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Boycotting Best Buy

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Boycotting Best Buy

Old 05-09-05, 07:01 PM
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Boycotting Best Buy

I've had it with Best Buy. When I was a DVD newbie I shopped there all the time, but over the years whenever a rare problem arose with a purchase, they were invariantly anti-customer oriented. As a result my spending there trickled down and down at their stores, while I turned over my business to more customer-friendly shops like Borders and Tower Records and select online sites in feeding my ongoing building of a decent DVD collection.

This past weekend, in preparation for the upcoming theatrical release of Star Wars: Episode III, I opened up the Star Wars trilogy that I bought a few months ago and began watching them straight through. About 58 minutes into Empire Strikes Back the DVD pixelated and froze up. I even tried skipping ahead a chapter or two to at least see most of the movie, but no luck, it seemed to pixelate and freeze through the rest of the disk. The shrink wrap had come off only hours earlier and there were no surface marks at all. I panicked, but was relieved when I dug through my files and found my original Best Buy receipt from February. Since I wasn't returning it or exchanging it--I only needed to swap out that one disk--I didn't foresee any problem. Ignorant me. Best Buy customer (dis)service absolutely refused to do anything about it--no exchange, no swapping of disk, no nothing. They even discouraged me from contacting the manufacturer after their refusal, saying that they doubted they would do anything for me either--they hoped I would get stuck with a defective box set apparently. That receipt happened to have well over $100 worth of DVDs (including LoTR EE, Star Wars, X-Files, ... box sets) on it from that one day, but that fact didn't faze them a bit. I located a floor manager and discussed the simple issue with her, that there was no way any person with a full time job and normal life could watch all of those DVDs in that one purchase (plus the many others still in the queue at home) in less than 30 days. Shoulders shrugged and they continued to deny an exchange. Fine they will lose this customer for good.

From this day on I am completely boycotting Best Buy until they modify their policy on making good on defective DVDs. No loss to me (I'll still buy the films I want at less noisy places at the prices I want to pay) and no loss to them (they won't notice $1000/year loss of sales among their billions in revenue) in the great scheme of things, but a man's got to do what a man's got to do.

Last edited by gcbma; 05-09-05 at 07:03 PM.
Old 05-09-05, 07:04 PM
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It sounds more like your player was having trouble with a disc. Usually I just stop and reload it and its good as new. And what do you expect for BB following policy?
Old 05-09-05, 07:06 PM
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On the other hand....I work at Best Buy and don't even buy DVD's from them.



but I do get a lot of Movie posters that are being stored in my trunk.


If anyone is in the San Francisco area....like SSF or Daly City, e-mail me and you can take all of them if you want.
Old 05-09-05, 07:09 PM
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Good for you. Stick it to the man.
Old 05-09-05, 07:10 PM
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uh use your brain

best buy and every other major electronics store has a return/exchange policy for a reason

you can exchange it in that time

past that its your fault

the only downfall to working retail is customers like you... sounds like this customer who came back to circuit city and wanted us to exchange her 6 month old ipod... call the manufacturer ffs
Old 05-09-05, 07:11 PM
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So basically you are upset that they wouldn't break their 30 day policy. That's what a policy is for, to avoid bedlam. Sounds like biting the nose to spite the face to me to boycott them.
Old 05-09-05, 07:11 PM
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Good luck with that.

Want me to get anything for you while I'm in there?
Old 05-09-05, 07:13 PM
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Originally Posted by Scotts35
It sounds more like your player was having trouble with a disc. Usually I just stop and reload it and its good as new.
Wrong, but I'm sure the mega-corporation appreciates your attempt to help them out. Many attempts were made to get the disk to play. I even ejected the disk, shut down the machine, started over again at chapters beyond the problem area, and it still froze up. The other three disks in the set played fine all the way through.

Originally Posted by Scotts35
And what do you expect for BB following policy?
Exactly. It's a BB nationwide policy. That's the point.
Old 05-09-05, 07:15 PM
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Take it to circuit city, tell them you got it as a birthday gift and you would like to exchange it. Works for me Everytime.
Old 05-09-05, 07:19 PM
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Originally Posted by gcbma
Wrong, but I'm sure the mega-corporation appreciates your attempt to help them out. Many attempts were made to get the disk to play. I even ejected the disk, shut down the machine, started over again at chapters beyond the problem area, and it still froze up. The other three disks in the set played fine all the way through.


Exactly. It's a BB nationwide policy. That's the point.
So you never tried the disc in ANOTHER player? Let's try that before getting smart with someone trying to help you.

If your point is that you are boycotting BB because they followed their nationwide policy, then what sort of sympathy are you trying to elicit?

And this is in the wrong forum, there's a store forum.
Old 05-09-05, 07:21 PM
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I'll buy twice as much to make up! Yay Best Buy!
Old 05-09-05, 07:45 PM
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I received about $150 in duplicate DVDs as Christmas gifts this past season, so I didn't have any receipts. Nevertheless, BB gave me store credit for the list price for those unopened titles, which made for a very merry Christmas indeed. I have no problem with BB on this account. Your best bet is to contact the manufacturer.
Old 05-09-05, 07:55 PM
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Call Fox directly 1-888-223-2FOX. Perhaps they are more willing to exchange the bad disc for you.
Old 05-09-05, 08:02 PM
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Originally Posted by DVD Josh
So you never tried the disc in ANOTHER player? Let's try that before getting smart with someone trying to help you.
Good idea, never thought of that. I'll run over to Best Buy tonight and buy another $200 DVD player from them so that I can test the defective DVD that they wouldn't exchange.
Old 05-09-05, 08:02 PM
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Common sense should be used in dealing with returned DVDs. (Of course, EVERY copy of Star Wars is defective since it doesn't contain the correct version of the movie, but I digress.) If it has problems playing yet hasn't been damaged, I'd usually accept a return for another of the same title. If the same customer returns several discs though, then I start to get suspicious- I work for a mail order company so obviously I have to judge whether to get the disc back from the customer before giving them a replacement, but if you're right there in the store that's a non-issue. They should be able to actually play the disc instore too to see if there's any immediate problems.
If the store won't take it back though, you can usually get satisfaction from the company, again provided you don't return every disc you get from them.
I'm a little pissed at Best Buy since I wasted $30 on a cable to connect a borrowed camera to my DVD recorder- when I plugged it in the signal kept going in and out, so it was useless for transferring a digital tape to disc. When I brought the cable back it worked on a computer they had behind the counter, so they would not take it back. Maybe it was my fault for not checking to see what would work with the equipment when I was using, but when I asked them what I SHOULD have used they didn't even know! Most stores have pretty liberal return policies on electronic items anyway if they don't work the way you want them to, but I'm stuck with this $30 cable. On the receipt I got an invitation to take their survey, so I mentioned that I buy mostly DVDs at Best Buy which I know they don't make much money off of; if I was going to get screwed on a $30 accessory though there was no way in hell I would ever buy a TV or any other big-ticket item from them, since I'd probably be stuck if anything went wrong with that.
Old 05-09-05, 08:05 PM
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Thanks to all the postive posts and advice (re: alternative methods to get the disk exchanged)! Much appreciated.
Old 05-09-05, 09:40 PM
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So you waited months to watch it, and were mad they wouldn't break there generous 30 day return policy? Yawn. I understand some people (like myself) don't get around to watching DVDs as soon as I buy it, but what do you expect? You spending $100 means nothing to them.
Old 05-09-05, 09:41 PM
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Originally Posted by gcbma
Good idea, never thought of that. I'll run over to Best Buy tonight and buy another $200 DVD player from them so that I can test the defective DVD that they wouldn't exchange.
LOL. Incredible. Until you confirm the disc will not play properly at the same point in another player, you have ZERO BASIS to say it is a defective disc rather than a player issue. That's plain to everyone else.

Don't believe you have some magic DVD player that plays every disc flawlessly. Even professional grade Denons have issues. But it's a FACT - until you verify it's the disc and not the player, your complaint has no merit. And don't you have friends? You have to buy another player to check this?

Because you missed your return window, your issue is now with FOX. It is not BB's fault you missed the return window. It's yours.
Old 05-10-05, 01:11 AM
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Best Buy has only a thirty day return, or exchange policy. No matter what the circumstances may be, anytime afterwards, the merchant will not acknowledge your complaint. you can spend hundred, or thousands of dollars at Best Buy everyday, it's not going to make a difference. Hate to bust your bubble, but your just stuck with it.
But I understand what your going through because incident has happened to me. When I located my reciept, and detected that the thirty day policy have expired, there was nothing I could do, so I didn't even bother to pursue the issue with merchant any further, because It would be a waste of time. It was entirely my neglect for waiting so long.

Last edited by SINGLE104; 05-10-05 at 01:26 AM.
Old 05-10-05, 01:29 AM
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The manager at Best Buy should have tried to play it in one of their players to test it. If it didn't work despite having no scratches, he should have bent the rule for a good customer who got defective merchandise. It would have been the "right" thing to do, but I am not shocked that they decided to stick it to you for not watching the dvd fast enough. There's a reason Best Buy has a tarnished reputation.

I've been to Best Buy once--to buy an Ipod, and though the store was filled with customer service reps, they were all standing around chatting and too busy to help me. I left in disgust and drove two blocks to Circuit City to get my Ipod. I used to get annoyed at the way Circuit City reps are all over you, but being constantly ignored is definitely worse.
Old 05-10-05, 01:53 AM
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I can understand a 30 day return policy, but it shouldn't apply to defective merchandise. Ecspecially when they continuously offer deals on multiple seasons of tv show. I know they had deal on Friends if you bought all 9 seasons. How can they expect you to watch all of them in 30 days.

Also, I'm not surprised you had trouble with Star Wars. Fox seems to have the worst quality control of all the studios. Of all the defective discs that I've had, over half have been Fox titles.
Old 05-10-05, 07:47 AM
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Why the hell did you even give them the receipt? You should have said you got it as a gift and didn't have the receipt. Then they would have exchanged it no problems. Instead you try to pass off an item that is 4 months old and get angry when they won't exchange it? You're a genius.
Old 05-10-05, 09:02 AM
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If there is another best buy around take it to a different one or a circuit city or check wal mart and exchange it there.
Old 05-10-05, 09:50 AM
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First off, I agree with the posters who said that the Bet Buy manager should have used common sense and exchanged the defective disc for a copy of the same disc. After all, the defective disc will only be returned to Fox for full credit. It's not like BB is going to be expected to "eat it". The one time I exchanged a defective disc at BB, they opened the replacement disc so it couldn't be exchanged as new. I had no problem with this.

If BB insisted on not exchanging the disc, they should at least have advised you of your options and given you a contact number or e-mail at Fox. Regardless of their policy, they sold you a defective disc and should realize that they have a vested interest in making sure you get a working one.

If all else fails, you can always hold on to the set until December 26 and exchange it at a time when BB's return rules are less stringent.
Old 05-10-05, 10:04 AM
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take it to Wal-Mart and exchange it, they'll take back anything.
I remember I was working the service desk and my manager ok'd the refund of a lawn chair that was 2 yrs old and rusted out.

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