Mike’s friend gave Best Buy $200 to install anti-virus software and an HDMI input, but Best Buy somehow sent him home with the wrong power adapter. Mike works in IT and knows how to feed and bathe himself, but Best Buy insisted that he had the right adapter and that Mike had to be “doing something wrong.” Guess how this ends…

So my friend goes in and decides to buy a new HP Pavilion Media Laptop. Not only do they push anti-virus protection and an HDMI input on him, they charge him over $200 for it along with $300 warranty. So his $800 laptop is now $1300. He ended up waiting almost 2 hours for them to ‘install’ these two components on top of this. While this may seem bad enough, the real story comes later.

He’s my roomate and decided to buy this PC after his old notebook died. He came back, unopened it and began to download all the things he needs. He then calls me over and seemed confused because he wanted to plug it in and he couldn’t seem to find where to plug it in. I started laughing because it seemed like something so simple. I go over and low and behold, the plug is wrong. It seems weird to me that a brand new PC would have the wrong AC adapter. He immediately calls Best Buy (1 hour before closing) and explains that he has the wrong adapter. Not only does the sales rep insult my friend, but he insists that it’s not the wrong plug and we’re doing something wrong. Now I work in IT, I think that I can PLUG IN A COMPUTER. Then he says “Well you can come in but we close in an hour.” Thanks a lot.

So we go in and go right up to the Geek Squad desk and explain the situation. As soon as my friend pulls out the adapter, the guy takes it and gives us the correct one. He then says, “Yea, we put the wrong adapter back in. We put the wrong adapter in two other computers and one, we forgot to put an AC adapter in at all. So I’m not surprised.“

Best Buy might actually have a workable customer service model if, you know, belated honesty made up for gross incompetence.

(Photo: Jared Harley)