I’m writing regarding and issue I had recently had regarding Best Buy 's customer service department. Up until the events described below I have been a loyal Best Buy customer for many years. I have chosen on countless occasions to pay a higher price for Best Buy products because of their convenience, selection, and branding. As of now, they have lost my business entirely. I will further be submitting this story to every consumer site, blog, etc that may keep potential customers from having to deal with the same poor service that I have received.
I purchased a kegerator from Bestbuy.com using a gift card. The gift card in question was meant to be used for the sole purpose of purchasing a kegerator for a Super Bowl party occurring 2 weeks later. The Best Buy associate that I spoke with on the phone was very helpful, offering me a price match and free shipping. I was very pleased. The total came to about $500 after tax, and the gift card covered the purchase entirely. I received a confirmation email but never an email stating that the product had been shipped. I called four days later to inquire and was told it would be shipping soon. When I returned home that evening, the fridge was sitting on my doorstep. Confused, but very happy to have a shipping mistake turn out in my favor, I opened the package to find that fridge inside was extremely dirty and looked like it had been used extensively. Moreover, it did not work at all.
At this point I was annoyed but these things happen so I was not upset with Best Buy’s service. I called customer care since I was running out of time before the party. The rep I spoke to apologized for the trouble and promised that the shipping department would call me personally within 24 hours to have a replacement item shipped and have the broken item picked up immediately, and that everything would be resolved in time for the Super Bowl.
I never received this call.
I called back three days later to find out why the delay, and a new rep told me that the item was now out of stock, and that this was the reason why no one from Best Buy took the time to call me. This was frustrating; the rep gave no indication that Best Buy would have ever contacted me to refund or replace the broken product should this item never go back in stock.
Still, I did not think it fair to get angry over this slight and worked with the rep, Kevin, to come up with a solution. He found a second fridge on Best Buy.com at a higher price: $600 tax shipping. For my trouble, he promised to give me this fridge for the same price as the first, waive the shipping charges again, add expedited shipping to ensure that the item arrived by the weekend in time for the Super Bowl, and even send a gift card as a “thank you” for being an understanding customer. The catch was that since this was a different item than the first, Best Buy policy would not let him refund my money without first getting back the broken fridge.in order to get a working product for the Super Bowl, I would thus have to buy a SECOND fridge with a credit card, ship back the first one myself with a provided label, and then wait for a new gift card to be sent to me.
I understood this policy, but explained that I did not want to have a $500 gift card lying around after having spent another $500 in cash since this purchase was the entire reason for the gift card. He told me the credit card department would credit the gift card money back to my bank account so I would be squared away. Foolishly believing that Best Buy reps would not outright lie to me on the phone after being labeled as a leader in customer service, I agreed to spend another $500. While processing, he stopped and told me that the system was preventing him from giving me expedited shipping, and suddenly asked me to add an extra $160 to get a working item by the promised date. I said that didn’t seem fair since this ordeal was completely the fault of Best Buy, and he agreed then asked me to go “halfsies” on the shipping. Again I refused and told him to cancel the order, and he said that suddenly he could waive the entire thing. Very professional. So I spent another $500 and went back to waiting.
Two days later - new confirmation email stating that the 2nd fridge shipped. I checked the tracking number in the email but it was invalid. I called the company (Pilot) and was told they had no record of the shipment. I called Best Buy again and was told that they had definitely charged me, but that they couldn’t find the shipment, and that I should take it up with Pilot and that surely it must just be processing. After another two days of no change, I called back and was told by yet another Best Buy rep that she would handle the situation for me, find the shipment, and call me with an update within 24 hours, and that according to records the shipment was en route and should arrive by the Super Bowl if not days before.
I never got that call either.
The Superbowl came and went. Two more days passed and I again called Best Buy, again navigating through numerous gate keepers and rehashing my contact information at least twice every call before getting to a rep that would “help” me. I was angry at this point after waiting 3 weeks and having no working fridge (I sent the first one back the previous week) and Best Buy had $1000 of my money. The latest rep told me they still had not found the item, and still had not received the old kegerator so I would still have to wait for my refund, and by the way, "this Kevin must have lied about the refund. Policy dictates you will only be getting a gift card back as a refund" (despite being tricked into spending another $500). There were apparently no notes logged from the last rep either, so this one made it clear she assumed I was making everything up hoping to get some free gift cards or cash-back. I asked for whatever department/supervisor could fix the refund issue, and was told a ticket was opened for the credit card dept to call me within 24 hours and that they had the authority to make the switch from gift card to credit.
Once again, I never got that call.
I called days later, rehashed my contact information and help ticket again, and was told by a new rep that according to the system, all my issues had been resolved. Thank goodness. Still, I’m confused as to why nothing had happened. She told me that she opened a new help ticket for both the missing fridge and the gift-card-to-cash-refund. I asked why I needed a new help ticket when I already had two by this point. She tells me “Forget about that ticket, it’s dead. Nothing’s gonna happen with it now.” She promised to put a hold on the refund so the credit card department could speak to me before a gift card was issued as a refund. I went back to waiting.
Another week went by, still no response. Then I see an email saying my first fridge has been returned, and a refund gift card is in the mail. Hooray! I call back, quite angry at this point for never once having been taken seriously during this process despite trying to remain understanding with so many different customer care reps, almost all of whom talked like they were sitting on a couch at home, bored and completely unconcerned with their jobs.
The newest rep told me that again all of my help tickets were resolved. I told her that most certainly isn’t the case since I still had no kegerator, a missing $500 in cash, and a $500 gift card that should no longer exist being sent back to me despite my requests otherwise. This rep then comes up with another wonderful solution that made me think for a second that this could still work out. She said she would track down the missing shipment and if in 24 hours had not found it, cancel the order, refund me immediately the $500 in cash, track down the number of my newly mailed gift card, and re-purchase the kegerator a THIRD time over the phone later that day so that I would have a new shipment sent out using the gift card money without having to wait another week. As confusing as this sounded, and after having this solution arrive a full month after my initial order, I still accepted this happily and thanked the rep for her concern and for working this out. She promised to call me personally by the end of the day to wrap everything up.
I never got that call. Surprised?
A day later I received a random call from a shipping company, NOT Pilot, the company that was supposedly shipping my order, but a new company saying that they found the 2nd fridge in their warehouse and could deliver it whenever.
I called Best Buy, spoke with yet another new rep, rehashed all my contact info and the entire story up to that point, and asked what I should do since I could now have the product in my possession, but still did not have the issue of the missing $1000 I paid for it resolved. This rep told me that it was impossible to track down the gift card and that I would have to wait another few days for it to arrive by mail, was impossible to allow me to receive the “found” fridge and have the credit card department transfer the gift card balance to cash to refund me properly, and that all the reps before her were giving me misinformation. She claimed that my only options were to take the fridge, accept that I was screwed out of $500 bucks and enjoy using my gift card on other great Best Buy products, OR I could call the shipping company myself, refuse the shipment, have it sent back to Best Buy, wait at least another week to get a cash refund, wait for the gift card to arrive in the mail, and start over from the beginning. She said that if I did this, Best Buy would not honor the discounted pricing from the original orders since “We messed up that time so we gave you the discount, if you refuse the shipment, that’s on you, so we can’t apply the discount again. You’ll pay the $600 tax $160 in shipping.” Furious at her rude attitude and not believing that Best Buy would actually have no way to correct such a policy, I demanded to speak with her supervisor. She told me that she didn’t have one, then that he wasn’t around, and that she could take my number and he would call me. I informed her that I didn’t have much luck with getting calls back from Best Buy, and that I wanted to speak with someone immediately. She changed her tone, and said that she would personally take care of everything rather than have me speak with a supervisor.
This rep, Beverly, then promised to put me in some sort of personal queue of hers and call me back EVERY DAY until I received both the new gift card and my cash refund (I immediately called to refuse the shipment per her instructions) and that she would honor the discounted price and shipping and help me re-purchase the product a third time as soon as the card arrived.
I ACTUALLY GOT A CALL BACK the next day!
It was a little strange, since Beverly herself had stated that there was no chance the gift card needed to wrap everything up would arrive for another few days, but I informed her that I refused the shipment and thanked her for caring. She said she always kept her promises and that she would call me the next day to check back.
I never got another call from Beverly.
A few days later got the gift card, called Best Buy again to preemptively get my THIRD kegerator purchased and shipped, expecting the 2nd to be arriving soon and my cash refund to be following immediately. I felt like I was having déjà vu when the latest rep informed me that the 2nd type of kegerator was now out of stock, despite one floating around between shipping companies that was supposed to be mine in the first place. The first, lower quality kegerator was now BACK in stock, but now cost $100 dollars more than it did weeks earlier. He tried to push that on me for the full price, and I told him at that point I no longer planned to buy this fridge from Best Buy, and that I wanted my cash refund so that I could go spend it with another company that actually delivers. He apologized for the trouble and thanked me for being a valued Best Buy customer.
Two and a half more weeks have passed. I found myself stuck with the $500 gift card, no fridge and a missing $500 in cash. The shipping company confirmed they had long since returned the 2nd kegerator, and BB kept saying it has not arrived or must be in processing (suspicious since BB already lost it once). Twice more I was told a ticket was opened and flagged by the cc dept to get my refund processed. I was next told that despite multiple reps promising a refund within 24 hours, the actual process will take at least 7 days, with a maximum of 10 days after a ticket has been flagged. I was told of course by the rep who said this that he would personally call me to find out why that was taking so long.
Of course I never got that call.
It took 15 days to get any of my money back, and even then I am still missing $50 of my refund somehow. I also still have not seen any of the gift cards, apologies, update calls, etc that I have been promised over and over from at this point at least 16 different people that I can name but whose contributions were not large enough to make it into this long story (I called numerous times and just got “well, it looks like everything is on schedule. Thanks for shopping at Best Buy! Sorry for the delay! ”) It has been almost two full months since this issue started, and not a single one of Best Buy's customer service reps across any departments have provided me any actual “help” or “care” whatsoever. Most have been rude/bored/unconcerned and just spit the same speech about policies or getting some other department to handle the situation after asking me to spend five minutes confirming my identity with them, only to do it again for a new person. The ones that have been polite and seemingly helpful apparently only seem that way because they just outright make things up to keep customers happy on the phone, knowing that BB makes it impossible to get back to them individually and hold them accountable once the information is proven false.
I realize that Best Buy is a very large company these days with a lot of red tape and a lot of moving parts to make things happen. That is understandable. But as shown above, their policy and red tape create an inability for any of their people to actually make decisions, much less helpful ones, and as a result they have lost me as a customer.
Customer service is still important and how a company reacts when there is a problem is one of the best indicators of whether it’s a good company to be in business with, and as far as I’m concerned Best Buy is failing that test miserably.
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