Best Buy? Above and beyond? Yes, it’s possible! The new refrigerator that Sandy ordered was delayed by several days, leaving her fridgeless for a week. She wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of feeding her family without the modern appliance, so she fired off an email to all of the executives she could get her pixels on, copying us on all correspondence. Suddenly, she was summoned to the store to pick out any fridge she wanted for no extra charge, with immediate delivery. And a present for her son, too.

I purchased a fridge from Best Buy on June 11th after mine died the previous nite. I was told it would be delivered on the 14th. Unfortunately, that never happened. While the purchase was in the system, it was never sent to the warehouse for pick up. On the morning of the 14th, I was told I’d have to wait until the 18th for the next delivery.

Have you ever tried to plan meals for a family of 4, that includes a VERY picky 6 yr old, without any refrigerated items? I don’t recommend it.

I went into the store to talk to the manager and was basically told “So sorry. t he only thing we can do for you is knock $50 off the price.” Yeah, $50 won’t feed my family for one day, much less the 4 additional days we were going to have to eat out.

So I got angry. I stewed. I did some research. I email bombed their executive team. Within 15 minutes of sending the email, Tim Sheehan, SVP Operations, Retail Operations and Services, responded back with an apology and a promise to “get a team on it” first thing in the morning. This caused me to pause from posting my 2 page letter all over the web. I wanted to see what they would come up with. They did not disappoint.

The next morning, I received calls from [redacted], the GM of the store, Brittany Bauer, Executive Resolution Specialist, the District Manager [redacted], and an email response from Michael Vitelli, President, Americas EVP, Enterprise. Genuine apologies were made and I was invited to come back in to the store to pick out another fridge, which I did, (albeit reluctantly. I REALLY loved the Samsung unit I picked the first time.)

After going through my options with [redacted] (who was awesome!), I chose an LG 31cu ft unit for $2700. They gave it to me for the same price I paid for the Samsung unit, $1049. I have a feeling that they wouldn’t have flinched if I have chosen one of the $3500+ units, either. (I only put this in because I know this little detail is important to some people. I actually felt kinda guilty about that whole thing, I just wanted my damn fridge! I wasn’t looking to get something for nothing.)

Dan and [the GM] also gave my son (who was with me) a pillow pet and a $100 gift card as a Kindergarten graduation gift.

My new fridge was delivered this morning and I love it. There was an issue with the doors not sealing, which may be a simple matter of adjusting the hinges. I had called [the general manager] while the delivery guys were here (woke him up I think as it was pretty early), he made some calls and by noon I had an appointment for the next day for a tech to come out and take a look.

I am truly amazed, grateful, and very impressed with the efforts made to rectify this. My faith has been restored. Too often, you hear about the little consumer that gets left in the dust with barely a nose flick from big box companies. It’s nice to have my pessimism proven wrong.

Honestly, I would have been satisfied with a heartfelt apology and a promise to look into steps they can make to prevent this from happening to their other customers. I wouldn’t have been happy about the situation, but I just wanted the fact that I got screwed over to be acknowledged and for them to accept responsibility. When I went into the store on the 14th, I felt like they were just blowing me off. The entire experience was insulting. But they went way above and beyond anything I could have expected.

Amazing. If you have your own intractable consumer issue, here are the methods that Sandy used to poke Best Buy into action.

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