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Best Buy Complaint - WOW!! No class-action lawsuit yet? - Warranty for Laptop
Warranty for Laptop - Complaint
CRESTWOOD, MISSOURI -- The Bestest Best Buy Story is Below
Let me start off saying that I had a long history with Best Buy before I dealt with them this past year about my girlfriend's laptop.
She had a laptop originally bought for $1900 with a 3 year extended warranty and it was year 2 on the laptop. She started getting a blue screen and after looking at the error code it was very easy to diagnose it was a memory issue.
I told her that we would go to Best Buy, talk to the Geek squad, and that she should expect to not see her laptop for at least a month. We easily duplicated the blue screens and the Geek Squad took it did some troubleshooting (nothing) and sent the laptop out.
After a week out I told my girlfriend that they are most assuredly replacing the harddrive to prepare her for having to install all of her programs again. What happened 30 days later? Ding Ding Ding!
We got the laptop back from the Geek Squad, Best Buy replaced the hard drive, and we then re-duplicated the blue screen issue right in front of the Geek Squad crew. I then told them the memory was bad and to please replace it. (I couldn't or I would void the warranty)
They send it out again. This time the do "extended memory tests". I even talk to the guy working in their repair center on the phone referencing the error code and website links talking about what they mean. He replaces the hard drive again.
The laptop comes back to Best Buy and again we see the blue screen. I tell the Geek Squad guy how to test the memory for this issue. While I am still in the store he comes to me and says that the memory is indeed bad and the tests they were doing weren't extensive enough. They send it out again.
They call us 3 weeks later saying that the laptop issue has been resolved and to pick it up. This is 11 weeks after we first brought it in. We get to the store and Windows isn't even installed on the laptop -- memory wasn't replaced either but we never got that far.
Knowing there was about a 1% change Best Buy would fix the laptop we brought in the receipt and warranty information which states that after the 3rd time the laptop is sent to their service center and was still broke that they would replace the laptop.
We talked to several people that night and they all agreed that we had a "lemon" and that it would be replaced but there was no manager on duty and we would have to come back the next day to get the new laptop.
We show up the next day and the store manager (Crestwood, MO) talks to us and says he will not give us a replacement. He is telling us that the three times the Geek Squad sent it to the service center didn't count because it was never diagnosed or fixed right. HUH?
He then said that I had it sent to the service center when nothing was wrong with it. HUH? The original Geek Squad was right next to us at the time and he confirmed we were getting blue screens and he had it sent to the service center. The manager then said that since the service center didn't fix it right the first 3 times didn't mean it was three separate send backs to the center. HUH?
I am in the business and I know for sure how these things are handled. Best Buy would have to send our laptop back to Sony who would refund Best Buy for the lemon. But this time Sony would see that it was not a lemon but would see that it simply needed new memory (there are notes on all of Best Buys service orders stating that the customer said there is bad memory). So Best Lie didn't want to give us a new laptop because they were not going to be refunded for their total stupidity.
The manager finally agrees that night that we will get a replacement. He said that he would need sign-off from the general manager before doing this. HUH? You need sign-off from your GM to honor a warranty? HUH?
We go back the next night and get a new manager and they act like this is the first time we walked in the store, so we had to go through everything again. They talked to us until the store closed so we had to come back again and you guessed it. We went through the whole ordeal a third time.
We went to the store 17 times. Only on the 17th time when I called the local police and to have a report taken (to use for small claims) did the manager honor the warranty. The cop was actually laughing his ass off because I had the manager boot up the laptop he said wasn't broke and they STILL didn't have Windows installed.
The cop also acknowledged going through the same ordeal with Best Lie. He told me that we would stay there and do a full investigation and only after a half hour of me telling my story so everyone within earshot knew what was going on did the manager cave. (The Best Buy management staff may be ill equipped to handle customer issues but these guys will not break. I have a feeling their training involves elctric shock and warranty information flashing on a projector)
OK so now we have all agreed that the laptop will be replaced. I know it was a long-time ago that I told you the price of the laptop but it was $1900. That being said we went and looked at laptops in the $1700-1800 range. We were told that we would indeed not be getting anything over $1300 because Best Lie would be going by general computer specs to give us a new laptop.
Well the laptop she had had a lot of special add-ons, including a high end video card. Forget that. Also we would be forced onto Vista and half of the software she had wouldn't work with it. And for those of you that aren't techies, Vista requires more memory, processing power, everything, so if you are running the same specs on Vista and XP, XP will be faster.
We ended up getting a Sony for around $1350 that was not anything close to what we wanted but we knew if we walked out of the store this would continue. As we were checking out they tried to sell us another EXTENDED WARRANTY.
We went home went to Sony's website. We got a 4 year warranty $50 cheaper than Best Lie's and covers a screen replacement. Four months later we had an issue with the battery. Girlfriend did some minor troubleshooting on the phone with them and Sony had a replacement battery FedExed 2 days later.
Moral of the story? I will never spend a dime at Best Buy ever again. The only reason you shop from a local store is for the customer service and warranties. Internet sites will be Best Buy's prices and can't have worse customer service. Also buy your extended warranties from the manufacturer. They know how to fix their products the fastest.
Let me start off saying that I had a long history with Best Buy before I dealt with them this past year about my girlfriend's laptop.
She had a laptop originally bought for $1900 with a 3 year extended warranty and it was year 2 on the laptop. She started getting a blue screen and after looking at the error code it was very easy to diagnose it was a memory issue.
I told her that we would go to Best Buy, talk to the Geek squad, and that she should expect to not see her laptop for at least a month. We easily duplicated the blue screens and the Geek Squad took it did some troubleshooting (nothing) and sent the laptop out.
After a week out I told my girlfriend that they are most assuredly replacing the harddrive to prepare her for having to install all of her programs again. What happened 30 days later? Ding Ding Ding!
We got the laptop back from the Geek Squad, Best Buy replaced the hard drive, and we then re-duplicated the blue screen issue right in front of the Geek Squad crew. I then told them the memory was bad and to please replace it. (I couldn't or I would void the warranty)
They send it out again. This time the do "extended memory tests". I even talk to the guy working in their repair center on the phone referencing the error code and website links talking about what they mean. He replaces the hard drive again.
The laptop comes back to Best Buy and again we see the blue screen. I tell the Geek Squad guy how to test the memory for this issue. While I am still in the store he comes to me and says that the memory is indeed bad and the tests they were doing weren't extensive enough. They send it out again.
They call us 3 weeks later saying that the laptop issue has been resolved and to pick it up. This is 11 weeks after we first brought it in. We get to the store and Windows isn't even installed on the laptop -- memory wasn't replaced either but we never got that far.
Knowing there was about a 1% change Best Buy would fix the laptop we brought in the receipt and warranty information which states that after the 3rd time the laptop is sent to their service center and was still broke that they would replace the laptop.
We talked to several people that night and they all agreed that we had a "lemon" and that it would be replaced but there was no manager on duty and we would have to come back the next day to get the new laptop.
We show up the next day and the store manager (Crestwood, MO) talks to us and says he will not give us a replacement. He is telling us that the three times the Geek Squad sent it to the service center didn't count because it was never diagnosed or fixed right. HUH?
He then said that I had it sent to the service center when nothing was wrong with it. HUH? The original Geek Squad was right next to us at the time and he confirmed we were getting blue screens and he had it sent to the service center. The manager then said that since the service center didn't fix it right the first 3 times didn't mean it was three separate send backs to the center. HUH?
I am in the business and I know for sure how these things are handled. Best Buy would have to send our laptop back to Sony who would refund Best Buy for the lemon. But this time Sony would see that it was not a lemon but would see that it simply needed new memory (there are notes on all of Best Buys service orders stating that the customer said there is bad memory). So Best Lie didn't want to give us a new laptop because they were not going to be refunded for their total stupidity.
The manager finally agrees that night that we will get a replacement. He said that he would need sign-off from the general manager before doing this. HUH? You need sign-off from your GM to honor a warranty? HUH?
We go back the next night and get a new manager and they act like this is the first time we walked in the store, so we had to go through everything again. They talked to us until the store closed so we had to come back again and you guessed it. We went through the whole ordeal a third time.
We went to the store 17 times. Only on the 17th time when I called the local police and to have a report taken (to use for small claims) did the manager honor the warranty. The cop was actually laughing his ass off because I had the manager boot up the laptop he said wasn't broke and they STILL didn't have Windows installed.
The cop also acknowledged going through the same ordeal with Best Lie. He told me that we would stay there and do a full investigation and only after a half hour of me telling my story so everyone within earshot knew what was going on did the manager cave. (The Best Buy management staff may be ill equipped to handle customer issues but these guys will not break. I have a feeling their training involves elctric shock and warranty information flashing on a projector)
OK so now we have all agreed that the laptop will be replaced. I know it was a long-time ago that I told you the price of the laptop but it was $1900. That being said we went and looked at laptops in the $1700-1800 range. We were told that we would indeed not be getting anything over $1300 because Best Lie would be going by general computer specs to give us a new laptop.
Well the laptop she had had a lot of special add-ons, including a high end video card. Forget that. Also we would be forced onto Vista and half of the software she had wouldn't work with it. And for those of you that aren't techies, Vista requires more memory, processing power, everything, so if you are running the same specs on Vista and XP, XP will be faster.
We ended up getting a Sony for around $1350 that was not anything close to what we wanted but we knew if we walked out of the store this would continue. As we were checking out they tried to sell us another EXTENDED WARRANTY.
We went home went to Sony's website. We got a 4 year warranty $50 cheaper than Best Lie's and covers a screen replacement. Four months later we had an issue with the battery. Girlfriend did some minor troubleshooting on the phone with them and Sony had a replacement battery FedExed 2 days later.
Moral of the story? I will never spend a dime at Best Buy ever again. The only reason you shop from a local store is for the customer service and warranties. Internet sites will be Best Buy's prices and can't have worse customer service. Also buy your extended warranties from the manufacturer. They know how to fix their products the fastest.
Comments:
Posted by rcdc on 2008-01-07:
Best Buy vs. Consumer Privacy Protection
I think my experience takes the cake, but I am biased.
The short story is the laptop that I left at Best Buy's Tenleytown DC store was stolen from the store (I believe by an employee). The store then created false records to hide the theft, and left me to futily call Geeksquad week after week trying to check the status of my computer. I was then subjected to weeks of lies by Geeksquad and Best Buy Customer Service regarding the repair status of the phantom computer. Most importantly, they failed to meet their legal obligation to disclose the theft and notify me that I was at risk of identity theft during this entire process.
Engagement of the BBB, DC Police, and DC Attorney General's office failed to yield anything more than a lowball compensation offer, so I now suing Best Buy. The full story is on my blog at:
http://bestbuybadbuyboycott.blogspot.com/
I think my experience takes the cake, but I am biased.
The short story is the laptop that I left at Best Buy's Tenleytown DC store was stolen from the store (I believe by an employee). The store then created false records to hide the theft, and left me to futily call Geeksquad week after week trying to check the status of my computer. I was then subjected to weeks of lies by Geeksquad and Best Buy Customer Service regarding the repair status of the phantom computer. Most importantly, they failed to meet their legal obligation to disclose the theft and notify me that I was at risk of identity theft during this entire process.
Engagement of the BBB, DC Police, and DC Attorney General's office failed to yield anything more than a lowball compensation offer, so I now suing Best Buy. The full story is on my blog at:
http://bestbuybadbuyboycott.blogspot.com/
Posted by troy2000me on 2008-03-15:
"We go back the next night and get a new manager and they act like this is the first time we walked in the store"
Of course - if you are talking to someone else how the hell are they going to know what is going on?
The fact that it is VISTA has NOTHING to do with Best Buy! I worked at Circuit City at the time Vista came out, we literally stopped receiving XP shipments a month or so before Vista's release, and sent back all stand alone copies of XP. The store had nothing except Vista - the store tried to give you a laptop, Vista is not their fault, it is the current technology.
Of course - if you are talking to someone else how the hell are they going to know what is going on?
The fact that it is VISTA has NOTHING to do with Best Buy! I worked at Circuit City at the time Vista came out, we literally stopped receiving XP shipments a month or so before Vista's release, and sent back all stand alone copies of XP. The store had nothing except Vista - the store tried to give you a laptop, Vista is not their fault, it is the current technology.
Posted by Scuba Queen on 2009-05-11:
Wow. My experience was bad too. They are awful. I will never buy a computer from them again either. Or anything else for that matter.
Posted by gary21 on 2010-09-23:
Amazing story!!! Very similar to my problem with Besy Buy regarding the extened warranty agreement. Apparently, Besy Buy trains their employees to make misleading and false statements to sell the warranty. We were in our 2nd year of the warranty when we accidentally damaged our Sony laptop. Best Buy refused to replace the laptop but offered a $100.00 rebate on our warranty along with additional rebates and purchase a HP laptop for $248.00. I demanded they honor the agreement and they refused. Currently, I have issued a formal complaint with the Arkansas Attorney Generals Office. I am looking for a Civil Action Attorney that will take this corporation to court. According to the BBB, Best Buy has approximately 11,000 complaints filed against them over the past 36 months for mainly warranty issues. I can only imagine the number of unhappy customers who didn't take the time to file a complaint. We will see how Besy Buy will handle this situation. I advised litigation if they didn't honor the warranty. Lets see if they are willing to defend their position in court for $248.00. My guess is they are arrogant enough to litagate and defend their deceptive behavior and policies. Should be fun!!!
Posted by Osidan on 2010-11-12:
(Both factory warranty and Best Buys 'Black Tie' service were in place at the time this was written)
Add me to the list of lawsuits vs Best Buy. I have just now returned from a Best Buy where they refused, absolutely refused, to replace my Motorola Droid(from here known as device). It has an issue, this issue has become well known since my purchase a year ago, where it powers down randomly throughout the day. This is not acceptable for a device to act this way and obviously needed to be replaced. Did I mention that this was a KNOWN defect at the time of attempted exchange? I purchased their 'Black Tie' warranty when I got my device and at the time of purchase I was told that I could return it to be replaced for almost any reason, or so they made it sound. To make a long story short I eventually ended up talking to the store manager who had the power to replace my device but did not. He was condescending and sarcastic through the course of our conversation, which doesn't really have an effect on the so called 'warranty' I just did not appreciate it.
To wrap this all up, my next step's will be to contact the BBB, search more extensively for current lawsuits, barring that I will take steps to get one going. Not to get my money back but for their business practice in deceiving their customers, I am upset about the $9.99 for the last year but stopping this practice is more important.
Add me to the list of lawsuits vs Best Buy. I have just now returned from a Best Buy where they refused, absolutely refused, to replace my Motorola Droid(from here known as device). It has an issue, this issue has become well known since my purchase a year ago, where it powers down randomly throughout the day. This is not acceptable for a device to act this way and obviously needed to be replaced. Did I mention that this was a KNOWN defect at the time of attempted exchange? I purchased their 'Black Tie' warranty when I got my device and at the time of purchase I was told that I could return it to be replaced for almost any reason, or so they made it sound. To make a long story short I eventually ended up talking to the store manager who had the power to replace my device but did not. He was condescending and sarcastic through the course of our conversation, which doesn't really have an effect on the so called 'warranty' I just did not appreciate it.
To wrap this all up, my next step's will be to contact the BBB, search more extensively for current lawsuits, barring that I will take steps to get one going. Not to get my money back but for their business practice in deceiving their customers, I am upset about the $9.99 for the last year but stopping this practice is more important.
Posted by HonestForSure on 2011-01-16:
I hope the posters read this:
Best Buy store personnel do not make the decisions for either continued repair or replacement. They are out of the loop. Look at your terms and conditions, er... fine print. Look at the name of the service plan administrator - it is N.E.W.
The stores, in effect, sell (and i use the term loosely as I'm sure there is factual misrepresentation with every "sales" pitch) the service plans and then wash their hands of them.
In this case, it appears as though whoever handled the repairs were incompetent as well.
Outside pressure is the only recourse as Best Buy corporate is complicit when it comes to anything to do with service contracts. File a complaint with the local BBB - who will contact BBY and the service plan administrator if you list both. Then a nice letter to your State's AG with a copy to Best Buy Legal Dept in the corporate offices will get you some action.
Best Buy store personnel do not make the decisions for either continued repair or replacement. They are out of the loop. Look at your terms and conditions, er... fine print. Look at the name of the service plan administrator - it is N.E.W.
The stores, in effect, sell (and i use the term loosely as I'm sure there is factual misrepresentation with every "sales" pitch) the service plans and then wash their hands of them.
In this case, it appears as though whoever handled the repairs were incompetent as well.
Outside pressure is the only recourse as Best Buy corporate is complicit when it comes to anything to do with service contracts. File a complaint with the local BBB - who will contact BBY and the service plan administrator if you list both. Then a nice letter to your State's AG with a copy to Best Buy Legal Dept in the corporate offices will get you some action.
Posted by UnhappyCamper on 2012-01-05:
I sure wish I had read how incompetent BB is when it comes to "customer service". The store I dealt with intentionally "mis-diagnosed" the problem with my cpu. I told the tech it was a hardware problem, of coarse Geek Squad "diagnosed it as a "software" problem that wasn't covered by the extended warrant. And quoted an obnoxious price to 'fix" what was wrong with it. I then Filed a complaint with BBB and have received no response from Best Buy. Mind you the complaint was filed over 30 days ago. Tomorrow I'm filing a formal complaint with Small Claims court. How can this happen and BB is suppose to be an accredited business with BBB? I now know the only voice that BB listens to is within a court room. They will never get another dime from me.
Posted by maicokid on 2012-01-28:
Unhappy camper. I have bad news for you. The BBB has had difficulty with their ratings in the past. I would seek someone else to assistance. This is the nicest way I can say it.
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