UAIOE

Good call.


As for the camera thing...who do you work for, Dateline?


And Abob...that campaign was supposed to be about customer service? Its amazing how "Carry more Widescreen VHS movies" could be over shadowed by something like "Dude, get me the ultimate dorm room so i can get laid!"

mytzplyx

I think he was responding to the fact that he was being attacked for posting his complaint. Basically, when you say "is this forum now exclusively for complaining" you're also saying that it IS for complaining as well. So, to tell someone to shut up about something when they have the priveledge to do so just as much as the next dvdtalk member, is WRONG. In a sense, I'm using your explaination to argue against your point.

calhoun07

I agree. There is one not too far from where I work that I would go to from time to time (in Kansas City), just because of location and convenience and I can zip over there on my lunch break and be back to work in time. But it is not in the best of neighborhoods, shall we say. A LOT of ghettoization/urbanization there. While there are a core of good employees there that are pretty good to deal with, there are more bad employees there than good ones, so I've had bad experience after bad experience there. And I know somebody who went there to get a computer and they would NOT shut up about the PSP, and one guy kept on harassing my friend's family about it until they just flat out threatened to go to Circuit City, despite the fact they kept on telling the guy NO.

Then there's a Best Buy in Lee's Summit, MO, a considerably more upscale part of Kansas City. Better class of employees, and better service. I fully agree with the above statement. Of course, I think quite a bit of it has to do with if they are in ghetto/urban areas, that Best Buy may be limited on the number of good, quality help it can get, where as Best Buys in better neighborhoods may attract a better class of employees.

QuAcKeR

Yeah service varies by location for sure... luckily there are 4 other BB's around here that haven't pissed my off yet... and you know local stores like to compete for those banners you see hanging up... so even losing business to another BB can be a bad thing..

QuAcKeR

Well according to whoever answers the phones at Best Buy the GM is still on vacation and no one has an estimate of a return date... must've sold a bunch of PSP's!

UAIOE

GM's do that often.

At least at this store anyway.

Funk

The Best Buy in King of Prussia, PA has the same crapola service that I've read about in countless posts on numerous Internet forums. And the KoP mall ain't exactly ghetto.

huzefa

This is so true. I've visited 4 Bestbuys within 20 miles of my home. The 2 closest to me are the Old Orchard (middle-upper class) store and the Village Crossing Mall (low-middle class) store. The Old Orchard store is newer than the Village Crossing one. When I went to buy my TV, I tried to get it pricematched to another store. The village crossing manager took one look at me (23-yr old guy in sweats) and said "No, we can't pricematch that store" and left. I went to the Old Orchard store (still same clothes), and walked right up to the employee closest to the TV I wanted and told him I want this right now and I want to pricematch it. The guy said no problem, did his thing, gave me free delivery, pricematched it and a free dvd player. Great service; I was thinking about the PSP too and in the end, I took it because the guy really did a good job of explaining it to me and answering my questions about it. So if you want good service, it's better to go to the better neighborhood.

Abob Teff

My point exactly! They made the mistake of giving something away in conjunction with the first set of ads and the "program" deteriorated so bad that it was discontinued. Typical Best Buy move. I still have friends at Suncoast (now a BB company) who told me that BB just spent a cool $3 million trying to figure out why their employees are unhappy. I love corporate logic.

UAIOE

Spent 3 mil on trying to find out why thier employee's were unhappy? I wonder what they found out.

Rant

Before heading off-topic, let me add that I think this sort of treatment by retail employees is appalling. Customer service in many establishments is a joke these days, but fortunately I've not seen this type of treatment in stores such as Best Buy that make their money from selling high-ticket items.

That said, please take the time to look up your local police department's phone number and program it and the numbers of the local sheriff and state highway patrol (or whatever that department is called in your state) into your cell phone. As big of an idiot that this Best Buy manager was, I'd put anyone that called 911 because of this type of argument at the top of the idiot list. Just imagine someone in a life-or-death emergency having difficulty reaching help because some bonehead was calling 911 because they couldn't buy a phone in Best Buy.

Groucho

No doubt they found out that the best way to increase employee morale was to boost the executive compensation plans.

fourwalker

I think stores can get away with asking you to leave for no apparent reason. I know my sister, who is a teenager, and a couple of her friends were recently told to leave a story for no apparent reason. I guess they thought they might be shoplifters.

gcribbs

actually if you did this you would get nothing unless the higher up is an idiot. you threaten to sue them and indicate that you took your mother to the hospital- great do it.

you would get nothing. your lawsuit would be thrown out of court. why because you are lying and you did not bring your mother to the hospital.

If you push too hard for something like you are describing you will probably get a have your attorney call our legal department comment and the person you are speaking to will clam up so as to not say anything further that might be used in court.

The best thing to do is be honest and explain how you felt about how you were treated.

I do not know what really happened however the whole thing seemed to have escalated. I am sure both sides did things that they should not have. staying and refusing to leave when "all you wanted was an apology" was not the thing to do since it made you look worse to everyone.

Plus if he had apologized he would have had to admit that he was wrong at first. There is no way this is going to happen. By the way even if I had overheard swear words. I would never repeat them to prove I heard them.

Why because someone else then will hear these words coming from the managers mouth- and having not heard you asking to hear them- this could be grounds to get fired.

So you called him an SOB and said FU? well no he asked me to say that. yeah right you are fired

Lou Pole

there are 3 sides to every story...

1. thier side
2. your side
3. the truth


that being said...Best Buy SUX!!! I have had similar treatment form Managers in the Porter Ranch, CA store. (BTW, a very upscale neighborhood. There goes that theory). I called the top, skipped right over the GM. Had the *****heads name that threw me out and everything. All I got for my trouble was a "thank you very much for your comment, we will look into it".

BB does so much business and volume that they could give a rats ass about customers. For every one they piss off and lose, 5 more walk in off the street.

Same goes for every other big chain. Screw 'em all!!

AgtFox

Soon enough Best Buy will have its new HQ in Edina. This campus is HUGE, I live by and drive by it pretty much every day.

Anyway, the treatment you got was inexcusible. I would talk to the GM first. Do not bring a camera with you or any type of taping equipment, that could get you in trouble. Hopefully the GM is a nice person, if not you go up to the next ladder (District Manager?). Hopping steps is not necessarily the best way to go about things.

I will also agree with the better service in suburban areas than urban areas. Even here in the land of BB's HQ there is a big difference between suburban stores and urban stores. Fact is there aren't that many urban stores around anymore.

I've always hated their warranty thing. Most of them are rip-offs and only a few of them would be valuable. When they left the commission side of things a lot changed at Best Buy. I was no longer jumped on as soon as I got in the store and they obviously needed to find new ways of raking in money, so the warranties took a precedence (and the overpriced computer service repairs).

I don't think I've asked a Best Buy person a question in many years. When I walk in I know what I want. There was a time I used to point people to different computers than the CS was trying to sell them. Didn't want people to feel ripped off.

I try to stay out of those convos now...don't wish for the CS to get super pissed at me.

I would recommend GM and if that doesn't work start going up the ladder. You can simply ask the GM what the name and contact info of the District Manager is (if that is the next step up).

jedidiah

Any store that kicks me out without cause will promptly be hearing from the Massachusetts Council Against Discrimination (MCAD), the City of Boston's consumer protection agency, and the Massachusetts Attorney General Office. The OP's experience was disgusting. It should not have happened. He should have left when told, and then contacted the appropriate government agencies, though.


As for the example someone gave of the teenage girls getting kicked out of a store without cause, that is age discrimination and in Massachusetts, at least, that is not permissable. MCAD would have a field day if a major retailer did that.

CaptainMarvel

Again, I doubt you would get anything done at all, if you're referring to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD). Looking through Massachusett's anti-discrimination statutes, it seems they follow the rest of the country: you can't discriminate against a person on the basis of race, religion, national origin, and sex. Neither can you discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation (that's not common everywhere). Look at the Mass. Attorney General Office's complaint form. It says I guarantee you 100% that if you put as "other" that "I started getting angry at the clerk when he kept trying to sell me an extended warranty, so I started yelling and was asked to leave", your complaint would get tossed in a trashcan somewhere.

Also, look at the very first question they ask under the "Questions to Ask if You Think Your Rights Have Been Violated" subheading of the "Your Rights Under the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act" pamphlet:
Was it bad business? Yes. Did it rise to the level of something where the government should step in? Certainly not. The government shouldn't be the regulator of mere manners, either in business or in private.

Quote:

As for the example someone gave of the teenage girls getting kicked out of a store without cause, that is age discrimination and in Massachusetts, at least, that is not permissable. MCAD would have a field day if a major retailer did that.

Looking through those provisions, the only section that even dealt with a retail store at all was in regards to providing credit for the elderly (12. For any retail store which provides credit or charge account privileges to refuse to extend such privileges to a customer solely because said customer had attained age sixty-two or over.).

By the way, as a general rule, "age discrimination" isn't going to extend to minors... it's typically construed to mean "discrimination against the elderly." In fact, several of Massachusett's statutes make explicit exceptions when dealing with minors, to say they aren't covered. Even if it weren't explicitly spelled out, use your head here. Say I run a video store, and I refuse to rent unrated movies to minors, because I have no guarantee the content is suitable for them. By your rationale, I've now committed discrimination that I can be sanctioned for?

This notion that you can't discriminate against anybody is ridiculous, it's disturbingly widespread. You can't discriminate against people on the basis of their participation in a protected category or activity. Anything else is fair game.

sheesh

[QUOTE]Originally posted by CaptainMarvel
[B]Was it bad business? Yes. Did it rise to the level of something where the government should step in? Certainly not. The government shouldn't be the regulator of mere manners, either in business or in private.

[B]

Well, I think we disagree. First, not all store expulsions that fail to meet the "protected category" trigger are merely bad manners. Second, the law is not merely a clarifier (nor a means of enforcement) of property rights; it also guards comity, the commonweal and civil obligations without which society could not function. Third, of course malicious, non-commercially-based ejection, were it a widespread, would "rise to the level of something where the government should step in. " (Though the assumption that one's behavior in one's store enjoys or should enjoy the same protection as one's behavior in one's home is... disturbingly widespread.)

CaptainMarvel

I was referring to bad manners not being enough to trigger a discrimination claim. Again, as I said earlier, that if the manners used by the person ejecting you were so grossly outside the bounds of society's norms, and if they actually caused provable damages, they should probably be addressable in tort. All I was saying here is that to trigger a discrimination claim, bad manners aren't enough, and even thinking you've been treated unfairly isn't enough. There has to be one of those protected categories for discrimination.

Quote:

Second, the law is not merely a clarifier (nor a means of enforcement) of property rights; it also guards comity, the commonweal and civil obligations without which society could not function.

I agree in part. I think it should guard the basic elements of those things, but unfortunately, it oversteps its bounds far too often. Some things need to be left to individual choice.

Quote:

Third, of course malicious, non-commercially-based ejection, were it a widespread, would "rise to the level of something where the government should step in. " (Though the assumption that one's behavior in one's store enjoys or should enjoy the same protection as one's behavior in one's home is... disturbingly widespread.)

I really don't get what you mean by "malicious, non-comercially based ejection." Do you really think what happened here was intended to hurt the customers, or do you think the storeowner was trying to keep them from making a scene?

As for when government should step in, I'll agree to disagree with you. I just don't feel the government should regulate half the things it really does. Some things I can understand and even support (such as civil rights legislation like what was discussed above). But as for regulating manners, I think that should be left to market forces and public norms.

(As an aside, I think one's behavior in one's home and one's behavior in one's own store actually should be the same, or at least substantially so. Does that give you free reign in either? No, because if you invite somebody into your property in either case, certain duties apply. I just have a more narrowly tailored view of what those duties are. Of course, that's just what I think should be, not what is.)

Mantecore

That is really, really unacceptable, you should write them a really mean letter or something, but im going to use circuit city from now on, and neways when besbbuy has the better price i will just pricematch it.

deathstick

as Ben Affleck said in Mallrats:

"the customer is always an *******!"


Doesn't excuse the persistence of the salesperson, write a letter and make some phone calls, and use your best Yosemite Sam voice and say "I demands satisfaction" a lot. You might get something out of it.

int 21h

I've eaten at some pretty crappy Denny's.

dek

I probably would have checked retaliation for filing a complaint as that's what he was doing. Complaining about the clerk harassing him, then the manager making up a story just to get him out of the store.
?

costanza187

Sorry to hear of your incident, if the manager of that store doesnt do something, maybe a regional manager will (if there is such a thing with BB)...I too am sick of being disrespected my morons who think because they have an extra sticker on their name badge think they are God.