On the night of June 3rd, I brought home a brand new printer from the Best Buy located in Costa Mesa, California. Unfortunately, I was unable to install it as I kept receiving an error message to “install the printer with set up cartridges”. I searched the box over and over again for these cartridges; however, they could not be located. Not sure if it actually came with cartridges, I contacted the Geek Squad that night via chat in hope to get some assistance and the technician ultimately told me to bring the printer back to the store. Seems simple enough? Well I am a first time mom with a newborn and leaving the house has turned into a tremendous task.
On Friday, June 18th 2021 I was finally able to bring my HP Envy Photo 7855 printer back to the Best Buy where I purchased it, and I had the most terrible experience I have had in a very long time. The experience was so painful that I could not sleep that night. Aaron, the store manager, treated me like a criminal. He asked to see my receipt at least 5 times and kept leaving to speak to his employees. He finally told me, “I have never seen something like this…its almost impossible for this to happen, so I am not going to be able to help you. The best thing I can do for you is to tell you to contact HP”.I told him that I purchased the Printer from Best Buy, not HP and he proceeded to say, “I cannot accept this printer with missing parts”. At this point I was so upset and felt the need to defend myself and responded, “I purchased this printer with missing parts, how can I bring it back with parts that I never received?”
At this point my husband was so upset that he told Aaron that we would simply buy a new one and that he could keep the defective printer. As we made our way to the printers to grab a new one to purchase, Aaron yelled across the store that this was, “Product Abandonment”. So here we are buying another 300 dollar printer from your store and we are being antagonized by your store manager. After completing the purchase of the second printer, I politely asked Aaron if he could document this event in his own words from his perspective and he unprofessionally said, “I cannot really do that…I mean I see what you guys are asking for but I can’t really do it…I mean like I said before, I have never heard of something like this happening.” Unsatisfied with this response, I asked him if he could he at least write down that refused to help us and he pulled out his business card and wrote down could not return printer due to missing parts.
The next day I did contact HP who ultimately was helpful. Interestingly enough, their representative Judy told me that this wasn’t an isolated incident and that situations like this are usually the stores fault. She said sometimes people return printers with missing parts that get overlooked or the store sells a printer that was on display. However, most importantly, Judy helped me try to bypass the “set up cartridge error” with my own ink that I purchased. Unfortunately, I only had black ink at the time. But this tells me that Aaron could have offered this option to me with the assistance from Geek Squad. I would have happily purchased ink that day in hopes to get my printer working. However, Aaron had his mind made up that I was someone trying to take advantage of your company. That is the farthest from the truth; however, I have decided that I will never walk into that Best Buy again. You never forget how people make you feel, and I haven’t felt this terrible and misjudged in a very long time.
As of today, Hp is sending me replacement cartridges as a courtesy and moving forward, I will always do my business directly with them. I know I am just one customer and my money makes little difference to your business but I really hope you train your managers to be more objective and sensitive in dealing with your customers. Aaron had no interest in helping me find a solution and he absolutely could have tried to set up my printer in the store with new ink as there is actually a way to bypass this step.
AndrewB-BBY
