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Topic: Why I'll never preorder from Best Buy again... (Read 225 times) |
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Festivus
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Last On: 08/16/07
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Scathing email sent to customer service:
I would like to register a complaint with your Best Buy store #367, and particularly with the trivalness that that store manager on duty treated me with.
I purchased a preorder box for the Neverwinter Nights 2 game a few months back. When I walked over to the Best Buy store (#367) this morning at 11:30am I was told that they were still unpacking the boxes and to come back in a couple hours. I left my information and left.
I came back to the store three hours later, after not hearing from anyone, and again inquired about the game. I was told that they were still "inventoring" but if I could wait a few minutes. After a few minutes it became apparent the problem, there were only three copies, and they were the premium edition, which sells for a lot more than the standard edition that I wanted to purchase. To make matters worse, there were no less than five people wanting to purchase copies, and all of us had preordered.
I was told that there were no standard edition copies in stock, only the premium ones, but that I could purchase a premium edition if I would like. I elected to just because I knew I would have trouble purchasing it elsewhere tonight, but I am nowhere near happy about this, because I had no need for the premium edition.
So I decided before I left that I wanted to complain to the manager about this, seeing as the game had been out already and other stores, had I gone there first, would have had the copies, and why didn't they order any copies of the standard edition for a new game.
The manager told me that they have no control over what they get in, or what is ordered. It's all handled centrally by corporate headquarters. I said that I didn't feel it was fair that no copies of the standard edition were ordered even though you were selling presell boxes of the game, yet premium editions were available. This stinks of bait and switch to be honest, and I am not very happy about it.
In the midst of my complaining about this the manager WALKED AWAY FROM ME. I informed him that his actions just lost a customer for Best Buy, and left the store with my purchase.
Had I bought this product from Amazon.com, I would have had it yesterday. Had I gone to EB Games this morning I would have what I wanted today. I go to Best Buy, preorder, and get stuck paying more than I wanted to for the game.
I don't know what sort of remediation can come from this, but I belive that two action items can be met:
1. Someone needs to speak with the manager who was on duty and set him straight about his priorities.
2. Someone needs to think very seriously about ordering all available editions of a game.
Thank you for your time,
James Zack
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Next time, and I am going to stroke LB's ego again, I am ordering from Amazon.com. Never, ever again from Best Buy for anything, period.
The good news, I have the game. The bad news, I have some silly rings I really couldn't give a darn about.
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Tarridus
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Bah, silly Limited Editions giving us worthless items. But I feel you there Festivus, I hate shopping at Best Buy myself. I'll stick with the local EB games or Amazon for my gaming fix.
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Pearce
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Last On: 07/08/09
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I preordered from Amazon.com and my estimated delivery is November 7 or 8. bah
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Lazybones
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Worst Buy sucks. I once bought a copy of Temple of Elemental Evil at one 90 miles from my house. When I got home, I saw it had been razored (the seal cut and game disk taken out). I called Worst Buy customer service and explained my situation, and they refused to allow me to go to my local store (10 minutes away) to exchange it. I still had my receipt.
The game sucked anyway (this was before the huge mega-patch that fixed the 1,247,178 bugs that were in the shipped game).
So I boycotted Worst Buy for about two years after that. Oddly enough, I finally went back a few days ago, to take advantage of an offer of a discount XBox Live points with any 360 game. I went to get the Ultimate Alliance game, and the guy's response to my query about the deal (still advertised): "Yeah, we ran out of those. No rainchecks."
Amazon all the way. Retail sucks.
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Lazybones
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on Nov 2, 2006, 1:06 AM, Pearce wrote:| I preordered from Amazon.com and my estimated delivery is November 7 or 8. bah |
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When did you preorder? I put my order in late last week and got the game yesterday. My wife has Amazon Prime (2 day shipping), that might have sped it up, or maybe they just ran out.
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| « Last Edit: on: Nov 2, 2006, 1:22AM » |
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Pearce
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Well...I did order late. I ordered Monday with Amazon Prime. As of this morning it says it is "out for delivery" so maybe it's not as bad as that. But when I ordered the screen said it would be delivered by Nov. 1, and when I checked yesterday morning it said Nov 8 and THIS morning it said out for delivery. I did call and raise holy heck with them... don't know if that worked. We normally have good luck with Amazon so I was happy to order it from them but I guess with these things...highly popular games they should have known. To us it is like Harry Potter... but no lines to stand in and no media coverage.
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Dellaster
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I can certainly empathize with you, Festivus. Though my Best Buy experience went badly in a different way.
I had pre-ordered NWN2 at my closest Best Buy. I called Tuesday afternoon and the guy claimed it wasn't released until Wednesday, but it'll be on the shelves then. So after work on Wed. I fought my way to that store (it's next to South Coast Plaza, Orange County, CA -- one of the biggest and most traffic-congested malls in the country). My eyes lit up when I saw NWN2 boxes on the shelves, unfortunately they were the pre-order boxes.
After four different employees and twenty minutes of waiting for word I was told that the truck had arrived with the game and it was unloading. Yay? No, they wouldn't have NWN2 unloaded and entered into the system (and whatever else they do) until the next day. It was 4:30pm, the store closed at 9pm, and they wouldn't have it available in that amount of time?! And no, they wouldn't expedite one for me. One guy suggested I drive eight miles or so (during rush hour) to another Best Buy where the truck had stopped earlier.
I declined that suggestion and went home. Fired up the Best Buy website to check availability and saw that none of the stores listed near my zip code (5 or 6 of them) had NWN2 available. Good thing I didn't try to drive to that other store.
At this point I decided to blow off my pre-order $10 and go three blocks to my local GameStop, which fortunately had one standard DVD box left that wasn't reserved. I wasn't willing to take the chance (and feel the disappointment and anger) of going to Best Buy again today and being told that they sold out. As has happened to so many others. 
Best Buy just lost a customer for new PC software releases. I'll order ahead of time at Amazon.com, or some other online vendor, instead from now on.
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| « Last Edit: on: Nov 2, 2006, 4:45PM » |
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Dane Bramage
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It's really a shame. I used to love... absolutely love Best Buy. I mean, it's an electronics super store... who wouldn't love it?
But, this recent fiasco and just a general increase in my hatred of shopping retail has pushed me over the edge. I doubt I will ever step foot in a Worst Buy ever again. The people tend to know next to nothing. Thier selection of media really blows, they cater to console games and stupid movies, AND... thier sh!t tends to be over priced.
Valuable lesson learned, grasshopper... valuable indeed.
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Festivus
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Don't get me started on the "bonus stuff" in the more expensive one. Two cheap rings that look like someone just cut them off a peice of electrical conduit, a "mapkin" with no stitching on the edging, and a book of useless "art" from the game. It's a GAME, I'll look at the art in the game thank you very much.
Stay away from the expensive box if you can folks, it ain't worth 20 bucks.
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Trushaft
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Last On: 12/21/11
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Ugh, I had a bad experience with Best Buy too, but it worked out ok in the end ( thank God).
I had also bought the $10 pre-order box, and yesterday went to the store to buy a copy...I looked all over the place, and all I saw was an ominous empty space right next to the Strategy and Builder's guides..
After asking the guy in the software section, he told me that some other folks had come in looking for it too, and even though according to their computer, they had 7 copies in the store, he had no clue where they were ( not having a clue is par for the course at Best buy it seems)..
Finally I asked him if I could get a refund for my pre-order then since they didn't have the game and Gamestop did, at which point he directed me to Customer Service.
I get to the counter, tell the young girl there about them not having the game I paid a pre-order for, when she cheerfully pipes up " Oh wait, you mean this?", and she walks over to a counter behind her where there's a small stack of NWN2 boxes...
So after getting my game after all, I mention that maybe they should let the guy in software know where the game is, and she says something about how stuff is always screwy around this place blah blah blah... hehe..
NEVER...AGAIN..
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Digitalknightmare
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My wife and I constantly joke that we pay extra in "brick and mortar" stores to be berated and treated rudely. Why use the USCAN or buy stuff online where you are treated as a person ?
I would agree "Best Buy" has gone to the darkside. I have not shopped there since they bought the "geek squad" and ruined it. Also I got sick of buying software and hardware that was previously bought and opened and used by others and reshrink wrapped and sold as brand new.
I also have to mention the time, I ... (The geek messiah of Detroit,Michigan) was berated by a best buy employee for recommending to my friend shopping for a hard drive that they should purchace the 7200 rpm drive for 10-20 dollars more than the 5200 rpm drive. A best buy "techie" jumped inbetween us and yelled "the 5200 is so much faster, he (pointing at me) dosnt know what he is talking about!". I tried to back away from the guy and he kept following us,I should have shown him my RPGA membership card but I didnt want to pull rank, heh!
I also vouch for direct2drive, I have bought a few games from them and I have had no problems besides playing way to many games and sometimes the download is a little slow.
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| « Last Edit: on: Nov 4, 2006, 7:36PM » |
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Etarnon
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I love best buy in Dayton. it's great. Never a problem.
I don't trust the guys making and shipping NWN2, though.
Thus, I have not been ripped off. Sorry to you all for your experiences with Best Buy. I always go there first for anything computer or CD related.
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