Crystalee wrote:
No one has said anything rude about you or questioned your motives or the fact whether you should be posting or not.
Actually, that's not true. If you read the posts above, you'll see that the very first post made in response to one of my original queries was: "Dear sir or madam, this is not the place for commentary/rants on Best Buy." That comment, from SlimJim77, certainly suggests that I should not be posting here if my 'concern' has to do with Best Buy in general.
Shortly thereafter, when I attempted to post a shorter version of my original post, CrimsonRain suggested I was here because I was 'attention hungry,' and SlimJim77 followed up with his comment 'Can you imagine this guy in person? There's no pleasing a 'customer' like this.' We all understand what SlimJim77 is saying about me in this case when he put the word 'customer' in quotation marks.
Even that wasn't enough for the 'Valued Contributors' here. In the same the rant where he tells us that 'The Customer is Always Right' is an antiquated axiom, CrimsonRain suggests, for example, that I do my reading about corporate earnings via 'The Onion' (certainly an attempt to suggest that I'm not too saavy when it comes to what I read) and makes any number of snarky comments designed to call both my intelligence and ability to think rationally into question.
And finally, when I eventually detailed what had happened to my phone when I returned it and pointed out that I was willing to bet that an item like that, returned as it was, would be easy to lose (and was very likely to end up 'lost' prior to Best Buy's next inventory at the relevant store), cr_client, another 'Valued Contributor,' posted that to even suggest such a thing 'was the mark of someone who wasn't thinking clearly or practicing good judgment.' And I'm not even bothering to mention such phrases as 'irrelevant drivel.'
Every one of those comments - all made by 'Valued Contributors' are either rude, or question my motives for posting here, or question whether I ought to be posting or not. You are right that you haven't done any of these things, and I never suggested that you did. But the vast majority of 'Valued Contributors' who posted here have done exactly what you said no one here has done. Anyone with two eyes and half a brain can see this.
So Crystalee, on this point, and as 'nolonger' points out, you are categorically incorrect.
But, in response to a post written by someone who said she'd bought a Black Tie Protection plan based on the representation of a Best Buy employee that the plan would cover total submersion and provide for the instant replacement of the device in question (only to learn that none of this was true), you did respond that this person really ought to have read the contract she was signing before signing it, and that because she didn't do this, she really have a right to complain when the *actual* terms and conditions of the Black Tie Protection plan became clear to her.
Incidentally, I have no doubt whatsoever that the employee misrepresented this program to the person who made that post because - and I'm not kidding - I *bought* a 'Black Tie Protection' plan less than a month ago and was told all of the same things (that it covered 'total submersion,' and that replacement of the phone would be 'instantaneous') by the employee who was making the pitch to *me,* and I live 1,000 miles from the person who originally made that post!
My guess: employees are under pressure to sell as many of these protection plans as possible and are willing to say almost anything to sell one. I question whether it's wise to put employees in a position where they feel the need to misrepresent programs like these in favor of simply 'ringing up sales' that amount to pure profit for Best Buy, but that's an entirely different issues . . .
Point is, Crystalee, as much as the other 'valued contributors' deserve to have been called out for the things they said about me personally (only some of which are noted above), you deserve to be called out for making a statement like that. Technically, you're right in what you say - the woman who made that post absolutely should've read the contract before she signed. But do you get that the reason this person didn't read the contract is because she TRUSTED Best Buy enough to believe what the employee told her the program would do, and the employee rewarded that trust by LYING to her in order to sell a protection plan that simply doesn't do what the employee represented that it would do.
I get that you and the other 'Valued Contributors' here care about Best Buy. That's fine. But you don't really inspire confidence in Best Buy customers when you use this public forum to defend indefensible (and reprensible) behavior (much less blame customers for Best Buy's employees' bad behavior) when that kind of behavior on Best Buy or its employees' parts is mentioned here.
If you don't want to be called out - and if you actually want to HELP Best Buy, then try occasionally looking at things from a customer's point of view. Instead of saying to that woman with the Black Tie plan issue "Well, that sucks for you. Guess you should've read the contract' (that's basically what you said, no matter how politely you said it), why not try something like "I'm sorry that happened to you. Any employee who would so blatently misrepresent a plan really shouldn't be working at Best Buy, and I'm sure someone here will move quickly to resolve your issue.'
Making statements like that when appropriate is what would give a 'Valued Contributor' here credibility - at least as far as I'm concerned. Otherwise, when you cheerlead for Best Buy no matter what happens, no matter how reprehensible the behavior of its employees, you 'mark' yourself as a 'plant' - someone that Best Buy has put here (whether you're 'affiliated' with Best Buy or not) to cheerlead for Best Buy and point out to customers that they, and not Best Buy, are the source of their problems.
That kind of behavior doesn't do much to inspire trust either, and not surprisingly, when people believe they can no longer trust a retailer, they stop shopping there. So for Best Buy, posts like yours are not part of the solution.
Like it or not, they're part of the problem.
Dorothy-BBY
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