BestBuy.com

[fiftyhertz]

Greetings:

I placed two orders recently. Each order was a bundle containing a Cricket refill card and a sim card. Both refill cards were electronic delivery to my email address - no problem with them. The two sim cards were sent via UPS, which I picked up today at a local UPS pickup location (two separate envelops containing the sim cards). Neither sim card was activated prior to shipment. They are useless at the moment. Can someone help me?

[CalebH-BBY Retired: Social Media Specialist]

Hello there, Fiftyhertz!

Thank you for writing to us about this, and welcome to our online Forums! I'm saddened to hear that your order is running into some issues. We'd love to help you get this figured out. Sadly, I cannot directly help you through the Forums. My recommendation would be to take the refill cards and SIM cards into your local Best Buy. When there, speak to one of our mobile experts. They should be able to activate those SIM cards and active the refill cards for you there. 

If for some reason they are unable to, we should be able to swap out those SIM cards and get you squared away. I hope this helps out. Please let me know if you have any questions that I can help out with.

Best,

[fiftyhertz]

So the experts at the local Best Buy were not able to get this resolved. They were pleasant and it seemed like they tried to do the right thing? They did a "return and re-buy" and assured me that the two SIM cards would be OK. Sadly, that is not the case. I have emailed receipts from today's effort. I have screen shots that show the error message when on Cricket's website, and finally I have a chat transcript with a Cricket CS rep from a chat after my visit to your store. Their recommendation was:

"USER: Are you telling me that the SIM numbers are NOT valid??

AGENT (Wayne H): Yes that' correct as you are getting the error then they are not valid and I would personally suggest you to return it to the same store and asked them to replace the SIM card and they will surely help you."

How many hoops am I expected to jump through for such a simple purchase? This should not be high-tech!! I feel like Best Buy should make some effort next. Something that does not involve wasting my time, wasting money for fuel and wear & tear on my car, etc.

I hope you agree??

[hockeycanuckjc Community Veteran]

From my experience the IMEI / ESN gets deactivated in the carriers system when a return takes place , so I am not sure why they did that to begin with, it would be that the SIM cards for sure never work once flagged in the system as returned. I can guarantee that because one day I did a price match in the store (this was many years ago) and they had to do something special to price match, they ended up returning and re-buying it, Well the return disabled the phone. So you may need a CSR at Cricket if you have a local store near you to get this working and explain to them the situation.

Some chats are fine , but I like to go to the source for the product I buy if possible.

[CalebH-BBY Retired: Social Media Specialist]

Thank you for reaching back out and updating us on what's going on. I'm saddened that they weren't able to get you taken care of. Hockeycanuckjc's point about SIM cards being flagged once returned is accurate. However, my goal was for the team to swap them out for a new set in the hope that the originals were an isolated issue.

As he mentioned, you have two options now, You tried a chat with Cricket and that didn't provide much assistance. If you have a Cricket store near you, that might be the quickest answer. But, I do understand not wanting to waste anymore time. The alternative is that I can reach out to that Best Buy's store leadership and bring this to their attention. From there, they should help me get this resolved as quickly as possible. However, we'd have to wait for a response back from them.

Please let me know what you think and how you'd like to proceed.

Thank you very much!

[fiftyhertz]

Hello Caleb:

Thank you for your offer to work with me on an exchange. I am not in desperation mode - just disappointed. This has happened before; about 18 - 20 months ago; also an on-line Cricket SIM purchase via your website. But I had a couple of extra SIM cards on hand at that time, and I ended up tossing the "invalid cards."

This time I would like to get receive valid SIM cards to replace the ones I purchased. Sometime next week would be best. I'll send you some details about my current situation and the preferred store location via a private message.

Thank you.

[CalebH-BBY Retired: Social Media Specialist]

Fiftyhertz,

You are welcome! I would love to do what I can to get this figured out for you. I'll wait to hear back from through a private message and we can go from there!

Thank you!