To Whom It May Concern,
I have been a loyal Best Buy customer for many years. I have never had a problem with your customer service and always commended you guys for your hard work, both online and in person. That is until I moved out of state. I used to live in NY, and now I live in MD. I understand that COVID has caused a lot of extra stress on everyone, but I wanted to bring up my issues that I have had with my local Best Buy, since these issues have been going on pre-COVID.
I am an avid gamer and tend to pre-order my games and then place the order for pickup since my mail comes really late in the day. Pre-COVID, you guys did some "midnight" releases for certain games. I was looking forward to one of my games coming out at midnight, called my local store, and had them confirm that they were participating in the midnight release. That night, I drove all the way to the store to get the game (if I remember correctly, this game was allowed to be released at 9PM instead of midnight). I waited patiently in line, only to have a rude employee ask me what I was doing. I explained that I was there waiting for the Death Stranding release event. He then said that they weren't participating in the event. I explained that I had spoken to someone on the phone and they confirmed that they were. He, again, very rudely stated that that was not the case and asked me to leave the store since they were closing up. I asked him when the game could be picked up and he then dropped the bomb on me that they hadn't even received the shipment of the game yet. Heartbroken, I drove home so frustrated with what had happened before my friend suggested I just go to another Best Buy and get the game then. So I drove another 20 minutes to the next Best Buy in my area and they had the game. I bought my second copy and went home. I picked up my Collector's Edition the next day, still upset about what had happened the night before.
Fast forward to the Final Fantasy VII Remake release. I showed up the morning of the release, a couple of hours after the store had opened. Someone came out to my car and asked me what I was there for, and I explained. After waiting for what seemed like half an hour or so, an employee came out and explained that they had lost my order somehow and it was not in the store at all. Baffled, I didn't know what to say. The employee told me to wait a little bit longer and went back in the store. He came out a few minutes later with a copy of the game and said that I was lucky that someone else had cancelled their pre-order of the game. At this point, I had vowed to never pre-order a game from this store ever again.
Fast forward again to last week, my last and final experience with this store. I had read good reviews on Watch Dogs Legion and placed an order on the website (with a price match to Amazon's $10 off the game). I didn't think it would take too long for the order to be ready since this was the day after the game came out and plus, I figured that if it wasn't ready, I could just grab the game off of the shelf and re-do the price match in the store. So I went to the store, and immediately went to the PS4 games to see if the game was there. Nothing. In the meantime, I received an email saying that my order was cancelled. So then I decided to wait in line to ask what was going on. The very nice girl at the register went to grab my order behind the counter but said it was nowhere to be found. She then proceeded to disappear for 20 minutes looking for my order. She came back and said that the game was there, but it was still in the warehouse, in a box. She had no idea when my order would be ready and suggested I go somewhere else to get the game. This is a full day after the game already came out and the website said the game was in stock! She apologized and said that she could place the order at another store for me. At that point, I was so annoyed that I just went home and bought the game directly from PlayStation without the discount.
I am just appalled at this store's inability to have video games in stock on the day they come out. I highly suggest someone check in on this store and see what's going on. I will never go there again. Their address is: 8251 Gateway Overlook Dr, Elkridge, MD 21075
Allison-BBY
