BestBuy Stores / Cellular phone purchase

BestBuy Stores / Cellular phone purchase

August 30, 2005

August 30, 2005 Paul Davis

Springfield, MO 65804

Just a Little FYI,

I do not have any credit cards, so I went out and purchased a pre paid credit card in hopes of finding something online. Let me back up and say that my reason for purchasing a cell was because my little boy was worried about me starting a new job that involved some traveling causing me to not be home many nights by the time he went to bed. We both came to the agreement that if I got a cellular phone he could call me before he went to bed and tell me about his day, and I could tell him goodnight. This solution pleased both he and I very much, so with my first night away being the next night I was in a hurry to get the phone. I needed to stay within a certain price range, as I had limited funds, more importantly I needed to have the phone by the next day. After surfing the web I decided on a phone I found on BestBuys website, it seemed to fit my needs perfectly since it was a good price and since the phone was in stock at the local BestBuy store, I could pick it up in the morning -Sold!

After giving my prepaid card number and receiving a purchase confirmation I was very suprised when I received an e-mail later on stating that the phone was not in stock at that store, as it had stated on the website.

So immediately I called Bestbuy customer service to cancel my order, with the plan of stopping by another store in the morning for a phone. I was so mad and upset after the guy from Bestbuy told me that even after they cancel the sale I won't be able to receive the money back on my card until August 31, 2005, another week! This now meant that I had no money to get a phone of any kind or price since all the money I had they just took! No where on that site had it ever stated that if you should cancel an order and had paid by credit card you should expect at least 7-10 business days for a re credit to your card! What a nice little scheme to collect interest off my money, bet that equals a nice chunk of money doing that to countless numbers of customers throughout the year!

I should have known not to do this transaction when I saw that the location listed on the BestBuy website had my local BestBuy store as being in Battlefield, Missouri and not Springfield, where it really was. I decided to tell the know it all BestBuy rep about my observation, since he was so convinced that BestBuy never made any errors. I thought that pointing out the fact that there was no store in Battlefield Missouri as listed on there website would somehow validate the fact that they were not all that sharp from the CEO and on down the ladder. I wanted to reach through the phone and have a face to face with the smart ass customer service rep when he said "Well sir its not our fault then the merchandise wasn't at the store, because we don't even have a store located in Battlefield Missouri, our nearest one is in Springfield Missouri" Well I am done with ever shopping for anything at BestBuy, what was I thinking?, I mean if the BestBuy Brass don't even know where in the hell there stores are located, what made me think the stores inventory was correct? And as far as the smart ass BestBuy Rep goes, well that pretty much completes the total package right? Crappy store gives crappy service only makes sense to me, and he did a supurb job of delivering the crappy service!

If I were a teacher and BestBuy's CEO were my student, I would be forced to give a big FAT "F" for overlooking that one of there most profitable stores, was listed on there website as being not just at the wrong numerical address, or the wrong street, but instead the wrong city! However I would be just as forced to hand out a GOOD JOB "A" on joining the majority of retail sales establishments in screwing over John Q Public no matter what the cost! I sure do hope your investors don't get word of this embarrassment, they may not feel quite as comfortable investing large sums of money with a CEO at the helm who hasn't caught that they have a store listed as being in the wrong city, the same as he just may not happen to notice that several hundreds of thousands of dollars has also come up missing, uh oh!

And a big thanks for screwing up a simple cellular phone purchase for me and my son. My son said it best when he stated "too many dishonest chiefs and not enough injuns right daddy? now thats PRICELESS!!!! RivieraDude

Click this link to e-mail the message author: Email User