I have spent many, many thousands upon thousands of dollars at Best Buy, but I have never purchased an extended service plan for anything - always thinking it was a waste of money.
2 years ago, I purchased a 46" Samsung LCD HDTV on my wedding anniversary from my local BB store - cost = $2500. Because I have had such bad luck with TVs in the past, I also bought the extended service plan which was an additional $400.00, for a total cost of $3000.00.
Now the store itself was great - especially the manager who agreed to bring me the TV HIMSELF since my wife and I did not want to wait for standard delivery as we were going out of town.
Anyway, immediately the TV had HDMI handshaking issues, but they were tolerable and I did not concern myself with them that much. However here recently the TV has started to not turn on when we power it on. It turns itself off, then on, then off, then on, and so on until it finally decides to stay on and show a picture. THEN on top of that it usually has about 100 to 200 little purple dots all over the screen, and we have to restart the TV to get them to dissapear.
So I called to have it repaired. Started well enough; it was Christmas Eve and the lady was very nice and we set the appt for after the New Year.
Day comes - it is my off day. I spend all day waiting on the technician. The technician never calls or shows. Day off completely wasted. I call geek squad and they basically tell me they have no idea what happened and I will just have to reschedule. I am pretty miffed by losing an entire day out of my life but I reschedule.
Day comes - I could go into it but it's like a long joke with repeated parts. Just read the last paragraph.
Day comes - Technician shows at my door.. EARLY, which is bad for me because I work nights and I need my sleep. Technician tells (yes TELLS) me to put my dog away or he's not coming in. I open the door after placing my dog in another room. This guy neither shakes my hand nor introduces himself; just waits for me to lead him into the room with the TV. He asks what the problem is and I tell him what has been happening. He does not even LOOK at the TV, but just based on my description of the problem tells me that some part needs replacing, that it will take a week to get the part, and promptly takes off.
2 weeks later I get a VM from BB telling me my part is in and call them to set the appt. Great - my TV is going to get fixed! I set the appointment.
Day comes. No call was made in the morning. Having learned my lesson, I call around 2pm to find out what the deal is. After holding for 5 minutes the person on the phone tell me that she has called the tech and that he stated he would arrive between 3 and 5pm. At 6pm I call and ask where the heck the tech is. I am placed on hold for another 10 minutes, after which time I am told, no lie, that supposedly the wrong technician was sent on my service call. This particular technician did not have the parts for my television.
Whoops, sorry you are going to have to make ANOTHER appointment. At this point I am more than a little miffed. I am a patient man with customer service because I run a restaraunt and deal with customers everyday - and I HATE it when people get all pissy with me over small stuff. This has, however, become more than SMALL STUFF.
I paid 400 bucks for a contract stating that competent service will be provided for the life of my plan. I can't even get the guy to show up for 20% of my appointments. Nobody at the 888 number cares about my inconvienience, nor does any of the people at geek squad at the store.
It has now been almost 6 weeks since I initiated this process. This has got to be the biggest joke of a service of all time - almost topping that of my local cable and satellite providers. One incident I can brush off, but FOUR?
Had it not been for the excellent service of the manager who initially sold me this set, I would pretty much put BB out to pasture and drive to my not-so-local-competitor for my electronics needs. As it stands, I will most certainly NEVER purchase one of these plans again, and I will make sure that nobody I know does either.
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@Dorothy_BestBuy