Sloan thought that it might be worth it to stay up and online to check out an advertised midnight sale on BestBuy.com. “Midnight,” in the case of this sale, meant the stroke of 12 AM on the East Coast, or 11:00 in the Central time zone where Sloane lives. When 11:00 came and went with no sale, he called up Best Buy to see where the sale had gone. They assured him that it would start up at midnight in his time zone. That didn’t happen, either.

The email I received this morning advertised a 2/8 midnight sale to start at 12 ET / 9 PT. I have been in the market for a new ipod dock and new computer monitor, so I thought I would stay up to see what was offered. I jumped on the site around 11:10 central time (12:10 ET) and kept getting the same preview page as I had seen earlier in the day with the email blast.

By 12;25 ET, I decided to call customer service and see what the problem was and maybe to just get some information on what products were indeed on sale. 3 customer service reps and 20 minutes later, I was finally told that, although the email clearly stated 12 ET, the sale was not actually starting for those in the central time zone until 12 Central. I thought that strange, but by this time it was already 11:45, and so I decided to wait 15 more minutes. Well at 12:15 central time, there was still no change to the sale’s website page – still only listing a preview to the upcoming sale.

Again I called customer no service and was told the wait time would be less than 10 minutes. 18 minutes later, my call was answered – I was promptly put on hold and then eventually was disconnected while being transferred.

I must say that I remember a time when Best Buy was my absolute favorite place to frequent – but the service and support has continually declined over the last 2-3 years. I am extremely upset. But, although I would like some explanations, I no longer feel that finding tonight’s illusive midnight sale is worth it. Chalk me up as one more lost customer to Amazon.

Promising exciting sales that never come: that’s just mean. Sounds like someone at Best Buy Dot Com forgot to flip a virtual switch somewhere.

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