Best Buy Bashing

INFO TECHNOLOGY: A post over at Engadget has turned into a bona fide Best Buy Hate-Fest. The comments are an entertaining and informative (if anecdotal) read.

* I get the feeling they systematically ignore a certain percentage of the rebates.



* They kicked me out of a Best Buy last fall for trying to purchase 3 telephones at the same time. They accused me of being a reseller.



* these guys are arseholes. i bought a laptop there last year, the guy said it had usb 2.0 and build in wireless. guess which of the two it had? if you guessed usb 2.0, or wireless, youre wrong!



* I bought both Apex and Morrowind at Best Buy, and had to return bpth. They were scratched to the point that they wouldnt play, and the map that comes with Morrowind had what looked like a coffee stain on it...



* i absolutely REFUSE to buy a computer from best buy. a) they are all teenagers who don't have a clue b) they just want your money c) things are better in threes.



* has anyone else noticed everyone has jacked up the prices of dvds?!!



* It was worse enough being asked 3 times if I wanted to buy a $50 warrenty for a $40 printer, but now I'm constantly hassled with "help" that I don't need and surveys that I don't want to take.

And here's the most interesting post (even if it's completely unverifiable):

As a former employee of the computer department of a Best Buy in Toronto I can say with certainty that their open box products are not of high quality. I would frequently catch my seniors and supervisors throwing products in boxes missing cables and manuals, discounting 5-10% off and still claiming that it was the exact same as a new product, only returned. Aside from that, if we were out of stock on a new item we would sell the open box item for the price of the new item.



As far as extended warranties, if you were sales staff and not constantly selling them you would get fired. Warranties are the huge profit that they make (aside from technical services). On their sales charts, they even have separate columns for percentage of service plan of the total sales. During meetings and throughout the day, low-level sales associates were constantly harangued about pushing more PSP to "boost the numbers".

Comments

[Anonymous]

An old boss of mine is now a department or store manager at best buy and the warranty part from that dude in toronto is right on. They have such a low margin on hardware and software that if they put the screws to you for the "extended warranty" plan. Which is totally whack, if you take back a broken whatever under that warranty, they accuse you of intentionally breaking it to get a new one. It's insane.

-adam

[Anonymous]

An old boss of mine is now a department or store manager at best buy and the warranty part from that dude in toronto is right on. They have such a low margin on hardware and software that if they put the screws to you for the "extended warranty" plan. Which is totally whack, if you take back a broken whatever under that warranty, they accuse you of intentionally breaking it to get a new one. It's insane.

-adam

[Anonymous]

An old boss of mine is now a department or store manager at best buy and the warranty part from that dude in toronto is right on. They have such a low margin on hardware and software that if they put the screws to you for the "extended warranty" plan. Which is totally whack, if you take back a broken whatever under that warranty, they accuse you of intentionally breaking it to get a new one. It's insane.

-adam

[Anonymous]

An old boss of mine is now a department or store manager at best buy and the warranty part from that dude in toronto is right on. They have such a low margin on hardware and software that if they put the screws to you for the "extended warranty" plan. Which is totally whack, if you take back a broken whatever under that warranty, they accuse you of intentionally breaking it to get a new one. It's insane.

-adam