Comments on: Why Best Buy sucks.

By: BestBuy Employee

BestBuy Employee — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:34:48 +0000

I have to agree with everyone who says BestBuy is only after money, and not there for the best interest of the customer. I work at a store in upstate NY, and see time and time again sales practices put in place that mimic commission based tactics. Adding on their warranties, extra cables, install services that are all extremely overpriced, just to pad the business’ bottome line. But the people selling these are making $9, $10 an hour. We see none of the extra profit. The leadership is incompetant, and if you don’t sell any add-ons you get chastized, but if you do you get a high five. That’s it. A high freakin five. I’ve been in retail alot of years, and worked for most of the big names out there.. and honestly I have to say Best Buy is one of the WORST ran companies around. The onle reason they still exist is because they don’t pay their people anything, and don;t honor their warranties. Thus they only make money. Circuit went away because they actually paid their customers, and replaced people’s TVs. I won’t be here much longer, but I will abuse the hell out of my discount before I go. That’s the only good thing about working in this hole

By: Greg

Greg — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:48:22 +0000

As a former Best Buy employee, I can tell you that ignorance is on both sides of the counter. I have seen countless customers and Best Buy employess completely clueless. On the Best Buy employee side you will have in any store, employees that are working maybe 8 hours a week minimum and are ill informed of policies and training that is available, these are typically your high school and college kids, working during the summer or the holiday hiring period which has just started. On the other hand the full time employees, some don’t care, you get what you get, quality people in any business are hard to find, there are a few of us that actually are given the training and offered positions due to the information and knowledge that we possess, the only problem with that is, it is seen as a detriment to the company, because if you are too good you are going to be paid more, like any employee, but the company does not want to do that. I had to fight tooth and nail to make over $22.00 an hour as a
Geek Squad agent, when our department was netting over $8000 a month in revenue. So Best Buy decided to use remote services instead of actual techs and hire sales people rather than techs, which they could pay less.
Employees at the stores where I worked were some of the most knowledeable people in their departments, however, there were some that didn’t want to improve, they were there for the money and the huge employee discount. So you have that attitude in almost every job.

Customers can be easy and can be a pain in the ass, the reason I know this is because when I am a customer I am a pain in the ass. I research for weeks on product before I even buy it, when I go to Best Buy or a online retailer, I asks tough questions to the sales rep, even though I know the answers already, just to prove a point. Don’t sell me what I don’t need, which is one of Best Buy’s sticking point, always up-sell the customer. I never did that as a employee and don’t tolerate it as a customer. On the other hand, you have idiot customers that don’t know squat about technology, but want the employee to teach it to them. NOT going to happen at a store, where time is money. If you want the training on the product, pay for it, or research it, wasting my time asking questions about a product in the store that you want to connect to a item at home that we haven’t seen, NOT going to happen, use Geek Squad or try yourself, easy answer. Customer’s need to be informed before making any purchases at Best Buy or anywhere else, you don’t go buy a car without information about the car and the warranty it has, you should do the same thing when shopping Best Buy. Customers are not always right, but if you make them think they are, you can still turn a profit, that’s
the American way, so get over yourselves.
Oh, by the way, if you do shop at online retailers, such as Newegg, Tiger Direct, or any other electronics retailer, you still are probably buying Best Buy product. The reason behind this is, Best Buy purchased the second largest electronics manufacturer in China and is the only American electronics retailer with stores and manufacturing facilities in China. So go ahead and be angry, while Best Buy still profits.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:25:24 +0000

I have had issues with Best Buy myself the return policies are so bad on some items its like they know they are selling junk.

By: Vincent

Vincent — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:03:56 +0000

see heres the thing there are a TON of ignorant people out there employees and customers alike who complicate things and make the job difficult and the shopping experience a nightmare, but this does not alter the fact that BestBuy is one of the worst electronics retailers in the country or rather i should say in the world (i travel so i know),thier corporate atmosphere is the source of everyones misery and woes (employees of thier company and thier customers) i as a consumer make the choice of not shopping there
similarly i do not shop at Circuit City, Gamestop, Wal-mart or any other corprotized electronics franchise
do yourselves a favor all of you and shop on Amazon, Tiger-direct, or Newegg.com.

By: George Venturini

George Venturini — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 21:54:41 +0000

Best Buy should change their slogan to;
It’s the least we can do because at Best Buy “We do the least we can do”
I will NEVER shop there again. About three years ago I purchased a 32” flat screen t TV for a little over 1,000. I also purchased a FOUR year extended warranty. Three years later it stopped working correctly. Geek Squad showed up about a week after I called for service. I had to take a day off work to be there because a weekend appointment was a month away. He took one look at the problem and told me that it couldn’t be repaired because the part was not available. (Remember that point as it becomes important later) At that time he advised me that it would have to be replaced. Another week passed and I hadn’t been contacted like I was told I would be. So I started making phone calls. I guess this woke someone from their stupidity coma, because I then got a couple calls back. I was given a code number and was told that I could use it to get a replacement TV of “equal value”. This doesn’t sound too bad however, there are two catches here.
1. Once I received this TV it would terminate the extended warranty I paid extra for. They use the word “Fulfilled”. I use the word “screwed” I don’t see why. I paid for four years. I would now only be getting three. Actually twenty five months to be fair. It’s not my fault the part isn’t available. When I questioned this I was told, “It’s all in the warranty brochure.”
YEA asshole the warranty brochure you get AFTER you pay for it.
Sorry but Four Years should be Four years.

2. When I get to the store they show me the replacement. It’s a similar model selling for 379.99.
Now maybe math is different at RIP Off best buy but my calculator says that 1000 is not the same as 379.00. When I questioned why, I was told that technology has changed in three years.
What the hell does the level of technology have to do with customer service? I don’t want a
new TV, I don’t need new technology …..All I want is the one I bought to work.
Good thing this didn’t happen one year into the plan I would have lost three years.

So here are the lessons I have learned:
1. I will only shop at best buy if I absolutely need to.
2. Extended warranties aren’t worth very much. So read them and ask questions before you buy one.
3. Don’t expect ANYONE at RIP Off best buy to give a rats ass about customer service.

PS To the overly defensive guy who posted
“For you guys complaining about Best Buy let me ask one question. How is your multi-billion dollar electronic business running? That’s right it’s not and Best Buy is the biggest consumer electronic store out there.”
What the hell does the size of RIP Off best buy and whether or not I have a store have to do with anything? Your attitude is EXACTLY the problem. Just because RIP Off best buy is huge DOES NOT mean that they have the right to take advantage of their customers. You are a FOOL does that mean I can take advantage of you?

By: Randy

Randy — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:49:20 +0000

I went to buy a LCD large screen TV at Best Buy and thought that it would be a simple task. After choosing the selected TV I never knew I had to go through a guantlet of other things that the TV may need. The sales staff stood me in front of two TVs and said pick which one had the best picture, and somehow I pick the wrong one. Anyhow they said my TV needed to be calibrated and I refused because The other TV picture looked great to me. After 15 minutes of trying to plead my case why I didnt want a calibration they brought me to another area, and I was asked if I wanted insurance. Since I was going to use my Platinum card it would’nt be necessary, than I had to go through another 15 minutes of why I needed their insurance. Than I was asked if I need a DMI cable and I said that Walmart has one much cheaper and I’ll get one there, but they argued with me for a while that theirs was better. Than they said I needed a power station in case of thunder a power outage and I said I really dont need one because I’ll take my chances. After a while the sales person finally brought the TV out of the warehouse and said.” Hey look I need to go to lunch, I’m going to give you someone else to take care of you. Out comes this poor black kid and The saleperson said, “here take care of him”. Well needless to say I just walked out of the store and didnt buy the TV.

By: AB

AB — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 20:24:03 +0000

I won’t bore many here with the very poor customer service experience I received from the local Best Lie (Buy) store in South Salt Lake City, UT. Essentially, I was quoted and guaranteed an item at a specific price, when I arrived to purchase the item the CSR “Dan” and stores product supervisor/manager “Lane” would not provide the item at the price I was quoted by Dan. I spent over 45 minutes in the store waiting for a reasonable explanation as to why I was lied too. Now Best Lie is another B&M (brick and mortar) and .com store I will never shop again.

Best Lie would be smart to provide customer service similar to retailers such as REI and Crutchfield, and other businesses which hire persons with honesty and integrity. I’ll be sure to share my negative experience with anyone looking to purchase items Best Lie or its competitors sell.

As for the person who posted the comments here on 01/31/2009, yes, there is such a thing as “good quality and cheap.” I’ve shopped several other stores which provide quality products at fair or cheap prices.

By: jake

jake — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:50:40 +0000

Well another trip to Best Buys. Left there feeling like a piece of grap!
Why! I went to buy a camera and knew exactly the one I wanted before I got there! Well the first guy made wait so long for nothing! I went and got another guy to get the lock camera out. He wouldn’t let me see it and made me go stand in line and pay first. I just wanted to see what came with it! What a concept. They treated another fellow worst than me and all he did while in line was blasting Best Buys on how there crappy policy is. Bad thing about it he had bad breath. He wouldn’t shut up about Best Buy. Couldn’t blame him, all I thought about after I left about I wish Best Buy would take stinking crappy policy and show it up!
Was headed out the door and some big goon looking but wipe made me use one of the other four doors. Another stupid idiot policy. If I were five years younger I would have shove those doors up is goon looking ass. If I had another 24 hour I tell you had I really feel about Best Buys. They suck really bad. I hope there on the way out.
They think there all that but just a piece of running grap! That’s all!

By: Fly

Fly — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:22:00 +0000

Best Buy sucks as bad as Wal Mart.

By: ed bowie

ed bowie — Sun, 17 May 2009 17:29:17 +0000

I’ve spent about 10K of a non-profit’s money at Best Buy over the passed 2 years. Paid every time with a check, drawn on the same account, use the same ID and have never had a bounce with them or anyone. I’m a member of the rewards club, they send me accounts of how much I spend. They know who I and my company check are and what we’re about.

Last week I presented a check, they tossed it back to me, after verfying it, and told me I/it was declined.

From there, I’ve been informed that they had nothing they can tell me to cause me to be declined. I just didn’t fit a proper “pattern”, their term. They use a 3rd party to whom they turn over my personal information and who in turn tells them I’m not acceptable.

The third party claims only that my transaction followed a suspicious pattern, my ID and company checking accounts were fine but the transaction didn’t fit the proper pattern so they declined my check.

So, even though they have an extensive positive history with me and my company (an medium sized non-profit) I was profiled and my money is no longer welcome.

I won’t bore you with the predictable customer service joke that has transpired since I tried to find out if I was even welcome in a Best Buy as according to their profile, I trigger a rejection response.

I have time and work in media so this’ll be going on for a while. I’m not overly happy about being profiled by a business like this.

asf