Reader Ryan and his wife tried to order several expensive things from Best Buy. They were not able to actually get any of them.

Ryan writes:

I was recently excited to learn that a Best Buy was opening in my area, especially since the nearby Circuit City had closed.

On November 27th, my wife and I decided to buy an LG washer and dryer on a Black Friday weekend sale at the local store and scheduled delivery for December 30th, after the holiday. On December 27th, we purchased a 46″ Samsung LCD TV from 1-800-BEST-BUY, partially with a $500 gift card that her parents generously gave us for Christmas, and scheduled delivery for January 5th.

The night before the washer/dryer were supposed to arrive, we recieved a confirmation call scheduling delivery from 2-4pm. I took a half day off of work, and anxiously awaited our new appliances. When no one showed by 4:15, I started to call the store. After four calls with no answer (letting the phone ring from 2-8 minutes each time), I was able to get in touch with an employee who contacted the truck and confirmed that our washer and dryer were not on board.

At this point, my wife and I drove to the store. The general manager was dismissive of us, and told us that the drivers weren’t done with their shift by 5 (it was 4:50 at this point), and that they were probably at our house right now. She then called the driver directly, and without a word to us walked into the store office, leaving us waiting for 20 minutes.

As it turns out, there had been two deliveries for that washer and dryer, and they had only received one pair. After a wasted day, she upgraded us to the next model (still leaving us without a washer/dryer for a week).

Learning from that experience, I called Best Buy the morning of my TV delivery to confirm. Sure enough, the TV was out of stock. After an hour and a half on the phone, we learned that the TV had been discontinued but that we could price match another TV. Not being around a computer to see other TVs, we had to wait until the evening. When we called back, we were bounced around 5 different operators, finally being on the phone for 2 hours before we talked to someone who told us that they could not pricematch because we used a coupon on the original purchase. In fact, our only option was to cancel our order and wait 2-3 weeks for a new gift card to be mailed to get back our $500 and purchase a new TV set.

The biggest issue with all of this is that at no point did Best Buy call or email to tell me that either delivery was being cancelled. Although most CSRs that I talked to were polite and helpful, they just didn’t seem to be able to help us out due to internal policies.

Boy, that sounds fun. We wonder if you’ll have better luck with the next TV you try to order.

Maybe go with in-store pick up? You seemed to have better luck negotiating with them in person. Just watch out for their “calibration” sales pitch.

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