We opened our mailbox earlier this week to find something that wasn’t quite right. An account of a shopping experience at Best Buy that ended…well? That can’t be. We thought that Dave must have been mistaken, but no: he was happy and the customer service he received was excellent. It even involved an open-box item.

You may find this hard to believe, but I’m actually writing to tell you that I had a good customer service experience with Best Buy. I know that my fellow Consumerist readers certainly won’t believe it, and I can already imagine the comments saying this is fake.

I admit it – I’m a Google fanboy, and I decided that I wanted a Samsung series 3 Chromebook to mess with. At $249 it’s pretty much at impulse buy levels, so why not? I went into the Myrtle Beach, SC Best Buy, and they had an open box Chromebook for $216.99. I asked the clerk if there was anything wrong with it, and I was assured that it was in like-new condition with no scratches. A half hour later I’m back at my office, and I open the box to find that my “like-new” Chromebook looks like it’s been dropped on the sidewalk repeatedly. This poor device had seen a fair bit of abuse, and I decided that I just could not accept it even at a discounted price.

After work I headed back to Best Buy fully prepared for the run around from their notorious customer service department. I calmly explained my situation to the person assisting me and finished with “All I really want is to exchange this for a new Chromebook and pay the difference.” The customer service rep surprised me with “Sure, go ahead.” Surprised that it was this easy, I quickly went to grab a new Chromebook before she changed her mind.

While ringing up my new Chromebook the customer service rep excused herself, and when she returned she told me that she’d spoken with the manager about what happened & that because the scratched up Chromebook was their fault, they were going to give me the new one for the price I paid for the open box Chromebook. I was shocked. No one has good customer service experiences at Best Buy – how was I this lucky?

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