Best Buy commercials seem to be telling a different story from their company policy.
For instance, currently there is a Best Buy commercial that depicts a dog who seems aggravated at a television that shouts canine commands at him. Being a super intelligent dog he gets on the web and orders from Best Buy on line.
The doggie’s owners come home to see the dog watching DVD movies on a brand new home theatre. The owners simply take the DVDs back to Best Buy for a refund, and the voiceover advising you that you can order from Best Buy online and return at a retail outlet.
The Best Buy clerk cheerfully takes the DVDs back. I don’t know how many of you have tried to return a DVD, CD, videocassette, or audiocassette. However my experience has shown me that no one will take these items back (replace maybe, refund no).
Is Best Buy in any trouble legally for displaying a different return policy on commercials from their actual policy? Or would the Best Buy answer simply be: “We will return DVDs only if it can be proven that your dog ordered them online”?
I think most places will give you a refund or at least merchandise credit provided the item is unopened. If you’ve opened it, you can replace it if it happens to be defective.
My WAG is that they are looking ahead to the gift-giving season and encouraging people to go ahead and order gifts online, because they can be returned at the physical stores.
The ad does seem to suggest that the DVDs in question had been “watched” by the dog. I’ve only seen it once, so I don’t remember, but is there a small print disclaimer about original packaging?
The DVD’s in the commercial that are returned are shrink wrapped and unopened. I don’t think that the movie that the dog was watching (Lady and the Tramp?) was in the stack that was being returned.
The same thought of the OP bothered me too, so I watched the commercial very carefully next time it came on.
[sub]And I watch too much TV.[/sub]
Best Buy’s policy is that if the item is opened, it can only be exchanged for the same title (assuming there’s a problem with the original). If it is not opened, it can be exchanged for credit/cash, whichever the original method of payment was. This is the same policy as most large retailers, although some software stores (Software Etc., Babbages, ) have a liberal 1 week return policy.
It bugged me too- about as much as ads where the person inserting a CD pushes the CD tray instead of using the open/close button. Is this a sign of OCD?
I usually insert CDs by pushing on the tray itself. The button in usually under the tray an difficult to reach. Just give the tray a nudge and in it goes.
ummm…just so you know, it was a dog that ordered the movie and who set the entertainment center up soooo…it isn’t real. so um, anything in that commercial shouldn’t be taken literally. I think the point was that you could return items bought on the web in the store, which is actually a huge convenience. Normal policies should still apply for items though. Just guessing I would say that items that can be duplicated would need to be in their original shrink wrap to be returned, and for items that cannot be (duplicated), they would probably fall under the normal store policy of 30 days. I am not sure, but since you all are so interested, you might want to look into it.
i saw this commercial and got pissed… then i got even more pissed when i saw the teeny little words at the bottom of the screen that said something to the effect of “to make our lawyers happy, we must tell you that in reality you can only return DVD’s, CD’s, and software if they are unopened…”
Really misleading commercial, especially since the average best buy shopper cant read anyway
I know this is a hijack- Gary, you can cause severe damage (to the point where its not cost-effective to repair) the CD tray mechanism by pushing it in instead of using the button.
