At first I couldn’t understand why somebody who knew exactly what they wanted would need to be helped for an 1/2 hour. So, I did a run through with my fiance when he started working there. It wasn’t a fridge, it was a digital camera. We decided beforehand what I would want, etc etc. Then I went in and had another sale associate help me out. After they went through their spiel, talked to me about their product, made sure I knew what I was talking about, and offered to sell me accessories, it had been at least 1/2 hour. And that’s the basic sales pitch, with me knowing everything about the camera.
Ahh, Cnote and Scarlett, the salesman knew who I was.
He recognized me from the previous day, and bitching him out didn’t seem to serve any purpose to me.
And I would never want to get someone fired! Maybe he was just having a bad day, or excercised bad judgement that one day. I don’t think he should have to pay with his job for it. I just hope he learned something from that experience, and became a better saleman for it.
Don’t judge a book by its cover. Ever!
Crap! Saleman? They’re having a sale on men?
Should be salesman, of course.
Actually, if it’s a store’s policy, you aren’t going to get anywhere yelling at sales clerks. They don’t make it-they just get in trouble when they break it.
Trust me, this is done for YOUR security. They don’t want to take chances…and they lose a lot in bad checks.
I just want to add that I’m NOT a fan of Best Buy, nor am I defending them. Just saying that the credit card policy is usually the same everywhere. As far as for a big amount-the larger the amount, the more they’re going to WANT to refuse it, for security reasons. If your card was ever stolen, people would be grateful. Yes, it sucks, but there’s so much scamming and loss out there it’s disgusting.
That said, Best Buy does suck.
I have to second Guin on the credit card thing. I used to be a cashier, we were given strict instructions to not accept any credit card unless it had the person’s name on it. A spouse’s name wasn’t going to hack it. Sure, we figured that usually there was no fraud involved, but rules are rules. Now, sometimes we could get a manager to OK a credit card, but that’s all we could do. Probably the managers could have called the credit card company and seen if it was OK, but that was their call, not mine.
Sometimes it seems like the sales clerks just aren’t the brightest people around. When I went into Best Buy in Sunset Valley in Austin Texas to get this computer, they had gotten their freight delivery in a little while earlier. The cases were stacked about four high in two rows down the computer section. The sales clerk tried to shove the hand truck under the first stack. It fell against the next and the whole row of computers and printers went over like dominos. The guy actually made a “Dough” noise like Homer Simpson! Instead of picking up the mess, he went for the next row and did the same thing! We were amazed and entertained. I bought a computer, but I made sure it was one off the upper shelf. No telling if it had recived the same treatment, but they had a good price on it and it has held up for five years so far.
Ahhhh, the nightmare of home improvements.
I’ve had versions of every one of the experiences people are recounting here. I bought my apartment four years ago, and keep trying to renovate the kitchen (the avocado appliances have gotta go) but it keeps getting rescheduled as finances and priorities wax and wane.
The first time was pretty shortly after I moved in. I didn’t have much money and thought I’d just do a cheapie IKEA-type reno. Just out of curiosity I stopped at a kitchen-design place around the corner from me. I walked in (I don’t think I was especially well-dressed), started looking, and I explained that I was just checking - but that my budget was limited. I immediately became Persona Non Grata. The person physically turned away from me and walked off.
Would it have killed them to be a bit friendly? Even in a self-serving way - “Well, you know, we replace a lot of Ikea cabinets and they’re really not a good value…” Hey, I might take the advice with a grain of salt, but at least they’d take twenty seconds to try. Might it have occurred to them that I probably lived in the neighborhood, and might have need for their services for, say, a bathroom at some later date? And that like many New Yorkers and people starting out, my income was subject to improvement?
Now, three years later I’m still in the same apartment, and still haven’t renovated the kitchen. The difference is that in the interim my income almost doubled. I can well afford Snothole Cabinets-r-Us now, but no, I’ll make other plans thankyouverymuch.
It galls me because I have better examples in my own family. My stepmom owns a real estate agency. She frequently works with first-time buyers, and often spends lots of time not just showing them houses, but helping them put together savings plans, get their finances in order, etc., because she knows that they’ll be repeat customers. It’s already paid off for her.
Anyway, then there was the Appliance-store-from-hell day.
I live in Manhattan. Lots of appliance stores, but they tend to be a bit on the expensive side so I decided to journey to Queens, where all of these chains are. In a few blocks’ walk, I could hit Best Buy, Sears, Homo Depot and…was it Lowes? Something. Anyway, at Best Buy I get ignored. I’m dressed from work (I’m a lawyer) and I get ignored! Really, I just wanna know if you can order a certain Hotpoint model that’s not on the floor.
After waiting 20 minutes, I finally get a salesperson’s attention. I start asking my question, and…
The PA announces that the store is being evacuated. It’s a thunderstorm out, and the roof leaks, and there’s a danger people could get electrocuted. What a helluva way to go, y’know? Fried by Frigidaire.
I would give anything for a decent computer store around here. Our choice is between Shittiest Buy and Comp USA, which if anything is worse than Best Buy.
Best Buy recently had a sale on PC memory, with a 64MB chip on sale for $20. I called to see if they had any left, and they said they had about four left. I immediately jumped in the car and headed to the store, where (of course) they informed me that they had no more of those memory sticks. They told me that someone had bought them up in the 10 minutes it took me to get over there, which I suspect is bullshit.
I explained the situation to the guy, and he said, “We can give you this 128MB stick for $40.” Since I had been planning on buying two of the 64MB sticks anyway, I said OK. I told him what kind of computer I had, and he insisted that he was giving me the right kind of memory.
When I got to the register, the stick rang up at $49.99. “They’re giving it to me for $40,” I told the cashier. He told me I had to go back and get a form from the salesperson, so I returned to computers. “You said this would be $40. It rang up for $49.99,” I said. “Yeah, that’s what the ad says, $49.99,” he replied, as if I simply hadn’t read it. I tried to explain that there is a significant difference between $49.99 and $40; he finally just refunded me the $10 difference, probably just to shut me up.
The kicker came when I got home and the new memory stick turned out not to be the right one for my computer. I returned it, and since they had nothing comparable to trade it to, I’m still plugging along at 64MB. Assholes.
Dr. J
Wow. It’s pretty amazing how many people have been fucked over by Best Buy…why are they still in business?
A few months ago, I went to buy a CD player for my car. I know next to nothing about electronics, so I went to find an associate to help me out. There was one fiddling with some display in the section, so I politely went over, and asked if she could help me out. “Yeah, I’m busy though. It’ll be a while.” Didn’t offer to call someone else to help me, didn’t hold off on finishing her display. So me and my sister looked around, found a semi cheap stereo, and waited for her to finish. 15 minutes later I asked again if she could help me. She sighed, “Fine, what do you want?” I asked her opinion of the stereo, and she said basically it was junk. Then she mentioned that if I waited until the next day, they were running some free installation special. Installation was only like $20 or so, plus some taxes and labor and crap that I’d have to pay anyways. She went back to her display. I went to another section, found an asscociate there, and asked if he could find me someone to help me buy a car CD player, or should I just go to Circuit City instead? Turns out he was some sort of manager, he helped me himself. I ended up buying a top of the line CD player, for about $250 on sale. It was regular priced $400. The first associate saw me ringing it up, and snootedly asked why I wasn’t waiting for the free installation. I told her $20 wasn’t worth it for me to have to go there again, (I didn’t mention the fact that if I’d waited a day, the CD player would go up the $150 again…) and that money wasn’t really an issue for me.
So I went to get it installed, and while I was waiting, a kid came in with an amp or something he’d had installed there. He had bought it somewhere else, and it was busted already. Since he didn’t buy it there, and they didn’t sell that model, they couldnt warranty it. The manager told the kid to go to another store, like Circuit City, and buy the exact same product, and save the receipt and box. Then return the busted amp, and keep the good one. The fact that it was a manager reccomending this was beyond me…I’ll never go back there again, their service just plain sucks…
We need to emphasize . . not EVERYONE that works at these big box retailers are lazy, shiftless jerks. But there sure seems to be a high percentage that do work there, doesn’t it?
I think the problem right now is that the economy is so good, these places can’t get good help. And the losers that work at a lot of these places know they are pretty secure with their jobs. I mean who ELSE is going to work nights and weekends at crummy pay constantly being bugged by customers while trying to stock shelves?
I was a retail manager in '94-97, and when we opened our store in 1994 at the tail end of the recession, we had little trouble getting qualified help. By '97 when I left it was a totally different story! My job after that was as a manufacturer’s rep to a large big box retailer, and boy let me tell you a lot of their department managers wouldn’t even get hired as loaders where I worked three years earlier!
Don’t worry . . . soon the recession will hit, and you all will take great glee when most of these bozos are out on the street going . . "You now, maybe I should have worked a little harder to help that customer . . . "
I was an authorized user for my husband’s credit card, but the manager himself refused to check it out. What really pisses me off is that my husband used my credit card in that same store on several occasions to make large purchases, and he was never even questioned.
Keep in mind this is shithole, Texas. Women shouldn’t make large purchases without their husbands’ direct supervision.
Everyone knows Best Buy is a shithole. But I like to shop there and buy elsewhere. Lots of places (like Staples) will match BB’s prices. I read a news story where a guy came in to a Best Buy and started taking notes of the prices on some TVs. The manager came over and told him to stop writing down prices. He refused, and they told him to leave. He didn’t. The manager called the police and had him arrested for tresspassing. Sheesh!
Oh, and BTW, I should make a remark about computer sales. I used to work retail at a serious computer store. Everyone got the same courteous and helpful treatment from me, in fact, I got a reputation as the guy who could handle the rudest customers. But what really galled me was when I’d help someone configure a system, walk them through all the decisions they needed to make their purchase, and then they’d walk out the door while telling me they had already planned to buy it more cheaply elsewhere, they just wanted help deciding what to buy. Yes, my prices were a little higher than box-shifters. But I never had a dissatisfied customer, EVER, no matter how much handholding it took.
Nowadays, computers have become a commodity and you can’t get decent sales assistance anywhere. People like me were driven out of the business by people who bought on cost alone, and now you have to pay a consultant $100/hr for what I used to give away free with a computer purchase.
When I started my last job, we were sent on an induction course. Pretty much only one thing has stuck from that but as this thread shows, it’s something I have cause to reflect on fairly frequently.
On average each disatisfied customer tells 10 other people about their misadventures.
Makes you think, huh?
pan
While his ignoring you in favor of your husband was certainly sexist, his treatment of you once he recognized your existance wasn’t because you are a woman, you were treated as stupid and inferior because you were a customer. I look nothing like a woman and I get that same smarmy, unctous commentary from Radio Shack drones all the time. (Although ignoring
The only way to deal with 'em is to be smarmy right back.
Me: Hi. I need the following items ::shows list::
Radio Shack Drone: Well, why do you need them?
Me: Why do you ask? I want to purchase these items. Please direct me to their locations.
Radio Shack Drone: But you may not be chosing the right items.
Me: Well, that’s a risk we’ll both have to take, innit?
Him: Well, you probably need the gold plated RCA cables
Me: Really? What do you base that on?
Him: Uuhhh…
On the other hand, at least they’ve stopped grilling me when I try to pay.
Him: That’ll be $32.98
Me: <hands cash>
Him: I need your name, address, phone number, work number, mother’s maiden name, a urine sample, car license plate number, driver’s license number, social security number and a list of the last three doctors you’ve seen…with phone numbers. We’ll also need to run a credit check on you.
Me: No.
Him: But we want that information.
Me: It makes very little difference to me what you want.
I think these guys are bred on a farm somewhere. They can’t come from normal society.
I hate Radio Shack.
Fenris
Fenris, I worked for two weeks for Tandy (British trading name of Radio Shack) for a month quite a few Christmases ago.
And I agree with every word of that.
pan
(incidentally, you wouldn’t BELIEVE the proportion of goods we sold that were returned within a few days. Or maybe you wood.)
PLG, That’s the reason I dread going into Best Buy. I do my research first, I don’t need some snot-nosed punk questioning my judgement. The few times I do have to go there, I simply cut the sales crap off at the knees. “Here’s what I want. I need X and Y accessories, part numbers 1 and 2. and I don’t need anything else”
They usually respond with something like “Let me tell you about the features of your item and we can talk about your options.”
I’ll answer “No. Just get me what I asked for. It’s not a matter for discussion. All I want is the items I asked for. I don’t want to hear a sales pitch, discuss other items or debate features. If there’s some reason you can’t just sell me what I want, then please get me the manager.”
What the hell is wrong with this sort of store? I’m trying to hand them money! Why are they required to debate with me. “Here’s my money. Take it”/“No! Let’s talk first!”
I’m an ideal customer, in that I don’t need 30 minutes of coddling, I know exactly what I want and I don’t need a sales pitch to give them money. I can be in and out of that store in 10 minutes, tops. Think of all the time that frees up for the sales clerk. Why do they make it so hard for me to buy stuff there? What’s the point?
Fenris
From my understanding, for every 1 person who knows exactly what they want, there are 10 people who are completely clueless. Like I said before, since Best Buy is a non-commission store, they encourage their employees to take time with each customer (or as many customers as they can) to make sure they have exactly what they want. It annoys me too, but I’ve never had one of the salespeople try to talk me out of what I want, they just pointed out other options.
shrugs I don’t think it’s a very big deal. It’s not like they made up the policy. They are just doing what they are paid to do.
I too had a worst buy experience.
About 3 years ago I needed a new washer…it took me forever to get a sales clerk. The guy I finally tackled was about 70 and was brand new. He told me about all my financing options and the discounts on the washer…yada yada yada
When I finally got to the check out after waiting in line for over 20 minutes (it was in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday mind you…they had NO staff) I was told that everything the guy told me was bunk.
I ended up paying about 50 dollars more than the guy told me and couldn’t get the financing or delivery he promised me (said it could be there the next day and they would remove my old washer for free)
I gave the kid my 25 dollar gift card, (which was the reason I went there in the first place) the kid took it and never credited me for it.
by this time I was late for work and rushed out without checking. Didn’t realize until later that day that I’d been ripped off 25 bucks. (I was already furious)
the next day I went in, waited another 20 minutes in line. when I got to customer service (finally) the kid told me all the managers were in a meeting so they couldn’t help me.
I informed the kid she had one minute to drag a manager out of the meeting or she would incur my wrath which she probably didn’t deserve for the minimum wage she was earning.
I’ll give them credit…after another hour of my life wasted, they did credit me the money even though I had no way to prove their error.
well…then 2 WEEKS LATER the machine finally came…I answered the door in my smelly unwashed clothes…the guy had no idea what he was doing. inisted he was only supposed to drop it off not install it (they told me in the store installation was included but then again they lied about how fast they could get it to me)…he begrudingly agreed to do it anyway (since he was such a great guy) Then he informed me that he wasn’t going to remove the old washer (they don’t do that) I showed him my bill where it said that removal was included and he explained. Oh they just mean take it to the curb, but I’m supposed to have it prepared and my steps were to narrow…and the excuses continued I won’t belabor the issue, this is getting long.
again being the “great guy” he was he agreed to come back for it the next day (he was running late because of me)
he never came. I called the store they confirmed he was supposed to take the old machine and that they’d have someone come get it. no one ever did. I complained to corporate…never heard from them…and it’s still sitting in my basement…three years later!
trust me folks it’s not worth it to save 10 bucks by shopping there! go to a more reputable store where they don’t make you wait in line all day to lie to you and rip you off!
oh by the way…the washing machine is a piece of garbage that never gets my clothes clean enough!