Testimonial #1: Bill (site co-founder)

Here is my story, and why I started this site.

When I was searching for a new PDA-Cell phone in January 2002, I looked at a number of local electronics retailers. After I decided on a phone, I did some more browsing around, and I found that Best Buy had the best price on the one I wanted. It was the Samsung SPH-I300 PDA-Cell Phone with service through Sprint.

I picked up a friend of mine who wanted to go with me to look around the store while I purchased my phone. When we got there, I started talking to the salesman at the cell phone counter while my friend went around and looked at some movies. I talked to the sales rep for quite a while, making sure that the phone would do everything I wanted it to. He assured me that everything I was looking for, this phone could do. At that point I mentioned to him that the screen was rather large, and looked fragile. I told him that this was a lot of money to spend on a fragile piece of equipment that I would be carrying around in my pocket. He then told me that they had an insurance plan I could get with the phone that would cover "everything that could possibly happen to it except theft." This was the point when my friend came back over, so I do have a witness on this account. When the salesman told me that everything was covered, I thought that sounded pretty good so I decided to verify. I took the phone he was selling me, held it in the air above my head, and asked him "Let me get this straight, If I throw this into the ground right now, and it breaks into 20 pieces, you'll cover that?" He assured me that even though they wouldn't be too happy about it, they would trade me for another phone.

At that, I was happy. I took his word for it without reading the insurance plan agreement I was buying, and purchased the phone from him. It worked perfectly, and did everything I wanted it to for about 6 months. Then one morning I woke up and tried to make a call on it, and noticed that the screen was cracked. (I really don't know how it got cracked, but that doesn't matter right now). I proceeded down to the local Best Buy where I got the phone (Tukwila, WA store #447) and took it to the Cell phone counter. I walked up to the first sales rep I saw, showed him my phone, and told him that I needed to get it swapped out for a replacement. He took one look at the phone, and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, the screen on those isn't covered under our insurance plan" (The 3 Year Performance Plan is what I had purchased) and he walked away.

I walked after him and told him that I had been told by their sales rep that I would be covered for anything as long as I could bring the phone back in. This didn’t seem to matter to him as he maintained that it would not be covered. This is when I asked to speak to his manager. He went and found the store manager for me, and I began having basically the same conversation with him. He held the same position as the previous employee that the phone was not covered under the plan. When I told him what their sales rep promised me when I bought the phone, he didn’t seem too interested. He just kept saying "sorry about the situation, but there isn’t anything we can do." For the next 10 minutes or so I persisted with him, and got more irritated and angry by the second, but he kept saying the same thing. I then asked to speak to him superior, to which he replied, "I am it, I’m the manager." (Which I later realized can’t be true unless he owns the chain and just works there as manager for fun.) This is about where I got so mad I started laughing, and said, "You like this don’t you? You’ve got me bent over and your f*cking me in the ass for $500 and you just loving it aren’t you?"

At that, he asked me to refrain from using such foul language, which is when I decided I was done, and I was going to leave. I did spout off a few loud obscenities on my way out, but nothing too harsh.

After attempting to return the phone at a couple other locations, I finally realized that they were not going to honor their employees promise. Then I decided I would at least get what I could get back from them, so I headed back to the Tukwila store. I asked someone (a new person who didn’t see my display the week before) if they could tell me who the employee was that sold me my phone (employee number is 1767035676, maybe one of you can help me find this asshole) but she told me that they do not do that. Then I headed over to the returns counter and returned my insurance plan I bought with the phone. This was also interesting.

I told the kid working behind the counter what had happened with my phone, and since I had been lied to when sold the plan, I wanted my money back. He said that all he could do was pro-rate the plan for the last six months worth of coverage, since it was insured during that time. I told him that was not acceptable, but after he went and talked to his supervisor, nothing changed. Then I conceded, and took the $51.66 they gave me of my original $59.99 purchase ad went home.

This is when I started writing letters. The only one I ever got a response from was the one I sent to the Better Business Bureau, and even that took about 3 months to get. What they sent me was a form letter apologizing for pressuring me into buying the insurance policy. This really pissed me off since that wasn’t what I was complaining about. My complaint was that I was lied to. I responded to their letter expressing these feelings, and they wrote back basically saying ‘were sorry, but were not going to do anything about it.’ I then wrote them a much more colorful letter expressing my views of their company, and never heard back from that one. Still waiting.

Since then, I’ve been doing what I can to screw over their company, and you can read all about what I've been doing, and how to do it yourself in the "How to Screw them" section of this site.

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