Yes BestBuySux.org is still alive and well. How do I know? Well... I'm the Admin of the message board for the site that's how I know.
Anyways I decided to share the letter I wrote back in March 2001 on the site that I wrote under my old alias "Angel C. Little." Here it is... enjoy.
[quote name='"Angel C. Little" courtesy of BestBuySux.org']I ask that everything in this be left as is, my e-mail included etc etc... this is a rather long story, hopefully someone can learn a thing or two from it - and maybe just maybe some of those idiots who post over on the pro comments that keep saying that this website sucks will realize why it exsists - for customers/employees who are SICK AND TIRED of being treated like crap by Best Buy. If you don't like it then as The Eagles once sung, "GET OVER IT!" Anyways.. to the story....
Me and my family had been Best Buy customers for many many years. Lets just say that we were customers back when Best Buy was a small company that only exsisted in a few states and were far from being the gigantic poorly run company that it has become. We bought quite a few things from Best Buy during the good ole days - home stereo, CDs, even the first computer that we owned. I can't recall the amount of times we went to Best Buy back then, the service was quite good and so were the prices. BTW.. this is the Northtown aka Blaine #11 location FYI.
Then all hell broke loose....
Early May 1998: I was looking for the hard to find Sting video compilation "Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting." Who do I turn to first? Gee... I wonder! #11 had none in stock but another location had one in - person on phone even said that they'd have it transfered to their store and set aside for me. I agreed, left my name/phone and was told within a week at worst. A week passed, not a word. Finally called back - "Oh we called you and got no answer so we put it on the shelf, it sold already." I only said in return that its not good customer service to do this only to recieve "Have a nice day" and the dial tone soon followed. I could of called back and complained to the manager - but what good would it have done. Thankfully a good local music store named CHEAPO managed to have a few copies in stock for a few dollars more than Best Buy's price and I got the video the next day.
Late May 1998: Anyone who lived in Minnesota around May 15th 1998 will certainly recall the powerful storm we got that afternoon/evening that took out the power to most of the Twin Cities and knocked out the local FOX station - okay, and the good ole 486. Called Best Buy, or as I started to call Horror Buy, to see how much it would cost to get it repaired. Our PSP was expired - keep in mind that this PC was bought when their PSP was halfway decent, unlike the one of today where its as good as the toiler paper we wipe our butts with. Brought it in for the estimate, get card back saying $250. Reasonable to keep the aging 486 running for a few more years or whatever. Okayed that. Another card comes a week later now saying $1,000 for the repair. Time to call Mr. Insurance Man to use our insurance plan to help buy a new PC (forgot the name of the plan but its where you pay like $200 and insurance covers the rest).
Everything goes fine until it gets to where Best Buy needs to fax the estimate information to our insurance agent. It took approximentaly two hours and multiple phone calls before someone at Best Buy finally got it that all we needed was for this estimate info to be faxed. *sigh* By now its around the July 4th weekend so its the big sale weekend. We finally decided on the IBM Aptiva 2138-E96, on sale for about $2,000 with 17 inch monitor. Dumbly bought the PSP (I believe this is where BBY really started to push those piece of crap badly). Got pushed a bit on accessories but no bite. Everything went fine during check out, loaded and went home. Week later, same PC on sale for $100 less. Okay... more like 15 days later. We all know Best Buy's policy too - 14 days on computers. I decided, even knowing this, to at least call and give it one kamikazi attempt. Oh, and I got the automated (if you put it that way) response. I would of been more than happy even with a $100 in store credit, but I didn't want to fight for it (sadly because I was tired of the whole situation and just wanted to move on).
From here on we drifted away from Best Buy because of the lack of concern it started to feel upon us about the overall customer service, the feeling that the "Total Solution" as its been called is more important. Well.. shall it be I found myself exactly on July 2nd 2000 back at Best Buy to purchase two DVDs that day - "Tarzan: Collectors Edition" and "The X-Files: Season One Complete." Tarzan was $29, X-Files was $109. A week later I ended up taking back Tarzan because of it freezing in the middle of the movie on its first viewing (the disc somehow during shipping dropped out of the ring that holds it in the box). Cashier says no copies were in and gave back the money no questions asked. Next day was back with my father when I just walked by another copy of XF Season 1 - this one marked $99. I'm outraged and wanted my $10 back, this time I knew for fact that I was within policy - plus I saw it at Wal-Mart for that much too. I couldn't make it back to Best Buy with my copy and reciept until the following Friday along with my mother who tagged along to look at some movies.
I waited in line and finally got up, calmly explained the situation to the woman at the counter. She rung my copy up on the computer then claimed that they never had it for $99. I then nicely asked for a manager - instead I get some jock named Mike. He then tried telling me the same smoke story, I once again asked for a manager but he just refused. Finally my mom came around the area only to see that I was getting no where. At this point Mike was trying to get me to leave the store otherwise he'd call security (btw I didn't threaten, cuss, use violence or anything - is that grounds for this kind of action?). Finally we walked away to a nearby pay phone to call Wal-Mart to verify their price on the set (we hadn't used that factor in this yet). We went back only to run into Mike again at customer service. He just scowed at the both of us, scowed even more when my mother gave him the phone number to Wal-Mart but he went to a phone towards the back of CS and at least tried to give it a good fake to us that he was calling. He came back just two minutes later claiming that they don't sell it and that this situation is done with, that we were to leave the store or he'd call security in, that both me and my mother were being "beligerant." Now I was getting pissed. My voice finally raised up "I demand to speak to a manager NOW." Instead a security buddy of his came up, said that I could no longer be involved in this situation but my mother could.
Meanwhile, this was causing quite a scene as you could imagine. Enough so do draw a manager finally to it (gee... after I got kicked out too). The manager really did call Wal-Mart TWICE to verify and finally got the $10 back. He said that Best Buy "does this all the time" even though at several times Mike insisted that this was against Best Buy policy (I think the manager was trying to save his ass). It took over an hour btw from start to finish. I went over to Circuit City right after this to get the replacement copy of Tarzan Collectors Edition and while getting my copy purchased, I told the guy about what happened. He just laughed and said something to the effect that stuff like that is nothing new with Best Buy and that Circuit City would never do something like that to a customer (which is true, I'd never been treated like crap at CC *EVER*).
I've only been to Best Buy a few times since that fateful day, only when it was something that couldn't be found elsewhere, like the Sting Brand New Day Live DVD a month before it was supposed to be out - hey, I even saw Mike working that day, but no customers to blow his hot temper upon that moment. Otherwise I've really been going to other business like Circuity City, Wal-Mart, and Sam's Club ever since. So a few fellow words to my fellow customers -
A) Don't let some young kid who thinks their a God for wearing that Blue/Yellow shirt play you around.
B) If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is - like do you really think that a printer cable is going to make your computer's hard drive bigger or modem faster? Heck, do you really think that just because a Monster Gold Cable is "Gold" that it will really improve your printers speed? No. I've tried them, and a generic cable and didn't see one bit of improvement.
C) Read the fine print on a PSP/PRP before you buy into it.
D) If all else, shop at a REAL electronics store where they actually know what they are talking about and care about you as a customer - they don't see you as a potential MSN/PSP/Accessories but as a real customer who wants to be treated as such.
To employees who actually care about the customer, don't worry you will be rewarded for your temporary stay in Hell. There is life beyond Best Buy, I've known a few people who has worked for em and trust me, they are beyond happy to be gone from it.
Anyways, thanks for this great site - its will continue to be a great site in regards of a company that has lost touch with what got it on the map to begin with.[/quote]