I have been considering buying a new TV the past couple of months. I did some research and decided to purchase a 55” TCL series 6 with the Poku platform the next time the item went on sale. This past weekend you advertised the unit (TCL Model:55R655) at $649 which was $50 off the regular price and I decided that on would purchase the unit.
I planned on buying the TV over the weekend and on Saturday 1/7/23 while I was in Chantilly, VA which is about 25 miles from where I live and I just happen to wind it in the same shopping plaza as a Best Buy. I decided to purchase the TV there rather than at the Best Buy at Baileys Crossroads which is only about 5 miles from where I live. I didn’t think that if there was a problem with the unit I wouldn’t be able to return it to another Best Buy store.
A young lady took care of me and I specifically requested the unit with the Roku platform. The sale proceeded and a couple of staff members put the TV in my car. The large print on the box indicated it was a TCL- 55" class 6-series. Unfortunately, I didn’t look closely at the box until I got home and discovered they had given me the Google platform model.
So, I loaded the unit back into my car and headed to the Best Buy in Bailey’s Crossroads only about 5 miles from where I live to exchange or return the unit. Here’s where the fun begins…..
The woman at the customer service desk wasn’t sure how to handle a return from another store and got one of the managers involved. The manager said they couldn’t easily accept a return from another store as there were some inventory issues with the other store that would take some time to work out and it would probably be easier for me to drive back to Chantilly and return it. I said I didn’t want to drive back to Chantilly and ask to have the return processed there even if it took a little time. The young woman at the desk must have been relatively new at her job and asked one of the other managers for assistance. He flatly refused to process the return and told me I would have to take it back to Chantilly. He spouted the same line about inventory and told him I didn’t care about back end systems issues and that I wanted to return the unit there. He declined to take the unit back.
I’d like to point out a couple of things at this point.
- Your return policy clearly states that returns can be made at any Best Buy store.
- A customer doesn’t really care about a company’s inventory systems.
- The manager had no interest in solving a customer’s problems.
I got back in my car and drove to Chantilly around 6 pm to get there before they closed as I had plans for the next few days that would preclude me from driving back to Chantilly. Driving at night is not something I enjoy but I had little choice in the matter.
I got to the store and one of the customer service people helped me get the TV back into the store. Another agent asked me to go to the TV area and ask one of the salespeople to pull the correct unit for while he finished up the return he was working on for another person. So, I walked to the TV area and after a couple of minutes the TV area manager came over to me. I explained the situation to him and he apologized and went on the computer to locate the correct unit whereupon he told me that he didn’t have the correct unit on hand and he couldn’t even ship the unit to me as there were none in any of the warehouses in the DC, Maryland or Virginia. He then proceeded to talk about Best Buy discontinuing their relationship with TCL at which point I walked away and went back to the front of the store and asked the agent to process a return for the item which he did without question.
Seriously, how can you put an item on sales and not have enough store stock to get you through a day and half of a sale? Secondly, how can you put an item on sale and not have any warehouse stock to support the stores in the odd chance they did sell out?
Needless to say it was a full day lousy customer and it will be a long time before I visit Best Buy again.
