I bought an ipod nano from this Best Buy on 12/20. At the time it came with a package deal with a free $20.00 gift card with it. When I was deciding whether to purchase it and also trying to decide on the color, the floor salesperson said that it would be no problem to exchange it at anytime for a different color. So I bought one.
I checked with my daughter and she wanted a different color. Yesterday, her mom went to exchange it, however the lines to customer service were very long and she waited over half an hour, but had limited time so she returned without exchanging it and asked me to return it today.
So today (12/23) I went back to the Best Buy and waited for an hour at customer service and the asked to exchange the ipod (still unopened in the package, and with the receipt) for a different color. The person at customer service said I had to go back and get the new color ipod and then get back in line. I told him that I did not want to wait for another hour, and since the ipods were in a locked case anyway, and somebody would have to get it, why not have that color ipod brought over to the customer service desk so that I could exchange it. The customer service person said that even for that I would have to wait for about another hour, and he offered to return it so that I could just buy hte new color outright. Seeing that the line on the check out registers was much shorter, I agreed to it since I was sure I could get the whole thing done much faster that way.
So in ten minutes, I was at the checkout register with the new color ipod. But when I got there the lady at the register told me that since there was no offer of the gift card today, I would have to pay the extra 20 dollars. I explained that all I wanted was an even exchange, and she told me that I would have to go back to customer service because their computers were totally separate, and that she would not be able to do this for me.
So I went back to customer service, waited in line again, explained the whole thing again to the person at the desk, and since that person could not figure it out, she called the general manager to help. I explained the whole situation again to the general manager that i had wanted an even exchange and even he said that since the offer of the free gift card had expired on 12/20 and changing colors would not be an even exchange, I would lose the 20 dollars. I reminded him that I was told that I could exchange it at anytime when i was first sold the product, and he still stated that he could not do it. I asked him that if I had come in with only a gift certificate and asked for an an exchange of color, and he told me that I would still lose my gift certificate. So anyway, I had to pay the extra twenty dollars.
Now I would have totally refused the item and not bought it back had my daughter not really wanted the ipod badly and had I not had another gift certificate for best buy that I wanted to use and get rid of so that I would never have to see to Best Buy ever again. Nevertheless it was a ripoff, and the store manager was not even nice about it.
So beware of all the lies you may hear from the sales people at best buy just so yopu buy their products. And just because they were so busy with their sales this christmas, with loads of people eager to buy stuff, thay could care less about ripping me off. What is one ripped off customer to them? Nothing. Just more profit from ripping him off. No one else cares. However, I am never going near a Best Buy ever again.
I have personal prior experience with their misleading sales tactics in the past as well. When they claim, "Our sales people are not paid on a comission basis so they will not mislead you", that is the most outragous statement. I have seen them sell bad products and give wrong information many times. Even if they don't get a personal sales commmision they are probably trained to direct customers to products that have the best profit margins for the store. I have seen them give erroneous and misleading technical information, and sell bad quality products way too many times.
Now, what I have written above may not have any affect on other people's attitude towards Best Buy. But I am sure some of you will find this information useful and either avoid similar scam tactics by Best Buy, or better still find a store that treats its customers nicely. Buyer Beware!
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