BestBuy.Com

[joomla-r-us]

The story begins about 5 1/2 weeks ago when our 13 year old fridge broke. Looked around in local stores as well as online. Found a great deal on a Samsung fridge that we wanted on BestBuy.com. Were going to save $400-500 from what I could find elsewhere, but there was a 3 week delivery time. Managed to get my wife to go along with it even though we were going to be without fridge for 3 weeks.
3/21/2011 Ordered a Samsung RFG297AAWP fridge from BestBuy.com which was on sale for $1478+ tax and delivery = $1615 total. Scheduled delivery 4/12/2011

3/21/2011 Email from BestBuy confirming the order

3/21/2011 Email from BestBuy confirming delivery on 4/12/2011. Informing me that they will call me the day before delivery and schedule a time-slot.

4/6/2011 Credit card charged for my order


4/11/2011 @ 12:00     Day before delivery - still not heard anything. Called them up and asked about the delivery. Was then told, "no, it's not coming tomorrow - it's on back order".. When is it coming back in stock? Not sure said the agent. Why didn't you notify me? You should have got an email notification she said. I checked my email/junk email etc - no email from Best Buy. Really upset that they hadn't notified us, but decided to hang up and talk to my wife and see what we will do.


4/11/2011 @ 12:30PM      30 minutes later I got a call from BestBuy Delivery department. "We're calling to schedule a delivery for tomorrow". "Are you really sure?" I asked the lady. Just talked to someone that said it was on backorder. Was put on hold and after 2-3 minutes I was told..."You are correct sir". My apologize. Told her nicely that they really should improve their procedures. Notify customers properly and don't call and schedule delivery for items you don't have - pretty fundamental stuff IMHO.

4/11/2011 @ 1:00PM Another ~30 minutes later I got email from BestBuy, rescheduling my delivery for 5/2/2011 (another 3 weeks wait, 6 weeks from my initial order). Was NOT happy about this...


4/11/2011 @ 7PM Went to the local BestBuy store and looked at other models. Talked with the local sales rep. He checked on the computer and said that he didn't think that the model we ordered will come back in stock. But he couldn't get me anything similar for the price we got online.

3/21/2011   Called the 1-888 number and talked to a sales rep. Told the whole story and what the local sales rep had said. She checked in the computer and re-confirmed that our deliver will be on 5/2. No need to worry. (6 weeks from initial order!)  Didn't want to make a decision on whether to cancel the order or not at this point so I hung up.


4/11/2011 - 4/20/2011  We were NOT happy with the prospect of having to wait another 3 weeks so we looked around for other fridges at various places, online, local stores etc etc - but could not find anything similar for the price we had got for the unit we ordered from BestBuy.com. Finally decided to stick with our order - even though it was a royal P.I.T.A. to wait 6 weeks for a fridge.


4/26/2011   Decided to call and double-check the status of my order. The lady said that it's fine - no comments or notes in my order - it should be on track for delivery 5/2/2011. I explained my situation, that we've been without fridge for 5+ weeks and I really wanted to make sure we get a fridge next week. She put me on hold while she called the distribution center. Got back to me within a few minutes and said, sorry, it's a discontinued item - we will not be able to get that item. Are you serious, I asked - why didn't you notify me about this? She couldn't answer - of course.

She canceled the order

I asked if she could get me an equivalent model for the same price. She said she would have to connect me to a sales person...

Got connected to a sales lady (Isabelle). Explained the story. Told her the story and asked if she could get me an equivalent model for the same price. Checked on BestBuy.com and saw that a new model, RFG297HDWP, was introduced to replace the discontinued RFG297AAWP model. But the price of that one was $2499 (no sale). She could not give that model to me for the same price.

Asked to talk to her manager. Put on hold for 5 minutes...she came back and said that she would transfer me. beep, beep...got disconnected

Called back to the main 1-888 number and asked to talk to Isabelle. The lady at the main switchboard could not direct my call to a specific agent..had to get another lady. Explained my story again..and finally convinced her to talk to her manager. Was put on hold for 20-30 minutes before I got through to the manager. Explained the whole story again. He apologized for the problem with the order, but said he could not offer me a replacement for the same price. I had ordered an "outlet item.." The best thing he could do was to give me $150 off on any other fridge that I wanted. Told him that they Best Buy had screwed up - it wasn't my fault that the item was out of stock. You happily took my order, charged my card, and confirmed the delivery (twice). Still you can't deliver anything to me!! Told him that they should offer me the next better model / replacement model for same price. He would not agree on that. Insisted on the $150 off. Told him that I rather take my business elsewhere where they appreciate their customers. Hinted to him that he could talk to his manager and give me a callback within a few hours if they changed their mind.



4/26/2011 Went to a local store (not Best Buy) and bought a fridge.


Never going to buy anything again from Best Buy / Bestbuy.com.

[Dorothy-BBY Community Supervisor]

Good afternoon joomla-r-us -

Justin, from our Community Connector team, will be reaching out to you regarding your concern.  Thank you!

[Justin-BBY Community Connector]

Hi joomla-r-us,

Welcome to our forums!

I'm quite disheartened to hear about your Samsung refrigerator purchase experience.  I was extremely saddened while reading your post, so I can only imagine your aggravation and disappointment.  I don't blame you one bit for voicing your stance; I thank you for bringing this to our attention.

We welcome your feedback and it's regrettable to realize that you went elsewhere to purchase a new refrigerator because you weren't able to receive an acceptable solution.  I must mention that availability of online items are subject to change, but I don't understand why you were put through so much time waiting on the phone to speak with a supervisor to try and get this sorted out. 

I will definitely escalate your raised concerns internally within Best Buy® to be addressed.  Additionally, if you have any other concerns or questions, feel free to reply to this topic or send me a private message by clicking the link beside my name. 

Thank you for sharing your experience with us here on the forums!

Regards,

[joomla-r-us]

Thanks for the response Justin!

There's many things that was unacceptable and very frustrating in this 5 1/2 week long experience. Waiting 20-30 minutes to talk to the supervisor was actually one of the less frustrating parts, believe it or not.

• No communication that the fridge was placed on backorder. Waited 3 weeks for delivery. Called day before delivery to check when it was going to be delivered. Then I learned it was placed on back order. Very Frustrating!
  
  
• To top that off, your Delivery Department called 30 minutes later to schedule a delivery for the next day - even though it was on backorder - none in stock. Again, very frustrating to learn that your left arm doesn't know what the right is doing.
  
  
• Then the sales rep at my local Best Buy store tells me that he didn't think the model I ordered would be back in stock, a new model would replace it. Called 1-888 number and asked them to verify that my order still was ok, that you really was going to get it back in stock. I was assured that was the case and that I would get it delivered 5/2/2011 (6 weeks after my initial order). In hindsight, I should have trusted my local sales rep - not what I was been told by Bestbuy.com representatives.
  
  
• When I called yesterday to double-check the status the lady first said everything was fine - I would get my fridge on 5/2/2011. I then asked her if she was really sure, since my wife would have went ballistic if we had yet another setback (6 weeks without a fridge is NO fun).  Your sales rep then checked with the distribution center and came to me with the bad news that it had been discontinued. !%$%^$!.....If I hadn't called, would they have called me to schedule a delivery for a non-existing fridge again!? I think you need to plug in the power cord to your computers.  Seriously, your computer system is a joke.
  
  
• Speaking with the sales rep's and supervisors to try to resolve - and not really offered any satisfactory solution - that was just the tip of the ice-berg.

Main issues  :

1. Lack of communication (multiple cases)    As soon as status changes (backorder etc)  - notify customer!  Never happened.
   
   
2. Misinformation (multiple cases)
   
   
3. Different information from different sources (multiple cases)
   
   
4. Do not take an order if you can't fulfill it. With a proper order/computer system then you should have EXACT count over your inventory and not even process an order/sale in case you don't have it in stock. Don't think I ever had an issue with this with another company. And if it indeed happen - which should be rare - then you should notify the customer same/next day that you can't fulfill your order. Even low-tech companies, like clothes, plumbing supplies etc etc does get this right on their websites. You would expect that a technology company, like Best Buy, would do at least as good as them – or better.
   
   
5. Charging my card without having a product to ship to me. That's not acceptable!
   
   
6. The response from the supervisor was far from satisfactory. In my mind, you screwed up big time - you should do anything to make your customer happy in this situation. The supervisor didn't seem to care much if I was happy or not.

First you let me down as a customer, much worse than any other company ever done. Secondly, you did a LOT less to fix the situation than what all the other companies I’ve dealt with when they messed up - which all messed up far less than you did. And, after all this, if I would change my order with you – how in the world would you expect that I would trust you again (delivery dates, in stock or not etc etc)!? You blew it and all trust is gone. That’s why I decided to take my business elsewhere where they truly appreciate their customers.

Finally, I spent some time last night to do some more research on this forum. I thought that my story was unique / bad enough. But to my surprise I found numerous customers who have very similar stories.

Here’s some examples :

• From in stock, to back order, to discontinued, to replaced, to back ordered, to nothing.
• Awful experience with Best Buy
• Worst customer service ever!!!
• customer service disappointment
• FALSE ADVSERTISING is now my fault?!?!
• Backorder on Toshiba-Satellite Laptop L655-S5117
• bait and switch
• Purchase and delivery of Washer and Dryer at bestbuy.com
• BEST BUST
• I will never purchase anything again from Best Buy both online or in store!
• 1st Order from BestBuy.com = Back ordered Dissapointment
• Is Best Buy running a Bait and Switch Scam
• Never Buy an Applicance from BestBuy
• Major Fraud
• Best Buy has pulled a Bait and Switch on my Order. READ THIS AND BEWARE!
• Waiting for Replacement Refrigerator: 8 Weeks & Counting - Horrible Service At All Levels

Strikingly similar to my story in many aspects:

• Ordering something
• Promised a delivery date
• Charging credit cards without delivering anything
• No communication
• Item suddenly on backorder or discontinued (many times no communication to customer when this happens, as in my case)
• Delivery date changes
• Customer taking off from work, waiting for a delivery– calling BB and then finds out it’s backordered or discontinued
• In most cases, no real effort from Best Buy’s part to resolve the issue to the customers satisfaction

To me, it looks like you, as a business, are well aware of these systematic problems – but do not feel it’s important to fix them or offer reasonable alternatives/replacements to the affected customers when they happen – or even worse – you are doing it on purpose to lure in customers. Some call it fraud, others bait-and-switch. I  don't think I would go that far, but I do think all these cases, including mine, clearly shows that you just don’t take customer service seriously as an organization.

Waited almost 6 weeks for nothing. I had opportunity to buy a similar fridge elsewhere during this time at a decent price ( that deal is now gone..) – although not quite as good. But I decided to wait for the Best Buy unit since I would save some money on that – atleast what I thought. In the end I wasted a lot of time, upset my wife and ended up paying more for the similar fridge at another local dealer. Plus Best Buy has lost me as a customer forever. I will take my business elsewhere in the future.

[luudanset75]

keep post is for the people know how best buy .and people never buy from them they will go some orthe country to bussines like china not the way they do business in us.

[SherralB]

Add me to that list. I will never order from Best Buy again. Will do everything in my power to not even visit one of their stores.

[needhelpplease]

Oh geez, I am in the same boat with a microwave. Had I known this is the history of Best Buy, I certainly would not have made a purchase from them ... and will avoid Best Buy at all costs in the future. A deal is not a deal if they take your money and you get nothing in return.