A few years ago I went into my first best buy and purchased a pair of JBL speakers. These were some quality speakers, they cost me a little over 700 bucks. I was offered a service plan by the sales person. He told me that if ANYTHING ever went wrong, I just had to bring them in and they would be replaced. He stressed that any problem would result in them being replaced. I agreed that it was a good plan, as I am a dj and have blown out speakers in the past at parties (that is actually why I was buying new ones). So I bought the service plan, which cost around a 100 bucks. It was supposed to last for 3 years.
A year later I went to work for Best Buy. I witnessed the extreme pressure that is constantly placed on the employees to sell these plans. This is where the company makes alot of its profits. Next time you are at Best Buy, look at the pole next to the cashier. The best buy I used to work at had stickers that each cashier would put on the pole for each plan they sold. The store managers would walk by, asking why you hadn't sold more. This resulted in some employees not being fully honest, which is what happened when I purchased mine.
So anyway, another year passed and I was no longer working at Best Buy. I used the speakers at a house party where some moron dj fed to loud a signal into them and blew one of the speakers. I took them both down to get them replaced. Even though I had worked there, I was never over at returns and still thought that Best Buy honored their policies.
I brought my speakers down and took them to the returns counter. The kid there said that they would have to be sent to L.A. To be tested. I said that I had been promised new speakers, and as a dj, that my livlihood depended on it. I needed them to practice w / everyday. I demanded to talk to a manager, who rudely told me that I could either send me speakers to L.A. Or take them and leave.
I needed the speakers, so they were sent to L.A. I was promised that I would have speakers within a week.
A week passed, no speakers. I called and called, but they said to wait. After 3 weeks, my speakers finally arrived. When I came to pick them up, they were caked with dirt and the box had a crack running down one side. It looked like it had been dropped and then that they had tryed to glue it back together. The employee asked me if I was sure that it hadn't been like that before. Here is where the real problems began. All the managers kept giving me the run around. One offered me 100 bucks store credit!!!
I demanded replacements and was told that the speakers were no longer carried. I spent the next week calling their main corporate number every lunch break trying to get help. The corporate office was of no help. They took my complaints but said that it would be handled from within, that I wouldn't hear back from them!!!
I went back to Best Buy and tried to work out something with a manager. He offered me replacement speakers valued at 300 dollars a pair!!! Apparently there is a clause in the small print that states that the value of the policy degrades over time, so that your $700 speakers are only worth $300 after a year or two!!! He said that there weren't any speakers in that price range anyway. The ones that I wanted ($600) were out of stock (he said) and they weren't going to carry them anymore.
I came in the next morning, ready to take the $300 speakers just to be done with it, when I saw the saleswoman selling the same speaker that I had been told was out of stock. The saleswoman was trying to sell a warranty to the man. I walked up and told the customer what had happened to me. He walked out, saying he would buy his speakers at the Good Guys. I asked to speak w / a manager, but was told they were all busy. So I began to walk back and forth at the checkout line telling everyone not to buy the policies and what had happened to me. That got the managers out real quick.
I finally left that day w / some new bose speakers worth $700. You might think that sounds fair, but I was out the money I paid my nieghbor to borrow his speakers for a month as well as all the time spent enduring this crap. I spent two weeks of lunch breaks total on the phone and at least 20 hours driving to and from the store and waiting in line (good lord, the never ending lines).
Do not buy this warranty!!! The only reason that i got anything is after threatening to sue, chasing away customers, and generally being a pain in the ass.
Dateline or 20/20, on of those shows, did a report on Best Buy a few years ago. They talked about how the sales people are pressured to lie to sell these fraudulant warranties. READ THE FINE PRINT AND KNOW THAT IF SOMETHING DOES GO WRONG, IT IS GOING TO BE HELL TO GET THAT ITEM FIXED!!!
By the way, this just goes for service plans, not the replacement plans which are on cheaper items. I don't have any experience with those.
A Pissed Off Customer
san diego, California
U.S.A.
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