Ok here goes .. my saga with the worst customer service experience till date ..
Is there something worse than worst??? I would have used that to describe my experience with best buy customerserviuce.
So why I am posting here now? I have some threads in this forum and noticed that there really seems to be some caring people who do seem to have the customer's best interst and resolving their issues. So I really hope that one of those kind hearted people will see this posting, help me out and I do not have to go through another one of loooooooong CS calls with best buy or try to see if BBB would be able to resolve this for me.
The whole story starts with me placing an order for 3 items during the thanksgiving and cyber monday sale. I purchased a vaccuum cleaner (store pickup), a camera (shipped) and a maytag dishwasher (store pickup). The reason I opted for the store pickup for the Maytag was to save on the delivery charges and also to get the item as soon as possible. While placing the order, I was asked to select the store and I entered my pin code and it showed the item is avaiable in all the stores that it listed. I was happy and I selected the nearest one. The web page submitted and came back saying that its not available. Ok, maybe some glich in the web site logic. So I select the next one. Again the same reply and I keep trying till all the stores in a 100 mile radius came back with the same answer. If you try it even today, it does the same thing. So why not just say that the item is not available instead of me having to try and select an "available" store before it comes back saying its not available.
Anyway, I finally manage to get hold of a warehouse where it said the item is available. So I select it and pay for the order. This is on the 28th of Nov.
I get a mail 2 days later that the item is not available. So now the sales are all done and the item has gone back to its original price in all the stores. So I call the customer service and thought of checking what optios do I have and thought of waiting for the item even if its avaialable after 10-15 days. So I call and wait for 35 minutes and heard all the adv that the automated machine had time and time again. Finally I was fed up and thought of sending a mail. So I log on to bestbuy.com and send a mail. I immediately get an automated response. I thought someone will call me soon. But no one calls or answers to my email. In the meantime, I again try calliing and am put on a hold for more than 20 minutes and I hang up again.
I think it was on the 1st of December that I finally decided to call and keep waiting till I get hold of someone. I wait for again around 25 minutes because I get someone online. As I am veryfying my details, the phone disconnects .. But I was determined and so I try again and again wait for around 30 minutes. I request the person whether she can take my phone number and call me back if the line disconnects again. She refuses as its against the policies. I understand and I tell her the story of the order.
She says as the item is not availaaed. I try explaiing to her that if the item was not available, why they allow me to place the order? If they had told me at that time that the item is not available, I could have just gone to lowes or homedepot and placed the order there. Now if I do not that I have to pay another $200 for the same item as the sale has all ended. After going back and forth for around 20+ minutes and putting on hold for another 10 minutes she finally agrees not to cancel the order. She says that within 7 days the item would be available, I will get another mail wherein I can confirm the order.
So I now wait ..
Just to be on the safe side, I write down all this into an email to bestbuy and posted it on bestbuy.com and requested to whoever read this request to confirm what I have been told by the prevoius customer service. Again, I get no reply .. Maybe these mails are not monitored and just there to fool the customers...
On the 4th when I check my mails. I get a mail that ther order could not processed because my credit card company refused to make the payment. Now I see there was another similar mail send on the 3rd too. So I call up customer service again. And you guessed it right, another wait of around 30 minutes. Finally I get through and the this CS was very helpful or at least seemed to know what is happening. she said that there seems to be some mistake at their end and that my credit card had been charged twice and she will send an intimation to the "another department" which handles these transactions to remove these "authorizations" from my order. I asked her why a charge was made to my card after so many days. She expalined that the initil amount was just a hold and this might have been to process the order for the dishwasher.
Note that I had created an online card just for this order and the limit was set to 100 dollars above the total cost of the order. I explained that to her too. She said not to worry and that everything is taken care of and I should be getting an email to pick up the order soon and I am happy.
Today, I suddenly see another email which says my order has been cancelled??? what?? after all this? cancelled???? I was really frustrated and dread having to call customer service again .. But what to do?
So I call again .. after waiting for 40 minutes, I finally get through to a very talkative CS who will go in lengths to describe things I already know and refuses to understand what I am trying to tell him. Maybe my tone was also not right to which I apologised at the end of the call, but I was really getting frustrated with all of this. He first started by explaiing the order is cancelled because credit card company refused my charge and there is notthing BB can do and I should take it up with my bank. I try to explain again and again how credit card transactions work. I tell him when order is placed, the amount is put on hold which means that that amount is promised to BB by the bank. When you authorise later, BB just ask for the money that is on hold. He initially did not seem to understand or at least kept repeating that I need to go to the bank. We went back and forth and he finally accepted that an amount on hold should not be refused and he said he is confused why it was refused. I exaplin the whole story and the previous calls and how the order was placed using a online card, etc. But he says there is nothing he can do now as the order is cancelled and he can help me place the order again.
I agree and now the catch. Now I have to pay the "new" amount for the same item. What???? yes, now I have pay $300 more for the same item and there is nothing he can do about it. He said he could escalate it "another department" that will take care of the issue and they have the authority to review the order and give me the item in the old price. As I have no other option, I agree and he gives me a case number. This is the first time I get a case number for a CS call and he was surprised that I did not get one for my previous calls. He also says he cannot see some of the details from my previous calls like the, 2 request to remove 2 "authorizations" from my order ..
Anway, its a long story on what I had to go through as I explained to him what happend. He now says that I have to wait another 3-10 days (because of holidays) to get a call from BB and if I do not get a call in 10 days, call back. With my experience with BB, I have to say, I will not get any calls from CS and I will have to call after 10 days and try and explain all this story to a completely new CS who I might get hold of after waiting for 30+ minutes ..
What I still cannot understand is whether BB is so understafffed that they cannot even respond to calls in a reasonable amount of time? Don't they keep records of the calls we make to them? Why do you have a policy to by default cancel order when item is not available and do not give an option to wait for it? Is to bait the customer to buy an item at a low price, then say the item is not available in that price and then sell it in a new higher price? Is this all to discourage a customer from coming back to BB for any future purchases? Don't you want our business? I have already spend 5+ hours on this single order .. isn't this a waste of time and money for BOTH of us????
