mon, i went home and Googled it, just Google it i know it will come up. She refused again. I asked the manager and he refused as well.

So, I said to them “I am going to report it to corporate and when it comes back, it won’t be pretty” and without a hitch, this Alice girl yelled “Dont threaten me”, as to make a scene about it. I said to both of them “I’m never going to come here again and I’m gonna let people i know what happened.” Her assistant associate said “fine by me, leave.”

So I walked towards the exit and I saw the General manager I knew from when I used to work there. (lets just say Bob). I said to him, please look this up, i know its not a serial number and I was refused an exchange even though I told them it was a UPC code.

He quickly typed the “serial number” into the “UPC” field on the kiosk and there you have it, it came right up. I was given a new XBOX and a new Guitar Hero game. As I was getting checked out for the new one, the other manager who refused me said “Look, you got what you wanted, think of this not as a loss, but as a victory, they are trained to do what they do because its store policy.” So I told him “Is insulting customers on that list? They scanned the wrong thing and tried to cover it up by refusing to look it up.” I took my well-deserved equipment, waved to my only friend there, Bob and left.

Thanks for going through this. I read your posts nearly every day at work. Keep up the good work!

Colin

I guess “check to see that the serial number is correct on the receipt” should be added to list of things you should do before you leave Best Buy. Right after “open the box to make sure they’re not selling you bathroom tiles.”

(Photo:Maulleigh)

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