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…

So my Best Buy fiasco gets read by a lot of people over a 3 day period….somewhere around 130,000 times……and apparently only 10 or so people read it in it’s entirety. I would like to thank everyone for reading and for their “inventive” comments about me and my story.

The result from all of those views is a positive ending.

After posting the story on a Friday night to the Consumerist, I get a call on my cell phone Monday afternoon from the District Manager for the Southeast U.S. Best Buy Stores. His name is Mike and he is more than cordial on the phone and is quite apologetic about the whole event. The story was brought to his attention from Corporate and he apparently was tapped as the person to call and try to make things right with me. He is the first person to agree with me that the 2 for $25 deal listing in the store was contradictory to the offer in the circular. After we discuss the situation, he says it never should have escalated anywhere near where it did and he wants to make it up to me since I am such a loyal customer to have purchased something after going through the whole event. He offers me his contact information to personally use for any questions or problems in the future along with a $200 Gift Card. I gladly accept and we discuss a few other details I would like to share with everyone. (I am not sure if I am still receiving the $25 gift card in the mail as well, but at this point it’s not important.)

First of all……Brian the Manager……..is really Brian the ASSISTANT Manager. The store manager is actually named Corey. Now to be fair, Brian never introduced himself as the STORE Manager, but as “THE manager” as you might recall. Regardless, “the headset guy” still referred me to him as the highest level of management there was and I took that at face value. Also, it was made known to me that if an employee is approved to handle money, meaning a register worker, then they also have the ability to make a customer happy based on some common sense rules. This means they do have SOME authority in changing prices on a product right then and there to resolve an issue. Now, typically, this is probably not going to happen because these individuals want to keep their jobs and therefore aren’t radically changing things without management approval…..so I will give them a pass. However, it still seems that management failed that evening unfortunately.

After I part ways on the phone with Mike, the District Manager, he contacts Corey at the store to hand-deliver the $200 Gift Card to me at the store location at my convenience. I finally felt like someone at the top of Best Buy heard my story and wanted to make it right. About 15 minutes later, Corey contacts me and is also very friendly and cordial and wants to schedule a time for me to stop by the store and accept his apologies and pick up the Gift Card. We decide a convenient time and here I am writing a follow-up article after gladly receiving my card tonight.

The great ending to all of this that should get a laugh is what I received from Corey at the store tonight along with my gift card, as a show of good faith and to try to have some fun with the story.
A COMPLIMENTARY COPY of SAW IV. Now that’s a manager who knows how to make the best of a situation…..

Corey and I had a few laughs about many of the comments made online about the story and we parted friends. He assured me that my story was, and will be, used as a learning experience for customer service at the store in the future. So Best Buy has made things right with this consumer and I look forward to shopping there again.

And by the way, neither Mike nor Corey asked me to write anything else about the matter or have any kind of retraction. And that’s exactly why I am writing a follow-up.

It just goes to show that with the power of the internet, the help of the Consumerist site, and a lot of interest at Digg, one customer’s story can catch the attention of an entire retail conglomerate.

Thanks to the Consumerist site for listening and posting my un-edited story.

Jason

PREVIOUSLY: Best Buy Refuses To Honor 2 for $25 DVD Sale

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