Everyone loves Best Buy stories, and I figured my story was good enough to share.
I got a new car a few months ago, a 2002 Camry, an upgrade from my shitty 1997 Mustang that was on it's last leg. I used my iPod religiously in my car, I had it running through a couple auxiliary jacks on the back my CD player. When I got my new car I decided I wanted to keep the factory stereo in it, it's a 6 disc in-dash CD changer, and I'm just not big on the whole "flashy" thing anymore so this was great for me.
Well, I decided I needed something to hook my iPod to this stereo, because the cassette tape adapter just wasn't cutting it. I went to a few stereo places around town and they all recommended the iSimple by Peripheral:
http://www.amazon.com/Peripheral-iS...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1205303007&sr=8-1
It was a simple box that had one end plugging into your factory stereo and one end into the bottom of your iPod. It charges it and gives you simple crystal clear sound and you can control it through your factory stereo. PERFECT!
Now, before I continue, it's worth noting that my iPod was a black 30GB iPod Video. I won it off a few tries on the "Flamin' Finger" redemption game by Namco at a local arcade. That's all, back to the story...
So every place I check tells me 180-200 installed. Eh, that's a lot, but I check Best Buy and they tell me 161.00 installed...reasonable...I opt for that. *cue classic rock montage background music* I make an appointment, pay for it, take my car over, leave it, come back, installer shows me how it works, head home. *end montage*
Now, I get home for the night, leave my iPod in the glove compartment locked since I don't have a reason to take it out anymore. I wake up in the morning and I get ready to head out, get to the car, pull the iPod out of the glove compartment to change tracks and it's hot, really hot...and it smells. It's burning. shit. I pull the case off and there is a melted circular mark on the iPod on the right side of the click wheel that's about a centimeter in size.
The first thing that goes through my head is "Best Buy is going to pay for this". Then reality hits, they aren't going to do jack, they are going to say that they aren't responsible for this, they can take the equipment out of the car and refund the money for that, but that's all, blah blah blah. Oh, the iPod still worked though, this is worth noting for later. I tell my Fiancee what happened, and call a few friends, they all agree...I'm screwed. Dammit. I knew I was but that wasn't going to stop me from going to Best Buy completely prepared to make the biggest scene of my life it I had to.
I get to the store with the iSimple box and my iPod in hand. I head over to Customer Service and explain what happened. The woman running the register realized immediately that this is out of her hands and calls over a manager. I explain it to him, he looks at the iPod, and another manager does as well, and asks several questions. Basic ones such as "when did you get it installed, blah blah. He also asks if I bought the iPod there, and that's the only thing I lied about, which I said it was a gift so I'm not sure where it came from. I can't very well say "no I won it out of a machine" can I? lol. Anyway, eventually he says that there is no way this equipment could have done this to my iPod. I explain that I've charged this through USB, wall adapter and my iHome hundreds of times, and in the matter of a few hours my iPod melts while on the equipment your employees installed and that they should have regulated the amount of power going to the iPod. He says they've installed hundreds and this has never happened, I say it must be a defective unit, he briefly mentions that if it's defective than Peripheral would be responsible for my iPod, not Best Buy. As soon as he says that though he tells me to hold on and he'll see what he can do.
5, 10, 15 minutes pass...I'm anxious...worried...what's going to happen? I know for a fact that they are going to come back and say "sorry, screw you, call Peripheral." I mean, this is Best Buy, they are known for this crap.
He comes back with a piece of paper and says "ok, here's what we can do. We don't sell this particular iPod anymore, but the last price we sold it at was 229.99. The equivalent we have in stock is the 80GB iPod Classic, which is 249.99. We can give you 229.99 in credit but you'd have to pay the difference." Shocking. Either way, I ask if he can swap it out even since I wouldn't have to put any money into it if this didn't happen, and he said that he couldn't and it's the best they will allow. I figure that I may as well take it, because it's MUCH more than I expected. He tells me he wants me to take my car back to installation and have them check for frayed wires or anything before I get the new one. So I agree.
I pull my car through the store and I take a left at the DVD cases...no seriously...I pull my car around back and the installer comes out to look at it. He initially has an attitude of "there's nothing wrong but I'm going to humor you anyway", which irks me, but he hooks my burned iPod up and it does play fine. He wiggles the wire stupidly and it gives off a little static. He mentions trying his iPod on it, but doesn't, and then he eventually says "I guess it's fine". I say that the static isn't normal, and that he should get his iPod out and try it. He does, hooks it up in my car, and it plays fine but when he wiggles the cord it gives off static still. He lets the cord hang loose, says it's fine, and tells me to go back up front and get the new iPod and try again.
I head back up front and the manager meets me, he says that he had an open box 80GB iPod Classic and that it was new, just opened, and he was going to swap me out even. Score! I do that and then he says he wants to install a new cord in my car since there was some static, and to refrain from hooking the iPod up until they do that, which they'd be getting some in stock in a few days. No biggie, but I did mention to him that I wanted to go back to installation because I noticed that the mounting brackets weren't in my iSimple box and that I'd like to get them. He agrees, and I do.
Well, I get back there, and the guy says "I'm going to set you up for a brand new install, that unit of your is defective, I just checked my iPod and it's fried too." Ha! Told you I wasn't lying! So he sets me up for a new install later that day. I leave it, they have it for a couple hours, and then he calls me back and says "Hey, we're going to have to take this out, the new unit fried another ipod, but we're going to give you a full refund".
And that's that, I get a full refund. It kinda sucks because I really wanted this in my car. Now I'm back to the tape deck adapter, may sound kinda rough, but hey, I turned my free 30GB iPod Video into a 80GB iPod Classic! Also, I do have a new found respect for my Best Buy, they may have dicked me over in the past, but they handled this one very well.
Also, sorry for the long read, but I felt it was worth telling this story.
I got a new car a few months ago, a 2002 Camry, an upgrade from my shitty 1997 Mustang that was on it's last leg. I used my iPod religiously in my car, I had it running through a couple auxiliary jacks on the back my CD player. When I got my new car I decided I wanted to keep the factory stereo in it, it's a 6 disc in-dash CD changer, and I'm just not big on the whole "flashy" thing anymore so this was great for me.
Well, I decided I needed something to hook my iPod to this stereo, because the cassette tape adapter just wasn't cutting it. I went to a few stereo places around town and they all recommended the iSimple by Peripheral:
http://www.amazon.com/Peripheral-iS...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1205303007&sr=8-1
It was a simple box that had one end plugging into your factory stereo and one end into the bottom of your iPod. It charges it and gives you simple crystal clear sound and you can control it through your factory stereo. PERFECT!
Now, before I continue, it's worth noting that my iPod was a black 30GB iPod Video. I won it off a few tries on the "Flamin' Finger" redemption game by Namco at a local arcade. That's all, back to the story...
So every place I check tells me 180-200 installed. Eh, that's a lot, but I check Best Buy and they tell me 161.00 installed...reasonable...I opt for that. *cue classic rock montage background music* I make an appointment, pay for it, take my car over, leave it, come back, installer shows me how it works, head home. *end montage*
Now, I get home for the night, leave my iPod in the glove compartment locked since I don't have a reason to take it out anymore. I wake up in the morning and I get ready to head out, get to the car, pull the iPod out of the glove compartment to change tracks and it's hot, really hot...and it smells. It's burning. shit. I pull the case off and there is a melted circular mark on the iPod on the right side of the click wheel that's about a centimeter in size.
The first thing that goes through my head is "Best Buy is going to pay for this". Then reality hits, they aren't going to do jack, they are going to say that they aren't responsible for this, they can take the equipment out of the car and refund the money for that, but that's all, blah blah blah. Oh, the iPod still worked though, this is worth noting for later. I tell my Fiancee what happened, and call a few friends, they all agree...I'm screwed. Dammit. I knew I was but that wasn't going to stop me from going to Best Buy completely prepared to make the biggest scene of my life it I had to.
I get to the store with the iSimple box and my iPod in hand. I head over to Customer Service and explain what happened. The woman running the register realized immediately that this is out of her hands and calls over a manager. I explain it to him, he looks at the iPod, and another manager does as well, and asks several questions. Basic ones such as "when did you get it installed, blah blah. He also asks if I bought the iPod there, and that's the only thing I lied about, which I said it was a gift so I'm not sure where it came from. I can't very well say "no I won it out of a machine" can I? lol. Anyway, eventually he says that there is no way this equipment could have done this to my iPod. I explain that I've charged this through USB, wall adapter and my iHome hundreds of times, and in the matter of a few hours my iPod melts while on the equipment your employees installed and that they should have regulated the amount of power going to the iPod. He says they've installed hundreds and this has never happened, I say it must be a defective unit, he briefly mentions that if it's defective than Peripheral would be responsible for my iPod, not Best Buy. As soon as he says that though he tells me to hold on and he'll see what he can do.
5, 10, 15 minutes pass...I'm anxious...worried...what's going to happen? I know for a fact that they are going to come back and say "sorry, screw you, call Peripheral." I mean, this is Best Buy, they are known for this crap.
He comes back with a piece of paper and says "ok, here's what we can do. We don't sell this particular iPod anymore, but the last price we sold it at was 229.99. The equivalent we have in stock is the 80GB iPod Classic, which is 249.99. We can give you 229.99 in credit but you'd have to pay the difference." Shocking. Either way, I ask if he can swap it out even since I wouldn't have to put any money into it if this didn't happen, and he said that he couldn't and it's the best they will allow. I figure that I may as well take it, because it's MUCH more than I expected. He tells me he wants me to take my car back to installation and have them check for frayed wires or anything before I get the new one. So I agree.
I pull my car through the store and I take a left at the DVD cases...no seriously...I pull my car around back and the installer comes out to look at it. He initially has an attitude of "there's nothing wrong but I'm going to humor you anyway", which irks me, but he hooks my burned iPod up and it does play fine. He wiggles the wire stupidly and it gives off a little static. He mentions trying his iPod on it, but doesn't, and then he eventually says "I guess it's fine". I say that the static isn't normal, and that he should get his iPod out and try it. He does, hooks it up in my car, and it plays fine but when he wiggles the cord it gives off static still. He lets the cord hang loose, says it's fine, and tells me to go back up front and get the new iPod and try again.
I head back up front and the manager meets me, he says that he had an open box 80GB iPod Classic and that it was new, just opened, and he was going to swap me out even. Score! I do that and then he says he wants to install a new cord in my car since there was some static, and to refrain from hooking the iPod up until they do that, which they'd be getting some in stock in a few days. No biggie, but I did mention to him that I wanted to go back to installation because I noticed that the mounting brackets weren't in my iSimple box and that I'd like to get them. He agrees, and I do.
Well, I get back there, and the guy says "I'm going to set you up for a brand new install, that unit of your is defective, I just checked my iPod and it's fried too." Ha! Told you I wasn't lying! So he sets me up for a new install later that day. I leave it, they have it for a couple hours, and then he calls me back and says "Hey, we're going to have to take this out, the new unit fried another ipod, but we're going to give you a full refund".
And that's that, I get a full refund. It kinda sucks because I really wanted this in my car. Now I'm back to the tape deck adapter, may sound kinda rough, but hey, I turned my free 30GB iPod Video into a 80GB iPod Classic! Also, I do have a new found respect for my Best Buy, they may have dicked me over in the past, but they handled this one very well.
Also, sorry for the long read, but I felt it was worth telling this story.
for Best Buy. I have had nothing but good to better than average dealings with Best Buy (3 different stores). It's my electronics retailer of choice.
