Tarantino

Yes, that's the side of the story we heard.

Heat

$2 bills are not a douchebag move, what Best Buy did to him by telling him that radio installation was free then saying "OK, you now owe us $114" was a douchebag move.

If the guy tried to pay with a jar of coins, that would have been a douchebag move on his part.

Tarantino

Do you have any idea of how many people claim something was supposed to be free on a daily basis? Most people just don't pay much attention when you tell them something.

fujishig

Tarantino, I know you work there, but are you honestly telling me that some BB employees don't intentionally mislead customers? C'mon. How do they sell all those warranty plans, which they promise to your face cover everything? I'm not saying the guy's not lying, but BB is not the epitome of innocence here.

Deftones

and how many times to people in retail lie to make a sale, knowing it's their word against the customers? sort of like when you offer an extended warranty that "covers everything!" until you read the find print, and it covers about have of "everything".

the guy's biggest mistake was not getting it in writing. but that doesn't negate the fact that most companies only care about the bottom line and are willing to screw people over if it earns them a buck.

komsik

I think there is a taco bell story about the $2 bill also. IMO if you work with money you should know what a $2 bill is. Even if you don't you should probably still, I don't work retail but I still come across them quite often and I have even been asked by some cashiers at check out if I minded if they gave me one back as change.

I guess you really can't blame people though if Al-Qaeda never would have attacked us everyone would know what a $2 bill is.

I'm sure BestBuy probably wants people to buy their stuff and most likely they want some kind of valid currency in exchange but somewhere down the line some employees became unsure of how they prefer this to be accomplished. I got looked at funny not too long ago by an employee when he found out I was paying in cash with $100 bills instead of using a credit card.

Crossing my fingers that the day never comes when I get arrested for trying to buy something.

Josh-da-man

Yeah, I'm dubious of the guy's claim that Best Buy was going to install his stereo for free.

I once bought a monitor from Best Buy that was defective right out of the box and the assholes wouldn't exchange it for a new one since I didn't buy their "service plan." (Finally got them to take it back after about four tries, though.)

Yeah, like this place is going to do anything "free."

Personally, I wouldn't let the brain-damaged chimps who work at Best Buy touch my car.

Tarantino

Okay.

spainlinx0

I worked at Best Buy too. I heard employees all the time saying "it covers everything, don't worry about it."

Also 57 $2 bills is NOTHING. Who cares. You can count that in less than 15 seconds. Why exactly is that so difficult unless the cashier is retarded?

I've been a cashier and a bank teller. If someone handed me 57 bills like that I wouldn't even blink or think anything of it. I have been paid in singles by attractive ladies many times. I never cared.

darmok

i know what fresh bills look like, how the hell can these dumbass cashiers not when they they handle the shit all day long?

the cops are just as lame as the BB employees.

Jigen75

The $2 bills thing is crazy. I guess you could make the claim that the guy was being a dick bringing the $2 bills in, but he didn't deserve that. I mean is there a counterfeit $2 bill ring going? Who counterfeits those? I've worked in retail at the mall and people brought in all kinds of crap and I never once thought they were pulling something. I got $2 bills, $1 coins, bills from a hundred years ago, bills tape together, pockets full of change. All kinds of stuff.

But I have experienced problems myself paying cash for things more than a couple hundred bucks. Its like they don't want to take your money cause it might be fake. I think they need to realize they are a store and US currency is what people carry.

Travis McClain

[/thread]

Abob Teff

You can tell they are fake due to the Negro on them ... has to be he workings of a minority inner-city gang working with Al Queda ...

Heat

They used to advertise free radio installation, I'm sure that Best Buy told him that installation would be free. Which is technically true... but the kit and harness will cost over $50 (about double what you can buy them for elsewhere) and if the installation is not "normal" they will charge you for extra labor. So his free installation ended up costing $114, after tax.

Tarantino

Stereo installation hasn't been free for at least 2 years. I was in charge of the car audio department when they made that change. Ugh...what a bitch that was. That's also when they took away the same day install guarantee.

fujishig

So you are saying that Best Buy employees don't intentionally mislead customers? And that Best Buy is innocent in most of these cases? C'mon now. Some of the complaints are frivolous, but Best Buy certainly has a bunch of questionable practices.

How about this one:
http://consumerist.com/2010/01/consu...-of-money.html

They have laptops on sale, but the only ones "left in stock" are the ones that have a 39.99 "optimization" on them... which basically consists of them removing shortcuts and downloading Windows updates (and, in at least one of the test cases, hosing the speed of the computer).

Tarantino

Our policy is that if all that's left is the Optimized laptops, and the customer doesn't want it, we don't charge them for it.

Simple as that.

(I didn't read the article)

Deftones

There are many problems with that statement.

First, a company shouldn't decide to perform a service on a laptop unless the consumer decides they want that service. To forcibly sell a product with it on there where the consumer doesn't have a choice is a fucking joke. If you want to try to hard sell the service after the customer has decided to purchase, by all means, do so. Also, the article above completely contradicts your statement, and if you had read the article, you'd see that.

Pizza

Obviously, they didn't do everything correct. Because they discovered their mistake afterwards doesn't change the fact that they still made a mistake that was pivotal and because of it handled the situation incorrectly and the customer paid the price for it.

adrenaline78

At least he wasn't trying to pay with those 3 dolla bills!!

Tarantino

My store doesn't perform that service on all of the laptops. They perform it on some of the laptops, so that if customers decide to get the optimization, they don't have to wait - it's already done for them.

What's so hard to understand here? If you went to a car dealership, chances are that they have base models of cars, and upgraded models of cars. Should every car be the base model, and if the customer decides they want upgrades, they have to wait for them to be installed?

I didn't read the article - but at my location (and every location that I've worked at), if the customer doesn't want to pay for the optimization, and that's all we have left, they don't have to. They also have the option to buy nothing. No one's forcing anything upon them.

This'll be my last post in this thread, because obviously nothing I say is going to change your minds about Best Buy...but we're not all bad people who want to fuck you out of your money. All but a handful of people I've worked with in my career there have gone out of their way to help people. It's too bad that most of you have had experiences to the contrary.

hindolio

meh, bestbuy is "the man". and "the man" is always bashed. ive found a lot of your posts useful, since it is a perspective from "the man"

Heat

The $2 bill story was from April '05. I don't know for sure but my guess is that he was told installation would be free and after fees / expenses were added (including kit / harness) the cost was $114.

Tarantino

Ah, makes sense.

Deftones

i don't see how you can call an "optimized" computer an upgraded model when the Consumerist showed it actually caused a performance decrease.

you are right, nobody is forcing them to buy the computer, but just because your location doesn't practice doesn't mean it is rampant in other stores. you can't speak for an entire company.

nobody ever said people at BB are bad and want to fuck you out of money. however, that said, it is very clear there are unscrupulous employees out there that try to take advantage of people when they aren't as informed as many of us on here are.