I bought a Sony monitor, sealed in the box. Brought it home and started unpacking it. As I pulled out the instruction pamplet, I noticed it was badly stained with coffee. When I called Fry's to complain, they said it was standard practice to inspect, reseal, and put returned items back on the shelf for sale. They even have a shrink wrap machine! They assured me all the usual warranties would still apply. But I don't give a damn about whether the warranty applies or not, I want new stuff when I pay new stuff prices.
So, like the optimistic idiot I am, the next time I went to buy a Palm pilot for my wife for a present, I grabbed one of the boxes that not only had the shrink wrapping, but had 4 sealed nylon straps around the box. Obviously this was a new unit. I wanted to load all my wife's address info into the Palm so she would be ready when she opened it. Surprise, surprise, Sgt Carter! When I opened the box, the docking cradle, lid, the connection wires, and some of the documents were missing. So I hauled the crap back to Fry's and stood for 45 minutes in the return line. The return guy starts to process the paperwork, glances into the box and throws it in a shopping cart. But, when he asks why I am returning it and I replied that parts were missing, now he gets excited. Even though he didn't notice the missing parts and I could have made up any excuse, now he wasn't going to take it back! He had to go and get a manager! So I'm grilling this dilbert about how I could buy a sealed unit with parts missing, and he fesses up that not only do the have a shrink wrap machine, they have the nylon strapping machine.
NEVER, EVER, EVER buy any hardware from Fry's. Their "inspection" of returned items is a joke. If you don't believe me, go and watch the return item section. You'll see them place stickers on the items and put them in carts for re-stocking. And there are tons of people returning stuff every day. I suppose buying software is ok, because they won't take that back if it is opened. Other than that, you'd be an optimistic idiot to buy anything from this rip off outfit.
Bubba
San Jose, California
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