BestBuy.Com

[Disgusted23]

This has been the worst online ordering experience of my life. 12/26/2011 I decided to upgrade my phone from AT&T through bestbuy.com because I had received quite a few best buy gift cards for Christmas and they had the Samsung galaxy S II Skyrocket in white available but only online. So with my upgrade intact I proceeded to order the phone I was not somewhere I could write my order number down so I figured I would just get it from the confirmation email like on any other occasion (big mistake). I never received my order confirmation email and the next day I checked my bestbuy.com account no order to be found. But all of the balances on my gift cards were gone as well as the charge for the rest of the balance I had placed on my debit card were on hold. Also my upgrade eligibility for my AT&T account was no longer available.

So I call customer service in the beginning I tell my story to one person in the ordering area they transfer me to the mobile department and I speak with a woman named Lorrie. She try's with all of her might to find my order thank god I had not thrown away my gift cards because they probably would have just taken my money and not looked back. Lorrie bless her heart could not understand where my order went nor could she find it. So she takes all of my information and talks to her supervisor about my case. The supervisor does not bother to get on the phone to try and explain anything to me and just tells her to tell me that all of my cards and money should be refunded in about 5 days. What kind of customer service is this. I not once got loud of belligerent, loud or obnoxious with these people because it is not their faults the ordering database sucks beyond belief I made a joke with her that they should hire me to fix it. But after dealing with this crazieness I could never work for bestbuy.com.

So I wait 5 days nothing has been returned to my cards and the card is still on hold with my bank I wasn't worried about that because I knew I could get the money from my bank back it was the gift cards I was worried about and the upgrade eligibility being placed back on my account that no one could give me a straight answer about. So I call back and I tell them I need to speak to mobile because this is where I was directed the first time I give them my case # that lorrie had giving me and the rep I was speaking with then asks me what was the problem like they do not have that information right in front of them. So I explain it all over again to this rep and she says I'm going to put you on hold and transfer you to card care or something of that nature. So I'm transferred to Jon again he has no idea why I am calling because when they transfer you in best buy customer service they don't tell the person they are transferring you to what your problem is they just make you explain it over and over again. Once again I have been nothing but pleasant to these people because I just want my money and my upgrade statues back and an answer to where the world my order went. I explain all of this to jon and he pulls up the case lorrie made for me I presume and has all of the gift card numbers in and tells me he will make sure the balances are returned to my cards. I ask him about my upgrade and he states he needs to transfer me back to mobile. I am beyond unhappy at this point, but I call in again explain the situation to a rep that could quite possibly have been high because I had to spell my name 4 times for him tell him my phone number 3 times explain this situation twice and then he says oh I am going to transfer you to card services mind you I had already told him that I was transferred from card care back to them. He did not care one bit when I repeated that to them he just told me to hold. What choice did I have I held then the jerk hung up on me.

Sufficiently ticked off at this point I call back and still did not go off on anyone I asked for the mobile department explained to yet another rep the situation and then she tells me she is going to transfer me to card services. I told her the last rep that just tried that hung up on me and I just need someone to fix this problem card services has already done what they can do I guess. So she tells me that she will talk to them and if they can't do anything for me then she will transfer me to the "back office" for help and stay on the line until someone can figure out what is going on with my issues. So I get on with Katherine in the "back office" I tell her my story and she explains to me that my order must have ghosted out of the system it happens sometimes. Come on bestbuy.com you have got to do better than this. Well at least now I have an understanding of what the problem is and she explained that she would call AT&T and make sure they put my eligibility upgrade back on my account and offered me a gift card for my troubles as an apology and even stated that I didn't have to use it to shop with bestbuy.com I could use it in the store after I stated my reservations about ordering with them online again.

So I call back today Friday January 06, 2012 order was placed on 12/26/2011 all of my money at this point has been refunded I just wanted to make sure they had called at&t and told the to give me my upgrade back and to see if they sent out my inconvenience gift card. Well long story short I ask mobile to transfer me to Katherine in the "back office" and she ask what it was pertaining I told her my upgrade status and my gift card and who I had spoken with. She put me on hold and spoke to Katherine herself who stated that she called at&t on Monday and my upgrade should be restored with them on 1/9/2012 and that she never said anything about a gift card. While Katherine did the one thing she said that I was calling for she needs to remember the things she tells people or listen to her own calls if she can't remember. I didn't ask for a gift card she offered one and now they are not fulfilling that promise either.

Horrible experience NEVER EVER EVER ORDER FROM BESTBUY.COM. Matter of fact I am thinking of just paying off my best buy card, using the gift cards I have and never shopping there again.

[Bagman]

I agree with you, It is tooo much hassle to shop at Best Buy!!

[Ryan-BBY Senior Social Media Specialist]

Hello Disgusted23 -

Jacob from our Social Media team, will be reaching out to you regarding your concern. Thank you for your continued patience!

[Shemarie]

Ohhhh how I wish I'd read this sooner. I too am dealing with them in a HUGE hassle and am terrified that I am going to be totally messed up and signed up for Verizon service but with no phones. I ordered to be picked up in store and with any other company that is so much more convenient. However, it was "available" online and I got my confirmation email. Then I got another one shortly after that stated it wasn't available and to call the 800#. Well, that appears to have been an even worse mistake. My order is apparently out in la la land and is going to stay "processing" for indefinitely. What makes it even more frustrating is that we were trying to take advantage of Verizon's double data promo. NOT INTERESTED otherwise and that's about to end!! NOT GOOD BEST BUY!!!!! People will hear about this. I am way to busy for this hassle!!!!!!!!!

[Jacob-BBY Community Web Planner]

Disgusted23,

Words can't really describe how aggravating it was to heard the complete lack of customer service you were given while interacting with our call centers regarding your attempted phone upgrade on BestBuy.com. I want you to know how sincerely sorry I am that the ghost order happened in the first place, let alone the terrible service you were given afterwards.

There are occasional issues with transferring an order from our website to our order fulfillment system. While it is extremely rare, it is unacceptable. Mostly because of the enormous inconvenience it causes after. It's also unacceptable because not all of our call center staff is properly prepared to handle the issue.

As you found out, the authorization is placed on any credit cards used on the website. While these cards will never get charged, it still ties up the funds you were planning on using. This is especially bad if the card is your bank account. However, since an authorization is just a bank hold, we have limited ability to "refund" them as there is actually nothing to refund. We have to follow manual process of contacting the bank(s) involved and requesting they remove the authorization prior to it's expiration date. The issue here is that every bank has a different process/policy on how to do that. So, we leave this difficult task only to our BestBuy.com Research Team.

The upgrade eligibility should have been resolved sooner as well. Our mobile team just has to place a call to their support team at the carrier to close out the pending order. Again, it should never take as long as it did for either of these tasks to be accomplished. Unfortunately for both of these teams, their backlog post-holiday was enormous.

I agree a gift card should have been offered hear and I am frustrated to hear that it was never accomplished. I have sent you a private message about this. To read it, please make sure you are logged in and then click the envelope icon in the upper right of the page.

I also wanted to inform you that our technical teams for BestBuy.com are very aware of the ghost order issue. They are working on preventing it from happening. I am constantly providing any new examples or feedback regarding the topic to try to make sure we get it 100% fixed. So, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to share this with me.

Regards,

[Disgusted23]

I would like to thank you for responding Jacob. I was as frustrated as you must have been reading this information. I love that you are taking the time to inform the customer service reps of this issue that way other will not have to experience what I did.

I agree that this issue should not have happened but it did and i am glad i could bring some light to it. Because it seemed as though no one other than Catherine had ever heard of this happening before. Again like I said before i wasn't looking for a handout but if a rep tells someone that they will get them a gift card for their inconvience they should follow through with it.

I am happy to know after reading your comments that your company monitorsthis site and responds to issues brought up. Thank you again I am bow completly satisfied with the outcome.