My Best Buy RewardZone customer service experience has been a complete nightmare. Here's the email I sent in the "contact us" zone last week:
"Shame on you! Please make sure this letter makes it to the VP of Customer Service and/or IT, because this is perhaps the worst system I have ever dealt with. Well, Cingular's comes close. [I lost my rollover minutes when I changed plans, but that's another report.]
A month ago I bought a new HP laptop, and the nice Businesszone rep, Wade, convinced me I could earn 5 points for every dollar if I upgraded to a business account from my personal account. For free! Sounding almost too good to be true, I signed up, thinking I'd be getting 5 points for every one of those $740 I spent.
Now, Monday (3-26-07) I received an email notifying me my reward certificates were ready, and I had something in mind to buy, so I excitedly opened my account, only to find that not only did I not get 5 pts per dollar, but that 753 points weren't even released. I immediately tried to change the threshold back down to $5 instead of $20, but found I couldn't do it online, so I called Customer Care.
We had a significant language barrier, so I had trouble understanding him and he became as frustrated with me as I was with him. Ultimately he conveyed he couldn't help me change my threshold, and that I needed to contact my local Best Buy rep, Wade. I called BB, but Wade wasn't available, so I spoke with another rep until he was. This rep, not a Business zone rep, said he thought points were accumulated 1 cent per dollar, or somesuch, so that ultimately you had to have 25,000 pts to earn $5, so when I said I had 753, he thought I just hadn't earned enough. I assured him this couldn't be so, and he said he'd have Wade call me.
Eventually Wade called back, but was confused about why my 753 pts, or $15 in certificates hadn't been released. He said he'd have to do some research. He called back later Monday and left a message that he and all other reps had been misinformed, and the minimum threshold was indeed $20 or 1000 pts.
Well, I just wanted my certificates. I'm not planning any more big purchases anytime soon, so I knew it would take awhile to get to 1000 pts again. My company is too small to ever achieve the $7500 threshold to start earning more points per dollar, so I don't see any value in being in the business zone program.
So, today I called to talk to Wade again to see if we could change me back to a personal account, as the Customer Care rep told me to do Monday.cc couldn't do it, he said, only my local BB. Wade wasn't in, so I spoke with another business zone rep, and she said all she could do was sign people up and cash in their certificates. She told me to call Customer Care again.
Immediately, I called Customer Care and spoke to Nash. He said, No, he cannot change me from business to personal—can't go that direction—but if I create a new personal account, which must be done online, not through him, all my points would transfer in 48 hours, and I could get them as certificates. Of course, I hung up with him and went online to set up a new account.
Except, I couldn't. I tried three times to initiate a new account, trying different computers and different browsers, but I always got "Unable to process. Please call Customer Care." Frustrated with me, yet?
So, I called Customer Care back, went through all the menus, all the verifications — again — and spoke with Paul, who also had trouble with English... Nice guy tho and he tried to be helpful. Of course, there was nothing he could do. He put me on hold to confirm the problem, and it turns out, my address—the home address I have lived at for 10 years—is coming up in your system as "undeliverable." This prevents me from initiating or canceling anything. AND, neither I nor customer care can change the address; it must be done through the 'back office' only, and that, my friend, will take 7-10 business days. PLUS, they won't even notify me when it's done.
I have to call in to see if it's been fixed. Of course, I can try sending an email, but I already tried that Monday, and the response I got was obviously auto-generated, because it answered the wrong question! So, my faith in the email system is quite fractured. Will I even hear from a human regarding this? I doubt it greatly, so I'm considering blogging it and posting it at some complaint sites, too.
Ultimately, all I really wanted was to get my $15 in certificates released, so I could use them toward a laptop bag purchase. I've waited 30 days for them to be released, so I could buy that bag. I guess I should have just bought the one at Fry's Electronics because this is among the most insane systems I've ever seen.
I should be able to maintain my own records—such as my home address—online. I should be able to change my account backwards if I can change it forwards (personal to business to personal). Your store reps should know what the policies are, and there should be little or no discrepancy among them. I should be able to do anything regarding my account through Customer Care... Or don't tell me to call them for everything!
I have a case number, #36159630, and I'd really like to see some changes made. I'd really like to just get my reward certificates, soon. I hope a real person contacts me with a real, non-auto-generated response. Thank you."
Well, here's an update. I got another automated email telling me to just go online and change my email address. Of course, this was something I had already done with my personal account several months ago when I had the same problem. I wrote her back that this wasn't helpful, could she please read my email again, but I never heard back.
So, tonite I logged into my account and VOILA! My account was working and apparently fixed. I couldn't remember what to do, so I called customer care again and got a guy in Russia, I believe, who again told me he could do nothing to help me, but this time he said I couldn't sign up online, I had to go to my local Best Buy to start a new account, and despite what the last guy said, I probably won't get those points. I simply gave up.
Why is it so hard, Best Buy? If everyone else can help customers, why can't you?
Wendy
Metro Phoenix, Arizona
U.S.A.
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