Shirley. but c’mon! It’s so much fun to have to SCREAM what you want to the drone who wouldn’t understand what you want if you had diagrams, let alone when they can’t hear you.
What drives me nuts is the fact that Best Buy has been caught originating or running some of the greatest consumer scams of the last 15 years, and they never seemed to be affected by it.
Early 90’s -> Busted for massive reselling of returned merchandise as new. *
Mid 90’s -> Busted for standard proceedures of rejecting or not honoring Warrenties in stores. Oh, also failed to record liability on Accounting books. *
Early 2000’s -> Popularized the rebate as a way of pushing working capital float onto customers. And eliminated competitor price matching by instituting the “in-store” rebate as opposed to a sale price, which they do not recognize as the “real price” for price matching reasons.
Unfortunately, it seems that we have less consumer choice than ever for these things, unless you want to order online. At least in the midwest.
- I worked for best buy during these events
Unfortunately, the only electronics store in this town is Best Buy. I had to go there over the weekend to pick up two headsets for my home computer.
I picked up some mid-range headsets and printer cartridge, and headed over to the checkout stand.
Mouthbreather- “Have you heard about our replacement warranty service?”
Me- slow blink. I actually did a slow blink. “On twenty dollar headsets? No thanks.”
Mouthbreather- “Uhhhh… do you know about our online customer satisfaction survey? You could win a five hundr-”
Me, having heard about this the last ten times I’d shopped at Best Buy- “Sure, whatever… I’ll get right on that when I get home. I promise. I pinky promise.”
Mouthbreather- “Um… okay. Can I get your phone number?”
Me, anticipating phone spam since they could claim a “prior business relationship”- “Don’t have one- I got too much phone spam from companies that asked for my phone number every time I tried to buy something from them.”
Mouthbreather- “Uh… okay.”
He rang up my purchase, and handed me the receipt.
Now, bear in mind this was three (3) items- two headsets, and a printer cartridge.
The receipt was almost two feet long- detailing the return policy, the actual three sales, the total, the fact that there were no qualifying rebates, the disclaimer that stated I completely agreed with all the provisions of shopping at Best Buy, an invitation for me to apply to WORK at Best Buy, a notice about the aforesaid online survey in which I could win five hundred dollars, and a bunch of fine print which said that I didn’t stand a chance in hell of actually winning the five hundred bucks. I may have paraphrased a bit of that.
sigh
You just answered one of my biggest questions - why the hell do people shop at Best Buy, ever?
My biggest pet peeve with Best Buy - I can’t get anything without having to turn down 1) a “free” magazine subscription 2)the extended service contract 3) joining their Best Buy points club 4) a credit card
I long for the good old days when they’d take your money and let you get the hell out of the store.
Basically, it’s a set a shelves with a sign overhead that says “Best Sellers 30% Off” or some thing along those lines. However, not all of the books on the shelves are best sellers. To indicate the books that are best sellers, they have a “30% off” sticker directly on them.
Some people figure that everything below the big sign is 30% off though, which isn’t unreasonable by any means.
That’s the last time I post at 6:30 AM. Sorry for doubting you, Little Nemo.
Lightnin’, I work at a large chain store (one with a giraffe for a mascot). The company makes a lot of money on those warranties so they make us, the grunts, push them like its our job. Well, I guess it is. Anyway, the “mouthbreather” probably hates pushing them as much as you hate being pushed.
Little Nemo, what the cashier should have done is rip the last portion of the book out.
Y’know.
30%off.
I slay myself