Manufacturer Warranties and Protection Plans

[sweetn8]

Best Buy gets a lot of bashing on this site. 

I know that there are corporations that generally do not care about customer service, but that has never been my experience with the Best Buy or their customer service.  I buy almost all of my electronic goods from Best Buy and the sales staff has always been eager to help whether I was purchasing or returning something.

However, I ran into an issue yesterday that I have never had before in all my years of shopping at Best Buy.  I have always had the greatest of service from Best Buy, so I was surprised that something like this would, or to be more precise, COULD happen.  I expect it is a fluke, so I wanted to post this in the hopes that people can see that this is an exception to the rule.  If it isn't an exception, and is something that is happening to other people, I figured this would be the best place to be made aware of it.

Yesterday, at Best Buy I bought: 1. a stereo, 2. a television, and 3. a bluray player. 

The Bluray player not only ended up being used, but broken.  This was not a box that  I had picked out either.  This was a unit that the employees brought to me when I asked for the special deal they were having, so it wasn't me mistakingly picking up something that was supposed to go back.  I want to make it perfectly clear that I wasn't buying an "open box" item either.

When I got home and opened the box it did not have any packaging.  The player was just flopping around inside the box.  Normally, I would have just closed it back up and returned it, but Santa had brought new movies that I had promised the family we could watch on "our new system".  So, I continued setting it up.  The next thing I noticed was that the remote control had come with the batteries pre-installed.  Again, something I felt I could overlook. 

As I picked up the instruction manual, the Netflix registration code written largely in pencil on the front of it summed up that this had previously been owned .  And if that wasn't proof enough, the inside of the manual had writing throughout where someone had been underlining and circling sections during their installation. 

At this point there was no question of whether to return it or not, but I was curious as to whether it actually worked.  I went online re-registered the unit for my Netflix account as a way to check if somehow they had just thrown in the wrong directions.  They hadn't.  It had been registered before. 

The remote will only work intermittently and did not work with the universal television remote (which is the same brand) no matter which code I used when trying to program it.

So, at the end of the day I dropped about $1,500 on a non-functioning setup.  The kicker was when I was buying everything they said they not only said they would help me load my car (which they didn't) , but when I drove around to the front to ask if they had any string or a flag that I could use to hold my trunk down, I was told they couldn't do anything like that for liability reasons.  So, I had to drive with my trunk flopping open all the way home.  I buy over $5,000 of stuff a year at Best Buy and have never run into anything like this before. 

I know it is crazy during the holiday's, but this is too much.

After work today I will be returning the blu-ray and purchasing a different brand.  I will post the results of my experience.  I don't expect there to be any issues, because I don't want to end up bashing Best Buy as well.

[Nokia]

This sounds like it was one of two things:

• With all the holiday craziness, a defective returned BD player somehow got put back on the floor instead of being shipped out.
• A sleazy customer thought that they could not return opened product and so made it look unopened and returned it as such.

I'd definitely go back and exchange it. You shouldn't have any problem doing that. Mistakes do happen, and this wasn't your fault.

As for loading your car, it sounds like they wouldn't carry products to your car. Unless you bring your car in front of the store on that little strip of cement, they aren't able to bring anything to your car for liability reasons. If an employee was injured while helping you in the parking lot, they cannot file for worker's comp.

They were also correct about not being able to provide tie-downs. You can thank dishonest customers who were in a similar situation, were given tie-downs, and then sued the retailer when a tie-down failed.

[Dorothy-BBY Community Supervisor]

Hello sweetn8 -

Justin, from our Community Connector team, will be reaching out out to you regarding your concern.  Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. 

[Justin-BBY Community Connector]

Hello sweetn8-

Oh my goodness!  I was shocked to read about your Blu-Ray player purchase experience.  It’s understandable why you’re so concerned, as I can imagine anyone in your situation that would be.  I certainly would feel similarly if I experienced what you describe.  I would love to address your concerns. 

It’s odd that this happened.  I cannot offer explanation why your Blu-Ray player did not have any packaging or the other components such as the remote, Netflix registration, etc, were already set up.  It seems like this was a simple mistake and that the employee who brought it over did not know about the condition of the unit.  You could return the unit back to the store within the 30 day period with the receipt, for an exchange or refund. 

You also mentioned the fact that the store would not help you with providing tie downs or loading the items in your vehicle.  Nokia was correct on both statements he responded with.  The store would be liable for any damage, or injury that could happen while assisting you load your television, home theater system and Blu-ray player. 

I would like to continue our conversation on this issue, so I’m sending you a private message.  You can check your private messages by logging into the forums and clicking on the envelope in the upper right hand corner. 

Thank you for sharing with us on the forum!

Regards,