Manufacturer Warranties and Protection Plans

[phxguy]

I've been a happy customer with BestBuy for years.

I bought a Gateway monitor for 350.00 one year and a few days ago. I also purchased the 4-yr extended warranty. The sales person told me that if anything went wrong with the monitor, they would replace it immediately or get me anthoer model of equal or BETTER value/quality.

What a joke that turned out to be.

My monitor went bad (DVI port issue), so I took it back and tried to get it fixed. I really would have just preferred to get the thing fixed as it was an excellent monitor that I spent a lot fo time researching.

At first, they told me it'd be no problem and to go get a replacement and they'd switch it over right away. I found out the monitor had been discontinued and they no longer carried that model. So they offered me a slight upgrade and I would have been phappy with that. They couldnt get it to go through the computers and told me "we just changed our policy and they arent allowing us to make any changes anymore."

You have to send it back to repair before we can give you a replacement. You will have to be without your monitor for 2 weeks. What! Seriously...if this had been my only monitor I would have been up the proverbial creek. Unreal. Luckily, I edit video and thus work off 2 monitors, so I could deal with one for the time it'd be out.

So, they call me a week and a half later and tell me to come get a new monitor as my old one really is broken. shocking.

I get there and there are two different people handling the customer service desk. They tell me the the monitor they had offered to give me last week was no longer available to me. They brought a different modeled Gateway monitor and told me this was the replacement they could give me. Having done a ton of research on monitors, I knew this to be the cheaper version of the monitor I bought. The numbers were similar, but it didnt swivel, it didnt have half the number of ports and it was reviewed TERRIBLY by all the user groups and CNET.com. I told them it was no where near the same quality monitor and they couldnt care less. They said Gateway offered this as the replacement and that was it. They said my only other option was to take 240.00 of credit towards a different monitor. What a bunch of crap.

When I bought the monitor, the guy told me it would be replaced with the same monitor or something better. Lies.

So, Bestbuy ended up getting more of my hard earned money ($65 more dollars) to gfet an inferior montor from the one I originally had.

Seriously unprofessional.

I'm not one of those crazy people who will throw a tantrum or make a big scene, but this really seems unfair. I paid for a $350 monitor, I should be at least offered something similar. 

DONT BUY BESTBUY's WARRANTIES

[MtnXfreeride]

read the booklet they gave you with your *service* (not replacement) plan.   I think you misunderstood the sales person.

[phxguy]

I didn't misunderstand the salesperson. He told me what he told me.

What changed is BestBuy's policy of being flexible.

Did I read the tiny print word for word? No, of course not.

Do I expect BestBuy to honor something a sales person told me a year ago? No, of course not.

Do I think the salesperson lied to me? No, I don't.

I think I'm a victim of bad timing. Had this happened one week earlier, they would have done exactly what the salesperson had told me they would do.

I think BestBuy changed their policy a week before my problem happened. The staff at BestBuy told me exactly that when I brought the monitor in originally.

I understand that times are tough and BestBuy needs to reign in costs, but that doesn't change what the salesperson told me.

As a side note, I'm not going to say that I wont ever buy anything from BestBuy again. I probably will. (I bought a $2000 television a week before this happened)

My lesson here is that verbal agreements mean nothing, read the fine print.

[Iggy]

I had the same thing happen to me: http://www.forums.bestbuy.com/bb/board/message?board.id=Warranties&thread.id=264

I wish I only lost $65 and not closer to $600...

Message Edited by Iggy on 11-05-2008 11:13 AM

[Aaron-BBY Community Connector]

Hey phxguy,

I certainly do apologize for any problems that you may have encountered with your recent exchange, but it appears that there are at least two things that should probably be explained.  First of all, Best Buy® Performance Service Plans (PSP) and Geek Squad® Black Tie Protection (GSBTP) have always required that defective products be seen by a technician before they can be replaced.  While we do have arrangements with some vendors to simply exchange their products instead of seeking repairs, this does not apply to every product that we sell.  As such, we cannot guarantee an immediate exchange the moment you bring a defective product into one of our stores.

Second, whenever Best Buy® is unable to repair a product, that product is exchanged on a technology-for-technology basis instead of price-for-price.  If we no longer have the original product available, our stores then provide consumers with a comparable model that is not to exceed the purchase price of the original product.  What constitutes a comparable model does vary from product category to category, but is typically determined based on raw hardware specifications – additionally accessories and features are not generally taken into consideration.

I would like to take this opportunity though to provide you with some additional information, so please keep an eye on your private messages for further communication.

Thanks,

Agent Aaron

Geek Squad® Community Connector

Go Ahead.  Use Us.