A Best Buy Customer Service Story

Tweeting and Freaking Out about Best Buy

After almost 6 years of hard work, my HP laptop was old, outdated and becoming increasingly more useless, so after the holidays, with my husband’s prodding, we bit the bullet and took advantage of the post holiday sales and purchased a new CPU for myself. We stayed with HP as they have been “our brand” for years and we have that loyalty thing going on and for $449 I got what I needed and was very happy. Purchased on 12/27/08, I do wish I recall what the pre-sale price was exactly, but I recall it was a good sale and the unity would have been about $600 without the sale.

Best Buy’s Brand New Computer; Not so Swell

For about 5 months it served me well and then something started getting weird. The darn computer would decide to shut off and no matter what happened, when the power switch was hit again, NOTHING would happen. At first it was just sometimes, but then soon, it was more often than not. Sometimes it would take 20 minutes to power up, but mostly the monitor ( also new from Best Buy) would get no signal and the computer wouldn’t even sound like it was on. Now my husband is a pretty competent IT geek. We have another IT geek staying with us and I work with an office of major geeks; so we have a good working knowledge of what computers do when they are ill. I can tell you that the problem with my computer was NOT: • The motherboard having issues • The hard drive failing • The power supply failing • The fan not working, being dusty and causing the unit to overheat.

Require a Good Dependable Computer

Now I went and spent the cash because, for my job, I require a dependable machine. I frequently am online 18 hours a day between my position at DragonSearch and then my personal interactions and my writing on other blogs. The whole idea was to buy a new machine that would remove the daily frustrations I was facing with my laptop. So I was not thrilled when it became apparent that my less than 6 month old computer was having a major issue. After work on July 31st we brought my not yet 6 month old computer in to Best Buy for , what I hoped, would be a quick replacement. After all, if I knew it was inherently flawed, then these Geeks would too, right? Wrong. Because It has to go back to HP for repair as it is covered under their manufacture’s warrantee. They will not even try to see that it is a major system failure and a bigger problem than a not yet 6 month old computer should have. I am out of my most needed tool for at least two weeks.

Nope, I am not happy with Best Buy at all.

So we wait. To make a long story short, it went away, came back, was not fixed though Rye rode to the store to pick it up after we were told it was fixed, it got sent out again, and then from 8/24 on.. we just waited for quite some time. From about 9/1/09 on, we were calling the store every day and checking in. It seemed like a basic wrongdoing was happening becasue it was plain to see the computer was very broken and they should just give me a new one!.

I realized that Best Buy had my Computer for the WHOLE month of August!

Since HP had not update the Geeks Squad, they had “escalated” the case and were now awaiting a reply via Email from HP on the status. By 9/11, I essentially said to my handy Geek Guy:

“Ok, this is gone on long enough; what do you suggest I do next to make this happen.?”

He was very helpful and suggested that I call either the corporate offices for either BestBuy or the Geek Squad. I choose Best Buy and THAT conversation was good. The very nice fellow who’s name began with T and who was about to go on vacation, opened up a ticket and wahla!! By 9./12, they had deemed, in all their inherent wisdom, exactly what I had said 6 weeks earlier; my computer was dead and they wished to give me a new one. What they didn’t do was tell me this, though I was promised phone calls, until I thought to check into my email status and saw that they wanted new information from me. It was then that I called the store and got the good news. Friday, September 18, we went to make the exchange and the Best Buy customer computers were down, so I could not get the copy of the original receipt that I needed, though I had the Geek Squad official Death Certificate for my old/not old CPU.

We left Best Buy Without the Problem Solved

A very busy week later, we went back to Best Buy. This time I had hunted down my original receipt so I wouldn’t have to deal with the same issue. Again. After saying hello to last week’s Geek and Clerk, the new clerk was told what I needed and she began the paper processes. Now, I specifically asked if I would have to have the same model CPU, because I didn’t really want it again. I still wanted a HP machine and we had decided that we would use this opportunity to spend more money and upgrade me a bit. The told me I could get whatever I wanted after they finished the return/exchange paper work. It was at that point that a worker from the CPU department was called over to the machine that they WOULD give me for a straight exchange should I have wanted that. He returns with an E Machine. Oh No no no. It gets better. Not only did they think that anyone would accept an E machine in exchange for an HP no matter how equally comparable the stats were on it, they wanted to give me the credit for the PRICE of the Machine. I spent over $449.00 when I bought my computer.

Best Buy tried to give me credit for only $350.00!

I was very forthcoming and very clear and very factual when I told them that THAT was NOT acceptable AT ALL, and they WOULD be CREDITIGN me for the AMOUNT OF CASH I SPENT. End of story. They said they had to get the Best Buy store manager. So I said, “Good. Go get him.” And then I told him what he WOULD BE doing to make me happy. It took three employees about 15 minutes to figure it out while I waited.. then they told me to go ahead and pick out a new machine since I would have the full credit. There really was only one other machine that was close and an HP though I did have my eye on the next one up. That one cost over $800 and Rye said no, so I got the one for $550. All and all we spent an additional $108 on my computer alone and then we dropped almost 500 more on a whole Wii system for Tristan’s Birthday. I am very unhappy with a store and I still give them over Six Hundred Dollars. So the next morning, Rye goes to set the whole thing up and I hear a moan. The “new and better” CPU does not have wireless internet installed as my older one did.

I Immediately Call Best Buy's Customer Care

I start this all over again since I know THEY are the ones who get results and the store people were not going to do it for me. While I would have been most happy if given the $800 plus HP CPU that I had my eye on, I accepted that I would bring it back and they would put in a new wireless card for me. I do feel kind of sad that once that conclusion was reached they stopped promising me gift cards. Personally, I still feel rather screwed and put out and in great need of a gift card. In fact, looking back, I feel like I deserve it.

• $557 spent all told on a new CPU
• 6 months of files and programs: lost
• 6 trips to the physical store trying to buy it, fix it, return it, make it work
• Countless hours re-programming the new machine
• 2 lengthy phone calls to Best Buy Customer Care and quite a few with the store itself.
• Multitudes of checking emails for updates
• Endless frustration.

And for the record, we spent, for us HUGE amounts of cash at BestBuy. As in I do not allow Rye to go there alone since he goes nuts there.

We buy ALL our electronics from Best Buy and have for years:

• 1 Hp laptop:$1,500 • Two HP Printers: $600 • 3 Flat screen monitors: about $1,200 all together • 1 Flat screen TV: $400 and 1 huge flat screen bracket $200 • Three HP CPUS ( could be four!) aprox $2,300 • Full Wii set up: $500 • Plus Two Digital Cameras, DVD payers, wireless hook up things, power cords, countless video games ( Xbox, PS2, PS3, Wii, etc), ink cartridges, mouses, wireless keyboards, extra ram, movies, CDs, and a few air conditioners too! I mean, I would not hesitate to say that over the years Best Buy has be given around 10 thousand dollars of mine. They should do something for me..really. Heck, I am even giving Best Buy professional advice on how to correctly use Twitter. And so, I say:

Best Buy: You Owe Me!