BestBuy.Com

[geeeshes]

We were buying this as a Christmas Present for our youngest daugter. Paying with a Best Buy GC and a Prepaid Visa Card.

Nov 26 Order placed by telephone for (1) Compaq-Mini Netbook with Intel® Atom™ Processor-110c-1100DX. Email recieved for Order Confirmation within a couple of hrs.

Nov 26 couple of hrs later 2nd email recieved stating that the item was not yet available to be shipped. We expect to ship it within the next 1-2 weeks. We will ship the item sooner if it becomes available. (Backordered) also stated in email,

If we do not hear from you before we ship your item, we will assume that you accept this delay.
, So my wife and myself did not respond as we had just placed order and were informed that it would ship within the time mentioned.

Dec 1. Another email updating order. Item still not available for shipping will notify when item becomes available. Apologies and no response from us again meant, 'we will assume you accept this delay. We did and decided to wait.

Dec 3. Email recieved stating 'Billing Problem Encountered - Action Required'. We need to hear from you before we can process your order any further. Also stated 'If you do not contact us and we are unsuccessful in processing your billing information, your order will be cancelled'.

Dec 4 Called Best Buy to find out what the problem was as they already had the funds from the prepaid visa pre authorised and we had paid with a best buy gc.  I believe we sat on the telephone for a lengthy period of time to be told our method of payment was not processing that our Credit Card(prepaid visa) did not have the funds on it. At this time Best Buy had a holding on the original payment  this pre authorisation would hold the funds for up to 21 days at a time, Best Buy telephone Operator told us.The Pre Authorisation of the funds being held was able to be seen on our Prepaid Visa Statement online.

Dec 5

Called Prepaid Visa and asked if they could take the hold of the card and explained to them what was happening.

They told us to get Best Buy on a letterhead to explain they were cancelling the original purchase, So the funds would be returned back to the card and then Best Buy would be able to re authorize the purchase amount. Credit Card Co. charged us for telephone service. Otherwise we could call and get them to do a return back to the card after 14 Bussiness days.

Dec 5 or 6 Called Best Buy and told them what the Prepaid Visa Company had told us about relasing the funds back to the card. Each time having to give all the details about what was happening and when asking if they had just wanted the number the last person we spoke with had given us it didn't seem to matter each time we had to explain everything all over again. They asked us several times if we had another form of payment another credit card. We explained it was a Pre Paid Visa and that we had only funded the card to be able to make this purchase, They told us they would speak with someone in the Credit Dept to see if they could run the Prepaid Credit Card again.  When they returned to the call after placing me on hold. They told me I would recieve an email from their Credit Dept within 24 hours to let me know what they would be able to do. At the same time checked on status of backorder and told they were still expecting to be able to deliver before Christmas.

Dec  7, after 24 hours had passed and no email from Credit Dept. Called concerned about order being cancelled for us not having another credit card, to ask if the Credit Dept was going to use the same Prepaid Visa and was told that it appeared they were going to. Also asked again about backorder status and told it would be about Dec 19 they were expecting them in and that if we had chosen shipping, it would take a day or two.

About now starting to get concerned we would not recieve the item before Christmas,

Dec 8. email recieved. Product out of stock.  As a replacement we are offering you another item (from a choice of 3)offered at the same price. No additional charges will be made. Please have previous order number available. We choose another item and called them.  My wife called and this time and explained everything again and told them about the email and the offering it had and which she would like to choose to replace the original order, she was then told she would need the Best Buy giftcard so that they could put the funds back onto the card. They couldn't return the funds to the giftcard without her giving them the giftcard number.

We had it put away and were unable to find it. Telephone call ended for that  night. Off to search for the Gift Card.

Dec 14, After having wait for the 14 Bussiness days (counting the days till we could place the 2nd order)  for me to be able to get the funds to be released back to our Pre paid Visa I called Best Buy and explained everything all over again, This time armed with Best Buy GiftCard(lucky we didn't throw it away), Prepaid Visa and Previous Order Number. They cancelled the first order totally an placed the new order for one of the 3 replacement products offered at the same price for the original item.

Then they told me I didn't need the Best Buy GiftCard. But the night before hand they had told my wife they couldn't return the funds to it without her having the card. Paid with Best Buy GC and prepaid Visa  (that we had to wait 14 days to have the funds returned to the card by us) That was another phone call to the Pre paid Visa and another charge to us, just to get our funds released back to the card to again make a purchase over the telephone with Best Buy.

Dec 14  (3.46pm) email recieved, order confirmation, store pick up, no way would were we counting on it being shipped before Christmas. Also tells us to wait to recieve the 'store pick up notification email'.  This email is suppose to confirm the store has your item in stock and available for pick up and average time wait for this email is 45 minutes.

Dec 14  (8.31pm) .

we recieved the store pick up notification email.

Dec 14  Left to go pick it up, 2 hour trip.

Dec 14 Arrived at store collected item and asked about geek squad protection we had originally purchased with the first item and then contined with the 2 item. and told we would have to come back tomorrow to see the manager. That they couldn't activate it.

2 Hour trip everything is almost over and then we hear we have to drive another 2 hours again to get the order completed.

After we got home I had recieved another email with all the details about the protection plan we had purchased.

It started as a usual online purchase and turned into everything but. I do not recommend Best Buy anymore. Instead I tell them about my experience.

This was from Dec 2009, last christmas. I recieved the email for the 'how was your experience" in Dec and I'm replying  now, in April.

[User28844]

Why would you shop at Best Buy anyway?  There are a lot of better online stores like a certain store named after a certain jungle in S. America. 

If you haven't read about the complaints and lack of response, that should have convince you to shop somewhere else. 

I'm still waiting for a response on where my figurine is.  I tried email, and that wasn't a satisfactory response.  I didn't one, but somehow magically, a Best Buy employee was able to pull a figurine out of her behind to replace a damaged figurine. 

If you're a reward zone member, what you should do is buy stuff from other stores that Best Buy sells and then email them the receipt to show what Best Buy is missing.  I spent thousands of dollars last year, and this is the kind of treatment that I get, so from now on, everytime I buy a game, TV, camera, etc, I'll be sure to forward the receipt to Best Buy to tell what kind of stuff I would have bought if they treated me better.

[Dorothy-BBY Community Supervisor]

Good afternoon geeeshes -

I have asked Jacob, from our Community Connector team, to reach out to you regarding your concern.  Thank you for your patience.

I would also like to respond to Gamestoprules.  You reference an occasion where I was able to ensure a customer recieved a replacement figurine.  You need to understand, that my response was written over two months ago, and while I was at that time able to work with our Reward Zone partners to send a replacement figurine to that particular customer, I am not sure what type of supply still exists.  I do see that Kyle is going to work on your behalf to try to find an acceptable solution. 

Thank you!

[starhelper2587]

Dorothy - I pointed that out already but he/she just disregarded the fact that the referenced thread was from February.

[Jacob-BBY Community Web Planner]

geeeshes,

Thanks for letting me know about the troubles you had with your BestBuy.com order and the prepaid card you used to fund it.  I was very disappointed to hear how this experience did not go as planned for you.  I will make sure all of your feedback gets to the right people.

I want to respond to the payment problems that caused such an enormous amount of frustration with your first order.  When an order is placed, an authorization is made against that card.  The bank responds with approval or denial information.  When approved, they provide us with an expiration date for when the authorization will fall off.  This is where the problem started.  For some reason, the date they gave us was earlier than the date they actually held the authorization for.  So, when the authorization expiration date/time came around, we submitted a new authorization because the order had not shipped yet and we needed to maintain order funding.  That authorization came back as declined.  Probably because the old hold was still there, resulting in insufficient funds.

The only other time I have seen this problem occur was with a prepaid card as well.  It is normal for these types of cards to have longer authorization holds, sometimes 21 to 30 days.  Whereas normal credit cards and bank cards usually have a seven day hold.  Occasionally, most likely in error, the prepaid card reports an incorrect expiration date to the merchant.  This would not have been a problem if the order shipped within the original authorization time frame.  Once an order ships we submit the charge and no further authorizations happen.

The way authorizations work is completely industry standard.  So, no matter who your initial order was with, this could have happened with them as well.  It is unfortunate that it did happen, and I will make sure our management team is aware incase it is something on their radar that may need to be escalated to Visa to prevent it from happening again.

If you need anything further, do not hesitate to let me know!