And I Thought Circuit City Couldn't Get Worse

bballplaya210

bballplaya210

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I haven't had a chance to post this yet but it happened on Sunday when I was waiting in line for a Wii at Circuit City. I know this is long but I think it needs to be said. No, this is not a story about a failed attempt at getting a Wii. I managed to get one but the way customers were treated was appalling.

I've never liked CC and planned on going to BB and wait in line for a Wii, but the line at BB had around 40-50 people in it at 6:30. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, I checked the CC across the street and the line had very few people in it. So I decide to take my chances at CC. By around 7, there were probably about 20 people in line and by 7:30, probably 30+. There was no indication of how many Wii's CC had and after watching numerous employees walk into the store starting at 8, we began to wonder how many Wii's. No employee told us anything; instead, probably laughing since they knew the true number of Wii's that were available. The wait itself was not bad at all. The people in line were very nice and if it hadn't been cold and raining, you really couldn't have asked for a better experience of waiting for a Wii. At around 8:30, we find out that the BB across the street has 57 Wii's, since they stopped the line when it reached this number. My friend was 7th in line at CC and I was 8th and after hearing this we felt good about our spot in line. We figures that if BB got 57, CC must have at least 15. Not to mention that the employees would never make this many people unnecessarily wait in the rain if they did not have enough. At around 9, one employee gets to CC and instead of kindly asking us to step aside so she can get in the door, she yells at us and then starts raising her voice when the man 2 people ahead of us does not move. This gentleman is deaf, which we point out to the worker, who feels no remorse for her actions and rudely gets close to the man's face and again loudly says to move. Apparently, this is the way you approach deaf people. She gets in the store and everything appears to go smoothly. A few employees come to the door at 9:30 and begin handing out tickets for Wii's. I get the last ticket and am only 8th in line. At least 10 employees have walked past the line since 8 and not one had the decency to mention that they only had 8 wii's. Every person that got there after I did at around 6:40 is SOL. I guess this is the excellent customer service I should expect from CC though. There were people behind me who had been in line for nearly 3 hours for nothing. I have no problem with the fact that CC only had 8 Wii's. I actually got on of the eight, but it is absolutely ridiculous to make customers wait in the cold while it's raining, when you know that there are only 8 in stock. I can only imagine how the people who went home empty handed feel. I don't know that I have ever had a positive experience at CC and this is the absolute last time I will shop there. Even though I got a Wii, it is a matter of principle and I refuse to shop at a store that treats their customers with such little respect.

Summary:
Employee is rude to deaf man waiting in line. At least 10 employees arrive at work and walk right past the line and nobody has the decency to tell us that there are only 8 wii's. They made their customers stand out in the cold while it was raining for no reason. I was disgusted by this and I actually got one of the wii's. I cannot imagine how the people felt who waited for three hours only to leave empty handed. I will never shop at CC again.
 
[quote name='bballplaya210']I haven't had a chance to post this yet but it happened on Sunday when I was waiting in line for a Wii at Circuit City. I know this is long but I think it needs to be said. No, this is not a story about a failed attempt at getting a Wii. I managed to get one but the way customers were treated was appalling.

I've never liked CC and planned on going to BB and wait in line for a Wii, but the line at BB had around 40-50 people in it at 6:30. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, I checked the CC across the street and the line had very few people in it. So I decide to take my chances at CC. By around 7, there were probably about 20 people in line and by 7:30, probably 30+. There was no indication of how many Wii's CC had and after watching numerous employees walk into the store starting at 8, we began to wonder how many Wii's. No employee told us anything; instead, probably laughing since they knew the true number of Wii's that were available. The wait itself was not bad at all. The people in line were very nice and if it hadn't been cold and raining, you really couldn't have asked for a better experience of waiting for a Wii. At around 8:30, we find out that the BB across the street has 57 Wii's, since they stopped the line when it reached this number. My friend was 7th in line at CC and I was 8th and after hearing this we felt good about our spot in line. We figures that if BB got 57, CC must have at least 15. Not to mention that the employees would never make this many people unnecessarily wait in the rain if they did not have enough. At around 9, one employee gets to CC and instead of kindly asking us to step aside so she can get in the door, she yells at us and then starts raising her voice when the man 2 people ahead of us does not move. This gentleman is deaf, which we point out to the worker, who feels no remorse for her actions and rudely gets close to the man's face and again loudly says to move. Apparently, this is the way you approach deaf people. She gets in the store and everything appears to go smoothly. A few employees come to the door at 9:30 and begin handing out tickets for Wii's. I get the last ticket and am only 8th in line. At least 10 employees have walked past the line since 8 and not one had the decency to mention that they only had 8 wii's. Every person that got there after I did at around 6:40 is SOL. I guess this is the excellent customer service I should expect from CC though. There were people behind me who had been in line for nearly 3 hours for nothing. I have no problem with the fact that CC only had 8 Wii's. I actually got on of the eight, but it is absolutely ridiculous to make customers wait in the cold while it's raining, when you know that there are only 8 in stock. I can only imagine how the people who went home empty handed feel. I don't know that I have ever had a positive experience at CC and this is the absolute last time I will shop there. Even though I got a Wii, it is a matter of principle and I refuse to shop at a store that treats their customers with such little respect.

Summary:
Employee is rude to deaf man waiting in line. At least 10 employees arrive at work and walk right past the line and nobody has the decency to tell us that there are only 8 wii's. They made their customers stand out in the cold while it was raining for no reason. I was disgusted by this and I actually got one of the wii's. I cannot imagine how the people felt who waited for three hours only to leave empty handed. I will never shop at CC again.[/QUOTE]
This is all going to end badly.
 
yea they did that to me too when the ps3 launched...they had 100 PS3s (ppl didnt know but we found out after), they where almost 400 ppl there, i was the 92 guy.....midnight comes around *20 people where ps3 shirts come out of nowhere and get in line* now im 107....they let me wait 6 hours...i found out that who ever got a ps3 shirt the night before was getting one


bastards CC!!!
 
Well that happens everywhere. The employees don't care cause they are paid by hours not by profits. Anyway I personally hate the store. It has to do with the manager and how he runs things. For example, a fast food joint and the cleanliness of the area compares to the cleanliness of the manager. You are right though they should have gave warning.
 
You stress that people were forced to wait out in the cold for these things. Really, though, did you look at the people in the line and get the impression that they were all waiting for a gift for little Timmy, or did they look like scalpers? Betcha 3 outta 4 were scalpers with nothing better to do anyway.
 
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While the way that employee treated that deaf man was bad, I know how I am when I'm attempting to get into a store on a cold and rainy day. Anyone who gets in my way will be rolled over if I'm walking quickly, no matter who they are.

Maybe that's a rude way to go about doing things, but quite frankly, I'd rather get into the store and be dry and warm than be stuck outside going 'excuse me, excuse me' and having someone who either doesn't understand or hear me NOT move and force me to waste time/energy to step around their ass. And, I imagine that's what that female employee was feeling.

That being said, the reason they probably didn't tell everyone else who was waiting how many Wii systems they had was the typical retail reasons, that each customer there would probably come in and at least 'browse' once they find out that they came out for nothing, satisfied enough to buy SOMETHING to not have wasted their time/energy coming out that morning.

That's how I ended up with my Xbox system when I went out 2 Black Fridays ago for a crappy EMachines pc for $149, which was sold out before I got near the front door of the store. I spent an hour or two in line and woke up extra early to get this deal and didn't get it, but I'd be damned if I didn't leave with SOMETHING.

So again, while it was kinda rude to let everyone else wait out in the line in the rain and cold, who says they really opened the boxes and knew for a fact until moments before the store opened as to how many systems they had?

Either way, people should expect this sort of thing from not just CC, but all retail stores anymore, who just want your money and don't care how 'inconvenienced' or 'miserable' you are, as long as they get your greenbacks and if you leave disheartened, there's always 10 people behind you who will gladly shell out the sawbucks to buy SOMETHING. So really, my point is, to retailers, we don't matter, but our MONEY does.
 
Not to sound like I'm sticking up for CC or anything, but out of the 10 people who are passing the line to get to work, if anything only 3 of those people (Manager plus 2 people who work in that department) would know how many Wii's they would have. And thats assuming they would know before walking in the door, which is unlikely unless all of them worked the night before. The people who come in early on Sunday are there to put in new price tags. Once they're inside they could check the computers and find out how many they have themselves, but even then sometimes the managers will not put the Wiis into the system to prevent insider information. I know this from last year when I was working at CC and saw many lines every Sunday for the Wii/PS3.

Now the people at fault here are the manager and the bitch who yelled at the deaf man. Find out the manager working that morning and write corporate about the long line and lack of information. Its the manager's decision to tell the line or not, he was probably too much of a pussy to face the people and just sent out his employees to do the tickets. They'll likely just send you a giftcard but its something.
 
I dont like shopping at CC for the simple fact (which I've confirmed myself) that they hide stuff or move stuff to the back room if its on sale and they bring it back out the moment it goes back to its normal price. I figure this has to be some reportable violation that I should probably mention to the BBB but I'm a very lazy person. :lol:
 
Yet you still gave CC your money. Would have been a better story if you turned down the Wii, denounced all the employees and walked out in disgust.
 
[quote name='dopa345']Yet you still gave CC your money. Would have been a better story if you turned down the Wii, denounced all the employees and walked out in disgust.[/QUOTE]


the store makes zero money on video game hardware. None. They make money on the accesories mostly and some on games but very little on the games. So it is not a better story if the OP had left without buying the Wii, he waited in line and got the wii, that is the only good part of the story imo.

That reminds me of some people who only buy things at best buy when the item is a loss leader and the store is losing money, that is how much they hate BB. So yeah give them your money on the loss leaders so the store is losing money. Or just do like the average cheapass does and buy what you want when it goes on sale for a cheap price, whatever the store.

its not like the people in line were forced into waiting in line, tho the chick who yelled at the deaf man was not cool at all. Really this is what you would expect at CC, BB or any other major retailer.
 
personally I would have reported the incident to the store manager and gotten the employee written up. Either that or I would have punched that fat tub of lard employee in the face because she probably was so fat that she had to have more room to go thru.
 
Circuit City here sucks for the Wii. I waited on the 17th of December last year and was sixth in line. Starting at 6:30 am, we watched them unpack 15 Wii. Then the manager came out and said they have 5, because they took 10 rainchecks. No one ever apologized to me for this mistake, nor did anyone ever get me in on a raincheck. I understand the reasoning behind the latter, as it would have created a slippery slope, but the former pisses me off enough that I still don't shop at CC (I got my Wii from TRU 12 days later, and I have to say they were the best about keeping me updated about their shipments and treating me like an actual human during those 12 days) If they think preselling something they know people are going to wait in line for is a good decision, and then being jerks about it on top of that, then I don't see how shopping there is a good decision on my part.

So yeah, to answer the part where you wonder how people who left with nothing felt, it felt pretty crappy. Grats on getting a Wii, and I agree with the sentiment that you should report the bad employees.
 
[quote name='Pi573']Circuit City here sucks for the Wii. I waited on the 17th of December last year and was sixth in line. Starting at 6:30 am, we watched them unpack 15 Wii. Then the manager came out and said they have 5, because they took 10 rainchecks. No one ever apologized to me for this mistake, nor did anyone ever get me in on a raincheck. I understand the reasoning behind the latter, as it would have created a slippery slope, but the former pisses me off enough that I still don't shop at CC (I got my Wii from TRU 12 days later, and I have to say they were the best about keeping me updated about their shipments and treating me like an actual human during those 12 days) If they think preselling something they know people are going to wait in line for is a good decision, and then being jerks about it on top of that, then I don't see how shopping there is a good decision on my part.

So yeah, to answer the part where you wonder how people who left with nothing felt, it felt pretty crappy. Grats on getting a Wii, and I agree with the sentiment that you should report the bad employees.[/QUOTE]


That's bullshit... they aren't allowed to Raincheck the Wii... it's in the ad. I would have called Cooperate and reported the manager for hording the Wii's. No way in hell they could have been rainchecking them.
 
I regret that I didn't complain more...I felt at the time like it would have been wasted energy, and just spent it instead on calling, checking places, looking at Wii tracking sites, etc. to find one. Given that it's been almost a year, and I did get a Wii elsewhere, it'd probably seem like sour grapes now...the extent of my complaint was to the manager who was there, a customer service rep in-store later (actually on the day I found the Wii, about an hour before I went to TRU) and the manager that was on duty then. All said the same thing, that there was nothing they could really do about it. The best explanation I got was that they'd wheeled out the cases when they got them on Wednesday and people started clamoring for them, so instead of telling them to wait for Sunday, they just presold them. If I had to guess, they probably just did this for employees/friends of employees as a perk.

I dunno, would there be a statute of limitations on this, so to speak? I'd like to think if they were still doing this, that I could get them to stop. I would hope that they learned their lesson, though. Like I said, I hate that I didn't do more...CAG's all about empowering consumers to get the best deal, and I pretty much rolled over on this.
 
Did anyone bother ASKING any of the employee's if they could check number of Wii's they have available?

Like others have said most of those employee's wouldnt know how many Wii's were in stock and were busy updating the prices of the items and moving the sales items to the proper places. The store isn't even open yet and people expect them to be catering to your needs.

Now the person yelling at the deaf guy seems odd but i highly doubt it happened the way you said it did, and if you were forming a line blocking entrance into the store then your not entirely without blame in the matter.
 
Yeah CC sucks and some register-jockeys are rude to customers, they get crap pay and are probably bitter that they're stuck working retail for a corporation that could care less about them.

Whats new ?
 
[quote name='MightySlacker']I clicked on this thread front the front page. If billg was the OP, I was going to have to choke a bitch

Dave[/quote]

lol
 
When I was in retail, we called not telling people how many units of the hot new electronics item standard operating procedure.

The real story here is the deaf guy getting yelled at, which is on the low end of bad shit stores do during the holiday season.
 
[quote name='WeLoveDaisuke']The real story here is the deaf guy getting yelled at, which is on the low end of bad shit stores do during the holiday season.[/QUOTE]

Well the first time the employee yelled at the deaf person she/he obviously didn't know the person was deaf. Even the second time she/he yelled I find it hard to believe that the random strangers waiting in line both new and made the effort to tell the employee the person was deaf.
 
[quote name='Mr Unoriginal']Well the first time the employee yelled at the deaf person she/he obviously didn't know the person was deaf. Even the second time she/he yelled I find it hard to believe that the random strangers waiting in line both new and made the effort to tell the employee the person was deaf.[/QUOTE]

People in line could of found out earlier that the person was deaf. I won't argue that the employee in question sounds like a prick.
 
[quote name='Mr Unoriginal']Well the first time the employee yelled at the deaf person she/he obviously didn't know the person was deaf. Even the second time she/he yelled I find it hard to believe that the random strangers waiting in line both new and made the effort to tell the employee the person was deaf.[/QUOTE]

People in line could of found out earlier that the person was deaf. I won't argue that the employee in question sounds like a prick. And yes the store should of had a sign up saying how many Wii's were available. Its certainly unfair to make people wait outside that long only to be told "oh we only got this many so the rest of you are out of luck."
 
[quote name='Demolition Man'] And yes the store should of had a sign up saying how many Wii's were available. Its certainly unfair to make people wait outside that long only to be told "oh we only got this many so the rest of you are out of luck."[/quote]

For that matter they should put up a sign outside their store for every item they have in stock listing the quantities of each and keep them updated in real time. :roll:

You do know its possible to call a day or two in advance, ask to speak to a manager, and request info on how many units they are expecting in? Thats what i do...
 
[quote name='Mr Unoriginal']When did CAG turn into the refuge of the whiny bitches?[/quote] since CC decided to sue cag.

this is no surprise though, op. that is one of the unfortunate experience of lining up for a console. stores are getting better at it. they want for you to hope that they have more and i bet if it wasn't raining, those tickets wouldn't be given out. and i bet they did have more but employees hoarded them. you're lucky you're not one of a hundreds of people in line at the time square TRU for the wii launch. but, i would report that CC for yelling at the deaf person. not to their corporate office. i found this, maybe it'll help link
 
[quote name='benjamouth']Yeah CC sucks and some register-jockeys are rude to customers, they get crap pay and are probably bitter that they're stuck working retail for a corporation that could care less about them.

Whats new ?[/quote]

Nearly everyone at one time or another has had a crappy job. That still doesn't give people the right to be @$$holes.:roll:
 
so circuit city called you in the middle of the night and forced you to come wait outside their store for hours?

anybody that camps out a store willing to waste their life is rolling the dice to begin with
 
Yelling at deaf guy (if the context is correctly described by the OP) ='s BAD.

People freezing their asses off waiting for a Wii ='s FUNNY.

That's my take.
 
[quote name='phear3d']since CC decided to sue cag.[/QUOTE]

They did not "sue" CAG. They simply wanted info on Speedy via supeona. That is NOT a lawsuit which means they did not "sue" CAG.
 
[quote name='dracula']the store makes zero money on video game hardware. None. They make money on the accesories mostly and some on games but very little on the games. So it is not a better story if the OP had left without buying the Wii, he waited in line and got the wii, that is the only good part of the story imo.

That reminds me of some people who only buy things at best buy when the item is a loss leader and the store is losing money, that is how much they hate BB. So yeah give them your money on the loss leaders so the store is losing money. Or just do like the average cheapass does and buy what you want when it goes on sale for a cheap price, whatever the store.

its not like the people in line were forced into waiting in line, tho the chick who yelled at the deaf man was not cool at all. Really this is what you would expect at CC, BB or any other major retailer.[/QUOTE]
Is that really true? I know the margin on consoles is small/tiny, but is it really zero? I know the margin on the other stuff is larger.

EDIT: I mean margin for the retail stores (CC, BB etc.) as opposed to the manufacturers (Microsoft etc.)
 
[quote name='jho']Is that really true? I know the margin on consoles is small/tiny, but is it really zero? I know the margin on the other stuff is larger.

EDIT: I mean margin for the retail stores (CC, BB etc.) as opposed to the manufacturers (Microsoft etc.)[/QUOTE]

The margin is not zero, but it's not very large. It might be different for the Wii. I don't work at a distribution chain anymore, so I can't tell you what it is for the current gen systems.
 
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