Best Buy, Phoenix, AZ - denied exchange of Gift Cards for cash - told it's against policy

Complaints.com received the following consumer message on October 15, 2002:

From:

RE: Best Buy, Phoenix, AZ - denied exchange of Gift Cards for cash - told it's against policy

My husband's mother purchased $100 in giftcards for my son for his birthday. She purchased them in Oklahoma City. At the time of purchase, she was given gift receipts and told that if the recipient wanted to return the cards for cash, they would be able to do that.

My son received the cards in the mail and shopped at a Phoenix store. He didn't find anything he liked and attempted to redeem the giftcards and was told simply "no we're not going to do that". Period. What they failed to say is that Best Buy simply does not allow giftcards to be redeemed for cash. We did not know this. I only found out today after looking at their website.

Rather than inform us of this fact they simply said in a snobby way "the system didn't know how to handle it". I showed the clerk the gift receipts and he said simply "no we're not going to do that". He said "it was store policy" I asked then why did an agent of your store give her gift receipts and tell her they could return them and he said nothing and just stared at me.

I then asked him to call the Oklahoma City store and he said nope he wasn't going to do that. My husband asked to speak to the store manager and the store manager said the same thing, providing no explanation whatsoever as to why Best Buy would not honor their verbal agreement they made with my son's grandmother.

There was no attempt to explain Best Buy's policy or to apologize for our confusion or my son's disappointment and husband's frustration. Best Buy's customer service has really gone downhill over the years. Because of this incident we will be shopping at Circuit City from now on!