Testimonial #24: Ryan's Unanswered letter to Best Buy "Customer Care" #2
June 21, 2002
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing to you to express deep frustration and dissatisfaction concerning the Best Buy staff and Customer Relations department. This letter is a continuation of a letter I sent to you a few days ago, (attached). Please read the attached first.
After a long and arduous process to reach the right person to process a legitimate return of property that I was unsatisfied with, I encountered such of lack of customer respect that I shall never shop at your store again.
On the evening of March 3, 1999, I reentered the Falls Church branch confident that I had worked out this problem. I have a family to come home to, and I wanted to process my return and leave the store forever. This however, was not to be the case. I walked to the same return counter and explained my story for the last time, explaining about the rebate, about the receipt, about the UPC proof of purchase, and waited for Joanne, the cashier, to process my order. I told her that I had spoken to a man named James Casey, a manager at that branch, and I would like to see him. James was not in. I explained that James told me of a database that stored receipts, and with my account number it was possible to pull up the information necessary to process my request after printing a copy of the receipt. I was enraged when I found that a member of the staff that had given me a hard time the night before and had told me there was nothing they could do, showed that they were fully aware of this system.
Nevertheless I was going to get my money back, and that would be the end. After a few minutes, another gentleman stepped over to tell me that although they could now obtain a copy of my receipt he could not process my return because the UPC proof of purchase had been removed. "I'm sorry sir; there is nothing more I can do." I explained to him that I had spoken with Casey, and Casey had told me they could process my return by subtracting the rebate amount I would get when I sent in the UPC for rebate purposes. I told him that I was no longer going to deal with these problems, I wanted my money back now, and I didn't want to answer to anybody else. This gentleman had a brief conversation with a man in a tie standing behind him, and began processing my order.
My receipt was printed, proving that I had paid $209.00 on February 14 for the phone I had in my possession, at the store in which I stood. Joanne was given the nod to process the return, and in a few minutes, a return slip for $177.64 was placed in front of me. I indicated again that I had paid $209.00, and subtracting the rebate of $30.00 left us $1.36 shy of the money owed to me. Shocked by the further incompetence, I instructed Joanne that the right way to arrive at the figure would be to process the phone at full price (before she had subtracted the $30.00 prior to adding tax), add tax, and then subtract the $30.00 rebate. After all, this was the way it happened when I purchased it, only the check for $30.00 would arrive later. Much to my further displeasure, Joanne told me "I can't", and again I asked to speak to the manager.
I was surprised to see that the manager that came over was the same manager I had talked to on the 2nd of March, the night before. While he didn’t seem surprised that I was getting my return processed, I explained the error in computation and asked that it be corrected, and $1.34 more be issue to me, and I would leave the store, forever. I was absolutely shocked at what I heard next. With a disgusted look on his face, the manager of the customer service counter told me "Man, it’s only two bucks! I can't change the computers!" What kind of people do you have managing your store where they expect to give away money, no matter how much or little? Is business so good for Best Buy that a few dollars for every customer is not important? Where are the customer service representatives trained to constantly say that they can’t help you? I explained to him that the amount was irrelevant, that if I was purchasing something for $6,000 or $7,000, would he say the same thing when the difference would be noticeably more significant? Again he told me that he could not help me. At this point I was determined to show him that he couldn't just expect me to give away my money, so he asked Joanne to open the register and just give me $2.00 out of there. Joanne again repeated "I can't". The manager walked away, came back with $2.00, slapped it on the counter, and walked away from me. Good luck finding that money in the strict records I'm sure Best Buy keeps.
I left your store that night with my mind made up that I would never shop there again. Furthermore, my company does plenty of computer hardware and software procurement that will be taken to your competitors. I have friends that own their own businesses, and after telling them this story, they have told me they will never shop there again. My parents, and extended family laughed and said they would never shop there again. I’m concerned about the people that are trained to manage your store, your money, and keep your customers. Because I was treated with such disrespect and placed in the hand of such incompetence, Best Buy will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in business over the next few years.
Now I have never written a letter like this before. Frankly I have never felt so cheated and blatantly disrespected while attempting to offer my business at a retail store. I have never heard the words "I can't" so many times without even an effort, when the answer was right there and always so easy. Everyone there knew that the system was capable of processing my receipt. As a computer programmer, I knew that the system could do it, somewhere, somehow. Why was I put through this torture? Please tell me, and make it up to me.
As I turned to leave the store last night, a young gentleman stepped up to the counter to return a video card he had purchased that was not working. He had the original box, the original receipt, and was told that he could not return the card because there was a game missing from the box. The gentleman explained that there was no other game in the box, the package simply came with a coupon to be sent in for that game, and he presented the coupon to the counter. "I'm sorry sir, there's nothing that I can do".
I'm confident that gentleman will be able to return his video card; I wonder what he will have to go through to do it.
Sincerely,
Ryan B.
Best Buy Customer Care
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