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Here is the text of an email I sent to the President of Best Buy regarding an very unpleasant experience I had at a Best Buy store this holiday.

Originally Posted by CheapyD Last weekend, I purchased an eMachines M5312 laptop computer at your store on 86th and Lexington Avenue (Store #835) in New York, NY. Based on the response to this email, it may be my last purchase from a Best Buy store. While my purchase was being rung up, one of your employees (Brian) tried to “sell” me Best Buy’s 3 year extended warranty for $250. Notice how I have placed the word “sell” in quotations. I think “bully” or “berate” would more accurately describe this ordeal that I went through. When I politely refused the warranty, Brian started verbally assaulting me, literally yelling at me, “You are making a big mistake. I guarantee it will break.” I remained calm and simply replied, “no thanks”. Brian then pointed to a section of returned and open box laptops and said, “your laptop will be here soon.” This continued for several minutes, embarrassing myself and my fiancée who was shopping with me. Let me be perfectly clear, this was not a sales process,this was an employee yelling at a customer because he feared there was no commission to be had. Eventually, Brian gave up and became so upset, he had someone else ring up the sale. He then walked away, shouting across the sales floor, “You’ll be back!” Upon leaving the store, I presented my receipt to the employee at the front door, and even he had to make a comment, “Oh, no extended warranty?” What is going on at your stores? Why are your employees guaranteeing that our products will break? I realize that extended warranties are a profit center for Best Buy, but no customer deserves to be treated this way. I was so upset, I’m not exactly sure why I still purchased the laptop from your store. I guess I didn’t want to have gone through that whole nightmare with nothing to show for it. I run a popular (video game) shopping discussion website called CheapAssGamer.com and I will most likely be publishing my experience at Best Buy in the next few days, but first, I wanted to give Best Buy a chance to respond. I am looking forward to hearing from you and would be happy to furnish any additional information.

Here is the response I received a few days later:

Originally Posted by Best Buy Thank you for contacting Mr. Mike Keskey at the Best Buy Corporate office. Your email has been received and forwarded to my desk for response. If you could please email me a number that you can be reached or contact me directly at ***-***-****. I look forward to speaking with you. Thank you, **** ****** Best Buy

I spoke to the Best Buy representitve a few days later and she was very apologetic. She basically told me that the salespeople are supposed to merely make the customer aware of the Extended Warranty and thats about it. She also mentioned the salespeople do not receive commission (my guess is they may have a quota or goal, though) on Extended Warranties.

When all was said and done, she told me I will be sent a $50 Best Buy gift card for my troubles and that the corporate office will be contacting my local store. I feel that Best Buy did a good job handling my complaint by dealing with it swiftly and by giving me "compensation" for my experience.


EDIT: I added the comic to this post on June 13th, 2006
CAG Comic #1



Alternate Ending

I find violence works better. You should have busted that cat right in his grill and then made sweet sweet love to your fiancée in front of him. That would have learned him good.

Good suggestion.

I also thought about purchasing the extended warranty and then smacking him over the head with the laptop and then asking, "Is this covered, biatch?"

That too would have been good and you probably still would have received the 50 bucks because Brain would never admit to getting waffled with a laptop.

wow its nice to see something about best buy not suck for once, the best buy i usually go to in pittsburgh never has anyone intelligent enough to comprehend what a gcc is, it always takes 10-15 mins to check out after i re-explain and get rung up about 6 times

I would have asked for a manager right there and read them the riot act. Sounds like a very bad sales person that needs to be canned. I have been offered several extended warrantees and when I say no thanks, that's always been the end of it. The only extended warranty I have ever bought from BB was for my GBA-SP since it was only $10 and I was saving $5 with the GGC I figured what the hell.

Originally Posted by CheapyD I also thought about purchasing the extended warranty and then smacking him over the head with the laptop and then asking, "Is this covered, biatch?"

*sigh* such seperates men and legends

Originally Posted by CheapyD Good suggestion. I also thought about purchasing the extended warranty and then smacking him over the head with the laptop and then asking, "Is this covered, biatch?"

Thanks for the laugh this morning...i needed that.

Originally Posted by CheapyD Good suggestion. I also thought about purchasing the extended warranty and then smacking him over the head with the laptop and then asking, "Is this covered, biatch?"

LOL!

Originally Posted by CheapyD Good suggestion. I also thought about purchasing the extended warranty and then smacking him over the head with the laptop and then asking, "Is this covered, biatch?"

...

BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHA...a man after my own heart. Although, I probably would've added, "PWNED!" afterward.

Originally Posted by punqsux wow its nice to see something about best buy not suck for once, the best buy i usually go to in pittsburgh never has anyone intelligent enough to comprehend what a gcc is, it always takes 10-15 mins to check out after i re-explain and get rung up about 6 times

I hear ya, punqsux. Everytime I try it, I'm subjected to the same Best Buy incompetence that most people suffer. However, they usually only have to rering it 4 times for me after typing in some stupid code 20 times until they realize that it doesn't work, then try something else.

I wonder if Best Buy gets a tax write-off for hiring dumbasses that meet some low IQ test score? Anyone have to take an IQ test to work at Best Buy?

It's not just you, CheapyD. Best Buy employees (at the store nearest me anyway) are some of the most duplicitous salespeople I've ever seen. Some fun facts I've gleaned from them:

1. To a woman shopping with her younger son: A Direct X upgrade message requires a new video card to fix.
2. To an elderly couple: A warranty is really a given on a dvd player, because the new lasers they're using to read dvds are so hot they were known to melt discs inside of them.
3. My personal experience: when I went to buy an Xbox they tried to sell me a memory card back in the games area, then that salesman followed me to the register up front and then called the manager over at which point 3 people were trying to badger me into getting a memory card. I explained to them "no, I know it has a hard drive and a memory card is useless" to which the manager told me (paraphrasing a little here) "you know that Microsoft is going to start online games soon, right? Well, when you install that software it defrags your hard drive and you lose your saves. The only way around it is to either get a memory card or send your console to Microsoft so they can defrag it for you. It will cost 120 dollars plus shipping both ways." My friend and I were wide-eyed and mouths gaping at this point. I refused again and the manager gave me a sigh and head shake then walked away, like I was making a huge mistake. Needless to say, I called the corporate office like CheapyD did and they send me a gift card for 50 dollars also, so I'm guessing it's enough of a wide spread phenomenon that they have a standard drill for dealing with it.

Anyway, the next big purchase I go in for there I'm thinking of having some fun. "Sure, I'll get the warranty...if you can tell me why I need one without using the letter 'e'."

actually, in my experience with bestbuy, their products ARE guaranteed to break.

With the exception of a microwave, it hasn't failed me yet-- everything breaks

To make matters worse, they're not real good about keeping the receipts on file like they claim they are when you do by the extended warranty

I got shafted on my PS/2 extended warranty, because they refused to honor it as their computer lost the record and I didn't have the receipt -- despite having the exact date of purchase, approximate time, and even the offer to contact my bank for their records of the purchase. Fortunately, Sony fixed my PS/2 for free , but had a broken slightly earlier the wouldn't have as this was in the beginning of their"free repair" program and you really had to negotiate hard to get it.

Now remember that PS/2 extended warranty bestbuy said didn't exist, because it's important

From the same store, I bought in xbox on launch day -- with the extended warranty.

when it broke down, they were able to locate its warranty with great difficulty -- but at least they were able to do so, and momentarily restored myfaith

when the voucher arrived for a new system, it was stamped "PS/2 extended warranty replacement"

In other words, it was never really lost at all, although it kind of makes me wonder what happened to my xbox warranty ;-)

CheapyD Best buy employees do get commission a few of my friends have worked for them, unless they just changed their policy. Also with all the walmart scaming going on... Im not saying its the right thing to do, but I sure wish I could rip off best buy a few times, I hate that place.

I work at best buy. Nobody gets paid on commission. The regular employees dont get shit for selling replacement plans or services. Managers however do get bonuses for good numbers in their departments. So us salespeople are constantly being told by the higher ups that we need to sell that crap even though we don't get anything for it. At the store I work at the people in media have to keep scorecards. So if I make a sale of $150 or more I get 1pt. If I sell cd storage I get 2 pts. If I sell a service I can get anywhere from 5-10pts depending on the service. What do these points mean you might ask. They tell us the person with the most pts gets our name on some trophy and we get a couple free dvds. However, thats bullshit. Its been 3 months and no trophy. Also because I think its bullshit to try and push services onto people when they aren't interested I don't get many hours. The people that score the highest get more hours. They are also using the scorecards to determine who gets to keep their jobs once the season is up. The supervisors also do customer service evaluations on us. The last one I had done to me I got a poor score because I didn't ask the guy what type of internet he had so I could sell him gamefly even though he said he was just looking around and didn't want any help.

"I wonder if Best Buy gets a tax write-off for hiring dumbasses that meet some low IQ test score? Anyone have to take an IQ test to work at Best Buy? "
While the majority of the people there are stupid not all of us are. I am only working there to help pay for college.

yea everything I buy from there gets a warranty after my DVD player (200 bucks) broke with not only one type, but I even switched to a diffrent brand and it broke

I used to work there, we never recieved any commision. This was back in 95-96. however they leaned on the employees about selling them and gave "prizes" sometimes for selling the most usually it was praise and a cd. They also determined the employees being employeed as well. non performers were let go regularly. plus the store meeting were also nothing more but a management bulying the employees into selling the damn things.

Hehe ryan, so next time I'm at Best Buy and someone asks me for a rebate, can I say (no offence intended to you, but to other Best Buy employees yes)

"How many points is that? 2? Got the trophy yet?"

and will they get mad or embarrased at that?

"I used to work there, we never recieved any commision. This was back in 95-96. however they leaned on the employees about selling them and gave "prizes" sometimes for selling the most usually it was praise and a cd. They also determined the employees being employeed as well. non performers were let go regularly. plus the store meeting were also nothing more but a management bulying the employees into selling the damn things. "

I work there now and its great to know nothings changed.

I currently work for bestbuy. we do not get anything for selling warranties. we do get praise from our supervisors though.