The Bottom Line:
I purchased my service plan to protect my expensive purchase. For months, I was willing to play the corporate game and jump through the appropriate hoops to get my camera repaired. However, after several attempts on getting the camera repaired, I felt I was being jerked around. I felt like Precision Camera and Best Buy were trying to make it as inconvenient AND COSTLY as possible for me to get what I was entitled to so that I could go away. I recommend using a private repair company and skipping the middle man, that is, Best Buy and avoid getting bogged down in Best Buy’s corporate bureaucratic nonsense that seems to exist to discourage the customer from ever exchanging a product.
My Detailed Story:
I spent just shy of $1100 on a digital camera, accessories, and a product service plan from best buy.
My camera (Sonly Alpha 100) began to malfunction. The problem: what I saw in the viewfinder when I hit the "take picture" button did not match the actual photo taken. It was off in both the horizontal and vertical directions.
Jan 6th:
I brought the camera to my local geek squad and they sent it to their contracted repair company: Precision Camera.
Late January:
Weeks later my camera was returned to best buy with a note from Precision Camera that said nothing was found wrong with the camera! The geek squad employees and I reexamined the camera and its condition had improved slightly but was still malfunctioning as described above, so they sent it back to Precision.
Feb 10th:
Weeks later my camera was returned to best buy with a note from Precision Camera that said “Anti-shake feature repaired.” I did not know anything was wrong with the anti-shake feature! This makes me uneasy as they supposedly fiddled with a feature that I did not think was broken in the first place. In addition, my original malfunction (described above) was NOT fixed. ARG! So, they sent it back to Precision.
Feb 25th:
Weeks later my camera was returned to best buy with a note from Precision Camera that said “Housing replaced.” What was wrong with the housing?? In addition, my original malfunction (described above) was NOT fixed. ARG! The Geek Squad manager created an “escalation” to request a Junk out from Precision Camera. Basically, this means that the company that was given multiple opportunities over many weeks to fix my camera had to give Best Buy permission to exchange my camera and admit they could not fix it.
Second week of March:
Weeks later my camera was returned to best buy and I received a call from Geek Squad. They said that my camera arrived with a note that said there was nothing wrong with it!!!!!! And, that I couldn’t come in to test it out because the battery that I included with the camera when sent in for repair was NOT mailed back to my local best buy!
About two weeks of missing battery:
Weeks pass as I get phone calls on some sporadic schedule telling me they have not received my camera battery yet.
Last week of March:
I became completely fed up! I asked to speak to a store manager and the manager had to take days to correspond with her regional manager to get permission to give me an exchange.
April 4th:
Finally, almost 3 months to the day, I was given an exchange. This took me 5 trips to my closest best by. I traveled 214 miles and wasted over 4.5 hours driving (+hours waiting in the store) and gas money! Also, I missed opportunities to use my camera!! I could not take pictures needed for professional presentations. I could not take pictures on four trips I took during this time period while I looked for houses to buy, visited friends, and saw special things like baseball games, the Atlanta aquarium, Columbus Zoo’s animal visit to my department, etc, etc.
******The fine points of the product service plan is that hardware must be replaced 4 times before it has to be mailed in a 5th time for a “junk out” permission of exchange under the no-lemon policy. However, the repair company can mail it back many times without actually fixing the problem and without changing any hardware. This leaves the customer at the mercy of the repair company. It’s bad news for a repair company if they cannot repair the camera and cost best buy money. If this happens too often, Best Buy will look elsewhere for a repair company. It is, therefore, no surprise that the camera repair company do whatever it could to avoid having a customer utilize the no-lemon policy.
******I purchased my service plan to protect my expensive purchase. For months, I was willing to play the corporate game and jump through the appropriate hoops to get my camera repaired. However, after several attempts on getting the camera repaired, I felt I was being jerked around. I felt like Precision Camera and Best Buy were trying to make it as inconvenient AND COSTLY as possible for me to get what I was entitled to so that I could go away.
******I recommend using a private repair company and skipping the middle man, that is, Best Buy and avoid getting bogged down in Best Buy’s corporate bureaucratic nonsense that seems to exist to discourage the customer from ever exchanging a product.
At least now your camera is replaced and (hopefully?) working proplerly for you. It's stories like this that make me feel even more confident that my decision to skip the GSBTP and upgrade/extend the manufacturers warranty on my new laptop was a wise decision. Thanks for sharing your story -- and again, real sorry you had to deal with all that!
@BBYCameraGuy
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