Here is the letter I am mailing tomorrow to the corporate office. I will not hesitate to share my experience with everyone humanly possible if I do not hear back from someone. I have removed my personal information.
Best Buy Corporate Customer Care
Attention: Complaints Department
P.O. Box 9312
Minneapolis, MN 55440
Dear Best Buy Representative:
I am writing to you today to express my utter disappointment and embarrassment with an event that transpired tonight on August 24, 2011 at store number 1059 (10134 W. Happy Valley Rd. Peoria AZ 85383).
First of all, I have been a loyal customer to Best Buy ever since I was old enough to drive there myself. I currently have a Best Buy Credit card that has never once had a missed payment. I have also been a Premier Silver Reward Zone member for the last three consecutive years and have easily spent over $10,000 in the last four years. Recently, I have purchased a 65” TV, a 47” TV, two PlayStation 3’s, five total notebook computers, hundreds of DVD’s and Blu-Rays, and many more products. Until today, I have been very satisfied with not only the customer service, but also the products.
At around 7:00pm I went into the above mentioned store with my fiancé to purchase a new video camera for our upcoming wedding and honeymoon. We just received $410 in gift cards recently from purchasing furniture at Mor Furniture as a promotion. I have been waiting for weeks and have spent a long time researching cameras online and decided to go with the Sony Handycam HDR-CX160, so I knew exactly what we wanted when I got the store. A sales associate quickly assisted me, got the camera out of the storage room and I picked out a case and went to the checkout where we purchased the two items for a total sale of $513.84. About 10 minutes later we were home and, excited to play with our new camera; I went straight for the package and opened it. To my disbelief, there was no camera in the box. I told my fiancé this, who at first did not believe that I was telling the truth. Her next statement was, “Oh no! Best Buy is not going to believe us!” To which I replied, “No way, they will see we just bought this 10 minutes ago and exchange it out.”
At around 7:30pm we got back to the store and proceeded to the returns desk. We told the young lady at the desk what had occurred to which she replied, “What? Wow that sucks! Uhh, let me call someone to help because I don’t know what to say.” She proceeded to frantically call for help on her radio and finally called for the store manager, Pearl. She briefly described our problem on the radio and we waited about 15 minutes for Pearl to come to where we were. In the meantime, another associate came over named Tiffany who asked us more about what happened and said we need to wait for Pearl. The whole time, there were the three associates talking to each other saying things like, “Wow, how could this happen? There is no way an employee could do this. I can’t believe people do this kind of thing.” I eventually had to say, “I hope you are not insinuating that we purposely stole this camera?” One of the girls replied, “Oh no, I am not saying that.” Finally, Pearl came to the counter and looked at the package and looked at us and said, “There is nothing I can do tonight. I will have to talk with my loss prevention manager tomorrow to decide what we can do.” Upset at this point, we said there was no way this could be happening and asked her if this could be the floor model box, or if it could be another camera that was out. She replied that “there was no possible way this could happen since the floor model boxes are destroyed and everything is marked as being an open box and a floor model not for sale.” She went on to say that “this box had a “spider” security protector on it so there is no way someone else could have taken this camera out. The boxes are usually heavy when there is a camera in it and my employee did not notice that it was this light when they sold it.” Even more upset at this point that we were being accused of stealing the camera; she said “You have to look at it from our point of view; there was a security piece on it and a seal that needs to be opened to get the camera, there is just nothing I can do tonight. I work until 5pm tomorrow and I will call you sometime to tell you what we will do.” We asked several more times if it could be the display camera, or a camera that was for sale “as is.” She only continued to say there was nothing that could be done tonight. Thoroughly embarrassed that Pearl accused me of stealing this camera in front of now four other employees, I left the store with my fiancé who was in tears over the situation. When we got home, I explained what happened to my roommate who was furious and went back up to Best Buy with the UPC and Serial number of the camera.
When he got to the store, he talked to Pearl and convinced her to remove the floor model camera so they could see the serial number. Lo and behold, the floor model camera’s serial number matched up to the box that I purchased. She told him that she had to make a few phone calls and asked if I could come back into the store with the box and receipt.
When I get to the store, the same associates laughed as I walk in. It takes them ten minutes to approach me and ask for the box to confirm the serial number, which in fact was the same. It took another five to ten minutes for Tiffany to come out from the back and say, “I will be right back, I am going to get you another camera.” It took another five minutes or so for Tiffany to get the camera and Pearl to come up to the desk. Pearl finally said she was sorry and that “she never thought to check the serial number as it never crossed her mind.” I thought to myself, you are a manager of an electronics store full of items with individual’s serial numbers. Serial numbers that your employees check with a magnifying glass when customers try to return them, so how did you not know to check even when we asked you to? We finally left the store 8:55pm, which was almost two hours after we initially entered the store.
I have never once broken a law in my life. I have excellent credit, work hard to purchase the things that I like, and I felt utterly embarrassed by your employees for accusing me of stealing the camera I just purchased. Not only were they unprofessional, but they never even gave me the benefit of the doubt and tried to answer my questions or solve the problem while I was in the store. I can understand that your company fights theft on a daily basis, but your employees, especially your managers, cannot assume right off the bat that everyone is trying to steal from them. I would like to hear from someone with your company with an actual explanation as to how this happened and to know if this is how you treat your employees in this situation as I am sure I cannot be the only one.
Dorothy-BBY
Private Message
