I swore off Short-Circuit City back when they tried to shoot the fledgling DVD format in the back by releasing their competing DIVX format. The sneaky bastards. I’ll never shop there again, even though Divx died a quick and well-deserved death after the nasty, brutish, and short life it had. DVD survived the attack and is flourishing…but it MIGHT have died in a welter of consumer confusion.
Live a Lush Life
Da Chef
Former CC associate here. I worked in service, not sales, but I can assure you that the service centers did not get any better treatment from the stores. We sometimes needed a certain accessory (like a power adapter) to operate a device, and even though we had trucks coming to service from each and every damn store in the area on a daily basis, it still took them a week or more to come through.
Here’s a little something you can do next time, if there ever is a next time (works for sales or service issues): look at that little folder thingy that they put your receipt in. There should be some mention of a “Cool Line” telephone number. If you don’t see it, ask the store manager for it. S/he can not refuse to give it to you (it’s probably given on the web site too). Just the threat that you might call the Cool Line may be enough to change the tide of events, since management bonuses are greatly affected by Cool Line calls.
This is the direct line to Corporate, and every time I’ve ever heard issues going to the Cool Line, they were always resolved to the customer’s satisfaction within a day or two. I suspect that if you had done that, your accessory would have been shipped next-day-air directly from the manufacturer (as opposed to the CC National Parts Center, which is where your request is probably still sitting on somebody’s desk).
The whole organization is a mess, that’s one of the main reasons I left. Departments were often adversarial even within the same building. Our local parts dept. was a room full of half-empty boxes and you had to wade through waist-high styrofoam peanuts to get to anything. The attitude of many people there was to see what nitpickitty reason they could come up with to kick orders back to the previous departments, causing an extra day’s worth of delay in the whole process. I once faught with my own parts clerks to get a part expidited, after a week I called up a personal friend at the vendor (Sony National Parts Center in Kansas) and had him overnight the part to my home address so it wouldn’t get bogged down any longer in red tape.
By the way, ESPs are 95% profit for the company (fewer than 5% of the merchandise for which Extended Service Policies are purchased are ever brought to service). Because of this, we were once told to honor any odd-ball request the customer had just to make them happy so they’d keep coming back & buying more ESPs, even if that meant spending an extra $ on a rush delivery.
That place was a sweat shop if ever there was one. Even when I was employed there, I did the vast majority of my shopping at Best Buy.
There are reasons why that place works (or doesn’t, as the case may be) the way it does, I just don’t understand why nothing ever improved in the nine years I was there.
I had a similar problem with an HP computer system I purchased for my office. During the manufacturer’s warranty period, the printer went south, so, after wrongly being sent to (not really the) Best Buy for service, I sent the printer back to the factory. They were unable to ascertain the problem and sent me a new slightly upgraded model. So far, so good. I also bought the ESP from CC (the contract is covered, for some bizarre reason, by General Electric). So now I’m into the CC/GE contract and the new printer goes south by following the same path (bad print quality regardless of how much I clean it). After THREE WEEKS on the phone to various boneheads, the printer was replaced. The last person (and I use the term loosely) I talked with treated, rather, tried to treat me, like an infant. The parts of the printer (HP DeskJet 880C) she wanted me to clean, which, BTW, ARE NOT listed in the software OR manual, were only reachable by either removing the cover (requires a special tool AND would void the warranty) or having hands like the aliens In “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. I finally had to get nasty (which is rare for me) and demand they replace the printer, which they did.
I have sworn off CC as well as (not the really) Best Buy (see my previous thread about a VCR).
It is abundantly obvious that these “service” contracts are sold in hopes that you won’t use them and, if you choose to do so, they will make you wish you’d never bought the item in the first place.
Burn in hell CC and BB.
I called the number in the little folder (the one prefaced with “Until you’re absolutely satisfied, we’re not absolutely satisfied!!!”) and it went to a GE service like Trumpy said. I got a voicemail system and punched in the number for ESPs and got some guy who listened to my whole story and said “What store?” like he had NO IDEA what I was talking about, hemmed and hawed for a while and then said “Let me transfer you to someone in tech support.” That guy picks up and I tell him the whole story and he punches me up on the computer and says “they’ve already ordered a part for you.” So I had to repeat myself like a dozen times and finally say “I’m not waiting another 2 and a half months for you clowns to send me another cord. That is NOT ACCEPTABLE! How do I get the correct cord?” He replied: “I can’t help you with that.” I hung up and re-dialed and chose the “wait on the line” option to talk to someone who could at least help me with that and spent 15 minutes on hold until I had to go back to work and hang up. This was on my lunch hour and I was super-pissed off now. Like I said, I got the cord no problem when I got back to the store that afternoon so maybe the call was being monitored and the store got chewed out or something. Nut my biggest beef of all is, I asked REPEATEDLY for them to just GIVE me a new or loaner cord from the store and they refused. Why did it suddenly become an option after they’d thoroughly pissed me off and lost a customer forever? ARRRRGH!
“That’s impossible! Cartman doesn’t know a rainforest from a Pop-Tart!”
“Yes I do! Pop-Tarts are frosted!”
I want to be one of the last people to defend them but as I mentioned, I got the same lousy service as an internal customer.
From their web site:
Is this the number you called? I would be amazed to hear that a call to the cool line didn’t solve your problem, or at least get you very close to the solution. Whenever the cool line alarm went off in my service center, managers would do backflips to make sure the grumpy customer was happy by the end of that same buisness day. Did you at least get $50 in gift certificates (or maybe a hundred, in your case)? That was the first thing we used to do when it became clear that one of our customers had been inconvenienced. Maybe it’s just a whole different environment in the stores.
I am told that there is some mechainsm that allows customers to escallate their gripes all the way up to Richard Sharp (CEO), but I’m not sure how to go about it. Your’s certainly sounds like a case for Mr. Sharp- maybe you have to keep calling the cool line and ask for successively higher levels of escallation until you get to the big cheese himself. If you asked for Mr. Sharp’s mailing address I’m pretty sure they’d at least get you to his secretary.
Still, as we learned from the inept fast food employees (or whatever it was called) thread, customer service can vary tremendously from store to store within the same company.
The ESP is supposed to guarantee you a loaner if your product is going to be in for service longer than [I think it was] two weeks. Of course, I wouldn’t put it past them to twist the wording to their advantage by saying that your laptop wasn’t at service, you were just waiting for an accessory to be delivered. Same thing from our perspective, but a loophole for CC.
It sounds like your ordeal has finally ended, but if I were you I wouldn’t stop letting the guys at corporate know how unhappy you are untul you feel like you’ve really made an impression.
Just one more reason for me to be glad I left that place.
Reminds me of an experience I had with Sears. I bought a 6-changer Pioneer CD player, and got the Extended Warranty, because 6-changer CD players were relatively new and expensive then. I took it in for service, and a month and a half went by with no calls from Sears. I called them several times, and eventually I must have hit the right person, because they said ‘it will be ready Friday’.
I went in on Friday. Got the CD player. Not my CD player. Better model, though, with the 6-changer magazine doodad and CD’s still in it.
Oh well, color me satisfied!
-sb
“This is going to take a special blend of psychology and extreme violence.”
Best Buy, you sons of bitches.
I’m hired to work in media. Great. But, oooh, we’re short in computers. Can you work over there for a while? Okay. Fast forward nine months. I hate my job. I hate my boss. I hate his ugly, sniveling fucking face. Bastard. But what I hate most is bending people over and fucking them in the ass and making them go home thinking they enjoyed it.
First you sell them a computer. But make sure you have a PSP on it. Then sell them a battery backup. Then some blanks. Oops, you’ll need a labeling kit for those blanks, cuz a labeling pen isn’t good enough. Whatzzat? You wanted a printer, too? Okay. Here’s a godawful expensive one. Now, you’ll need a cable. No, that $10 isn’t good enough. You need the $40 one we have over here. Look, it’s prettier, too. Now you need extra inks. If four blacks and three colors enough? Never mind that you won’t use that much in in three fucking years. Now that you’ve got a good printer, you’ll want some good paper, too. Yes, amazingly, we have a value pack. But if you’re going to be doing all this printing, you’ll need a cleaner. It’s only $20 and it’ll last you six months. Hey, now, since you’ve got all this money invested in this printer, don’t forget a service plan incase it goes south. Never mind that the warranty should cover you. Geez. Now that you’ve got all this stuff, I’m sure you’ll want a scanner, too. Well, since you have a scanner, you’re going to want a PSP for it, also. Hey, it might get dirty. Better pick up a cleaning kit. You say you want to play games on your computer. Better get a new video card. I have one right here for you. Uh-oh, we better install that for you. Hey, if you’re getting a better video card, you may want a new sound card, too. What’s the point in good sound with cheap speakers? Let’s get you some better ones. Oops, those may break. Let’s get you a PSP. Do you need a PC camera? Let’s grab one of those, too. Let’s install that sound card for you, too. Hey, if you’re upgrading this, you’re going to need more memory, also. We can install that, too. Why are you buying a computer like this if you don’t have any games? Let’s go pick out some of those. Since you’re about a smart as a bag of hair, we’ll install those for ONLY $20 per disc. Encarta? Yeah. We have it. Only 7 discs. That’s a mere $140 to install. Wow, sir, you’re all set up. Let’s get you a Best Buy credit card for that. Makes it a little easier on the ol’ wallet, eh? Well then, let’s go up front. I think we’re ready. Ooooh, one last thing. Before we get outta here with this, do you want us to do a setup for you? It’s only $20 and it guarantees you to have a working machine when you get home. We’ll even show your retarded ass how to plug the color coded plugs into the color coded holes. It’s brain surgery, really. ::rings up purchase:: That’ll be $3587.92, please. “But the ad says only $799.99” Well, sir, that’s before all these added value options you wanted. Good day, and thanks for the good blow job.
This chaps my ass.
Best Buy realized that we were losing money on people returning computers that were BOOB (bad out of box). So we decided to save ourselves the time and hassle, we’d do a setup on every machine we sell. Target at 70% of sales. We hit target. We surpass, to a bout 95%. Hey, these things are getting popular, people are actually requesting them, now.
Starting last week, they are now $19.95 per setup.
Nothing like creating a false demand to save yourself money, then finding a way to MAKE money off of saving yourself money.
Fucking bastards.
Someone’s going to come in here waving the capitalism flag, celebrating them for a good job. Capitalism is a good thing, yes, but Geez, people. There’s a difference between taking initiative and making a buck and FUCKING the public.
Yeah, people are cows. And people allow this to be done to them. But these fuckers should have some shame and responsibility.
Writing this has forced my hand on one topic. I’m going to quit this week.
–Tim
Best Buy Free Since Now
You can’t accidently create a handicapped baby whilst smoking pot. - Coldfire
Wow.
We had a similar experiance with a Sony 6 CD changer from CC a couple of years back. We bought the ESP, due to the fact that it was an expensive item. We started to have problems with it about a year latter. It wouldn’t play certain CDs, only a loud feedback sound would come out. But these CDs worked on our other players, so we know it was the Sony changer. Well, sufice it to say, after at least 4 trips back and forth, the problem was never solved. Now my husband is a nice, level-headed man; it takes a lot to get him riled. But he couldn’t listen to his music on his state-of-the-art Sony, damnit! So after dealing with one apathetic service person after another, he snaps (well, for him). He angerly explains THIS IS WHY HE GOT THE ESP IN THE FIRST PLACE, and he is tired of hearing that A) the problem is fixed when it is not or B) there is no problem. He demands a new changer. The 16 year old service person calls over a manager, who explains that Sony will not provide a free replacement until said item has been in for service more than 3 times. ARGH!!! My husband explains with his last ounce of control that it has been in for service MORE than 3 times, and he could give a damn what Sony’s policy was, he wanted a new CD player from Circuit City!! The manager then informs us that since no problem was found with the item a couple of times that we brought it in, THAT DOES NOT COUNT AS SERVICE. (yeah, you’re damn right on that!) At this point, my sweet, wonderful, kitten-loving husband grabs the box off the counter, says “if you can’t help us, we’ll take our problem to another Circuit City!” (Such strong words!)
So. We drive a few miles to next closest CC. We are met AT THE DOOR by a manager who asks my husband “are you Mr. Helms?” My husband says yes. The manager than says “We cannot help you, Mr. Helms” (!!!) THE BASTARDS CALLED AHEAD TO WARN THE OTHER STORE ABOUT US. Now let me say this. My husband is not the crazy customer type. He would never yell, swear, or otherwise act so unreasonable to warrent a store calling another store to warn them. He only acted like an unhappy customer. This is a man who gives 20% tips as the norm, calls company HQ to let them know about good service he has received, and is generally known as a great guy. All he wanted was to have his problem fixed.
CC is on The List, along with Hardy’s, our mailman, and my mother’s dog, who once sat on his lap and proceeded to wipe her ass on his new (light-colored) pants.
Dizzy
You people have been holding me back long enough! I’m going to clown college!
Alrighty then,
My name is Powell, and I’ve worked in retail for the last five years in sales. I’ve got a few things to say.
Firstly, all of the stories on this thread are small potatoes. Having worked at future shop, I can top them all. I once sold a washing machine to a lady. She arranged to have it delivered, set up, and have her old one hauled away. She also purchased the CSP (customer service plan). Her washing machine was to be delivered the next day. It didn’t come. I spent three hours on the phone with our delivery agents to no avail. The delivery agent didn’t know where the unit was. Of course, by this time, we have sold all of the others that we had in the warehouse. The washer is now on back order for the next three weeks. Needless to say, The customer is FURIOUS. I calmly explain to her that there is unfortunately, nothing I can do until a new one arrives at the warehouse. After a long talk on the phone, I convince her not to return her washer, but to instead wait for it to come in. Fast forward three weeks… I have now spoken with the lady several times on the phone and we have arranged that the washer be delivered today. The delivery guys come, take her old washer away, and bring her washer into the house. In the process, they slam it into the wall of her stairway, putting a large gouge in her drywall, ram it against a low wall of landscaping bricks, putting a large dent in the washer itself, and finally, get it into it’s hole where (of course) it is turned on to be tested. Now up top this point it is nothing too spectacular, thing like this happened all of the time at Future Shop, but the worst is yet to come. When the delivery people turned the machine on to test it, the machine filled with water just fine, then it went into a wash cycle, so far so good. Then it goes into the rise cycle. The customer became extremely (and understandably) irate when the machine bagan to spray about forty gallons of mixed soapy water and oil into the room, drenching her in a slimy substance and making a HUGE mess. Needless to say she was not happy. She sought a full refund, unfortunately, our story doesn’t end here. She called the store at approximatele six o’clock PM on march 14 1999. As some of you may know, this is the point at which Future Shop closed it’s doors forever. I still don’t know if she ever got her refund.
Now, I need to say a bit in defense of retailers everywhere. For all of the bad things that everyone here has had happen, first off I’m sorry that it happened to you. Sencond, in a perfect world it wouldn’t ever happen again. However, the sad truth is that it will happen again. The problems that everyone here has had are in every instance something that the assosciates at the store level DID NOT CAUSE. Let me clarify, in all of the examples above, a product was defective, or missing parts. Now, when something like this happens, the retailer turns to the vendor who sold it to them and asks for a replacement part or repair. Vendors do not deal with the public very often. Vendors also signs very specific contracts with the retail stores that describe in great detail what they will and won’t do. Problems: A)The individual employees are not aware of the contracts terms. B)The retailers are frequently persuaded (usuallly by a larger discount on goods puchased from that vendor) to give up certain rights. Things like the vendor not taking returns from the retailer, or not supplying parts to the stores, or like large minimum shipping orders so that the products can’t just come in one at a time, but rather one GIANT ruckload at a time. Put all this together and what I’m trying to say is that the poor service is receive is inevitable. What’s more, you shouldn’t berate or yell at any of the store level employees that you talk to. Chances are very good tht it isn’t their fault, and that it is a very big problem because of that vendor’s relationship with the company. Also, when you get irate, the management is actually less inclined to help you. They become surly, rude, and evil. And you don’t get help. If on the other hand you remain calm and rational, and ask to know exacly WHY you haven’t gotten you part/repair/whatever taken care of, you will usually get a nice explanation and time frame to expect.
Just one more point to raise. DO NOT BUY THE EXTENDED WARRANTY. I mean it. I’ve sold these thing for may years now. I know all the tricks. The extended warranty is never worth it. The company sells extended warranties to make money. Usually, the company expects their total return on the warranty program to be about 50%.
Problem is, there are two kinds of warranty. First the manufacturer’s warranty. Usually, this is a solid period of coverage followed by some swiss chees pieces. (i.e. One year of parts and labor coverage, five years parts only on the compressor system) problem is if you read the warranty, there are an awful lot of exclusions. for example: Parts and Labor will be paid on any service that is required due to a defect in materials or workmanship on the part of (manufacturer’s name here).
This specifically means that you will not receive service if your problem is because of abuse, misuse, OR NORMAL WEAR AND TEAR.
The other kind of warranty, the service warranty, give you all of the benefits (scoff) that the manufacturer’s warranty give you plus some others. In particular, they will offer you annual maintenance, exchange programs, free service, replacement, etc. When you look at the fine print, the company has a way of putting it thats a bit different than the salesperson might. Generally, they explain each of the benefits that the salesman offered you and tell you that they don’t apply in these specific situations… every conceivable situation is listed here including sledgehammer accident.
To sum up my last point, don’t waste you money on the extended warranty, you won’t see it again.
Since this seems to be the thread I was going to post last week, but didn’t, let me share my own electronic repair horror story, this one for Best Buy, oddly enough.
See, I got a brand new laptop as a graduation present. Great machine, loved it. Even came with a three year extended warranty. It worked for exactly nine months. Then the monitor blew out. I’m told this happens alot with laptop monitors, and I bring it to the store for repairs. They tell me it’ll be a month or so. So I spend a month in video game withdrawal, using the computer labs to access the Straight Dope page and other websurfing.
Then, finally, I get the word that its in. Well, not really. They just TELL me its in and fixed. After a full week of 'oh, its still on the pallet (WTF?) I finally find out they couldn’t fix it. So, they have to give me a new one. Fine with me. But they try to weasel out of it in every possible way (oh, we don’t have a laptop with a 13 inch screen, so this 12 inch one should be fine…and this one is our floor model, you can have that…etc). But I finally get a working laptop out of these people.
BUT (there is always a ‘but’) I can’t play my favorite game on it! Turns out to be some sort of software conflict. My morale is crushed. And I can’t bring it back in since the only problem is with this one stupid video game. The rest of it works perfectly. ARGH!
Windows: Just another pane in the glass
PVonAtark (Powell):
I agree that you should never blame a clerk for a problem that they didn’t cause, and that throwing a fit never helps. But when you make reasonable requests for service, and expect that the agreements that you paid for to be honored, you shouldn’t be treated like you are an asshole for asking. Circuit City did not care about making us happy. In addition, the clerks we worked with were often the service people, so they were responsible for part of our problem. Most (but not all) of the staff at Circuit City was apathetic and uncaring. I’m sorry, but just because they did not personally cause the problem, is no excuse to give poor service. Neither I nor my husband yelled, swore, pounded our fists, or treated the service people in way other than with respect. We were rewarded with apathy. Even a manager, who has no excuse in my book, treated us poorly. In addition, I could care less about how CC has to deal with Sony: that is not my problem. I had a defective product that I purchased in their store, with an ESP, and they never solved my problem. For the cost of a $300.00 changer, they lost a customer who has spent thousands on electronics in the past 2 years AT OTHER STORES. We felt insulted, ignored and disrepected. There is no excuse for that.
Also as for ESPs being scams, yeah they are. Should we have bought one? Well, if we didn’t, we would have wished we had after our changer started acting up. (Not that it ened up doing us any good) Frankly, it’s bullshit that companies don’t honor these contracts. And I really HATE it when people say we were the idiots for buying one in the first place. We bought it in good faith. We were screwed. I blame Circuit City, not us.
Both my husband and I have worked many years in retail. I know the customer isn’t always right, and some are down right assholes. I treat clerks with total respect, and expect the same from them. Bottom line, service is part of the job, and if they can’t do that, get another damn job.
Dizzy
Animals are crapping in our houses! What, did we lose a war?
That is unfuckingbelieveable!
And Powell, I agree that 90% of the time the store associates are not to blame for the problem, but when they don’t seem to give a rats ass that you’re having difficulty, THAT is when you have something to blame them for. I was told that although my ESP guaranteed that any defective item would be replaced if it couldn’t be fixed, but when my item was NOT fixed, they not only didn’t offer me a loaner until it WAS fixed or replaced, they made me wait 2 and a half months for a cord that didn’t fit! When I asked after a month why they just didn’t give me one of the cords from one of the computers already in the store, I was told: “Because then we have to send the computer back to the company.” SFW? That’s not my problem! That’s where you’re sending the cord anyway, right? They’ll just slap a new cord in, re-seal the box and send it back to you! Arrrgh! I’m getting all worked up all over again!
Say…where is a GOOD place to buy electronics, anyway? I’ve had good luck online with www.Outpost.com, but for something big like a computer, I’d wanna mess around with it first in a store or something, don’tcha think? Anyone have recommendations?
“You guys are outta your league…You’re looking at a woman who has her own harpoon!”
I never buy ESPs because I think they’re scams… except for this one time…
I got a brand-new 1994 Yamaha Seca II for a birthday present. Near the end of the first year I bought the extended (3-year) warranty. I’d been having an intermittent problem with it: Occasionally it would spew masses of white smoke while it was warming up. Naturally, this problem never manifested itself when I took it to the shop! So I got the warranty. One time, I took it to the shop for some routine maintenence. I was told that the shop owner ran back to the service area and bellowed, “Who started up that #%@$! two-stroke inside?” (Two stroke engines being rather smokey.) Yup. It was my Seca II. Thanks to the ESP, I got the engine rebuilt at no charge to me. 
Back to electronics, someone sent me this .wav file of a call to the Cannon help desk. I hope the link works. http://pw1.netcom.com/~heliboy/helpdesk.wav (Caution: Naughty language!)
“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry
Are you a turtle?