Testimonial #93: You'll have no rebate and like it!

Here's my Best Buy story: It was the day after Thanksgiving and my Best Buy had a special promotion only good during the first 6 hours they're opened -- get a $20 gift card rebate for every $100 you spend (up to a $100 gift card), so I headed out first thing in the morning. A little background first -- McDonald's had this promotional "Monopoly" game, partnered with Best Buy. Game pieces were guaranteed to have at least a $1 Best Buy Buck. Using the "no purchase necessary" clause to my advantage, I mailed away for game pieces and got $160 in Best Buy Bucks. Now, the official rules say you may combine Best Buy Bucks, with no limit (you know where this is headed...)

So I'm at Best Buy with my 160 Best Buy Bucks in my wallet, shopping around and getting all their big specials. I had over $200 in merchandise, and was psyched about getting a $40 gift card back in the mail (in addition to some other rebates for the specific products I purchased).

The line was huge! I'm telling you, it was literally a 2-hour wait! But I finally reach a cashier. He rings up all my stuff, totals it, and I hand him the $160 in BB Bucks as part of my payment. He said "Uh, you can only use 16 of these at a time." My heart sank. I tried to point out that the official rules say there's no limit and he replied with, "Well, some McDonald's employees were stealing the fry boxes (where the game pieces were attached) and using the Best Buy Bucks from them." In retrospect, I should have asked to see a manager. Being the non-arguing person I am, I said okay and took out a huge chunk of my items, bringing the total to $120.96 before tax. He was "nice" enough to let me use 24 of the BB Bucks, and for the rest I had to use virtually all the cash I had.

Once outside of the store, I called the 1-888 number to ask about the validity of what the cashier told me. I was informed that, as it states in the official game rules, there is indeed no limit on how many Best Buy Bucks may be used. I then went back in the store and requested to talk to a manager. The manager insisted that McDonald's sent her an e-mail saying that

Best Buy managers are allowed to set a limit on the amount of Best Buy Bucks that someone can use. She eventually let me use the remainder of my Best Buy Bucks for the products I had to put back, but I had to go back in line and wait another insane amount of time to finally finish my purchase. Both of my purchases (which should have just been one purchase) were over $100 and I got the $20 gift card rebate form for each one.

I sent out the forms for the rebates within a few days, and got my $20 gift card rebate for my second purchase. However, my other $20 gift card did not come soon after. So I called the rebate center and they told me it was sent out on January 26, 2004.

On February 9, I got a letter from Best Buy, assuming it was finally my other $20 gift card. Instead, it was a letter saying my purchase did not qualify for the $20 gift card rebate.

I again called the rebate center. After a very thorough and time-consuming call, they told me to fax over some information so they could investigate it further. I faxed over everything they needed that same day (February 9). 20 days later (February 29), I called the rebate center again to see if they had received the fax and what information they could tell me about it. I was informed that my purchase did indeed not qualify because the total before tax was $120.96 and there was $25 in other possible rebates from my purchase. However, they were unable to tell me what these rebates were.

I finally figured out that $20 of the $25 in rebates was a product I bought for a friend, and forgot about. However, it is very confusing because that specific product just rang up as the SKU number (instead of listing the item's name), so it was confusing me to figure out where that $25 figure came from.

However, looking at my original receipt, I noticed an error. This is the purchase that was handled by the cashier who told me I could only use $16 in Best Buy Bucks (but let me use $24). Instead of ringing up the Best Buy Bucks as a coupon (and thus, part of my payment), he price-adjusted one of my items by $24. I did a couple other purchases with Best Buy Bucks and no one else did it that way -- they all rang it up as a coupon. Ironically, this product (the one that was price-adjusted $24) was the source of the other $5 in rebates that made me "ineligible" for the other $20 gift card. However, as it states on the rebate form for that $5 rebate, if an item is price-adjusted, it is no longer eligible for that rebate. Thus, even as it stands there, my total did qualify (with an amount of $100.94).

In any event, my total on the rebate receipt should have read $144.94 (the $24 should not have been taken off of my actual purchase amount), making me eligible for the $20 gift card rebate, even after deducting $25 for other possible rebates.

I called up the rebate center once again and told them this. They said to go to the Best Buy store and get them to print up a new receipt, which would make me (FINALLY) eligible for this $20 gift card rebate. Thus, I went to my Best Buy and spent about an hour with customer service. The people working there had no idea what I was talking about, even though I had my original receipt and copies of my rebate receipts and rebate forms. The idiotic customer service rep I talked to just said, "Um, yeah, we can't give you back your Best Buy Bucks..." Clueless idiot. Once he finally understood what I was talking about, he kept saying that that's how they're supposed to ring them up. However, I showed him my other receipt from that day where the cashier took off $136 with Best Buy Bucks, and he did not price-adjust any item. In fact, there were actually the words "$1 Off McDonald's Monopoly" with "Coupon $136" right below it -- the other receipt just said "With $24 Off" under the price-adjusted item. It does not take a genius to see which one is really the correct way to do it. Finally, someone called over a manager and, after a while with him, I *finally* got my $20 gift card, right there on the spot.

None of these problems would have happened if the idiot cashier knew what he was doing when I handed him the $160 in Best Buy Bucks. Instead, I ended up spending hours and hours out of my time to fix the error he made. He was obviously told by the manager, though, that there was a $16 limit. This means that the management at this Best Buy violated the McDonald's Monopoly game rules, and it really impacted me.

I think this whole ordeal was terrible and would never have happened without the store's utter negligence for the official rules of the Monopoly game in regards to the Best Buy Bucks. They twisted the rules of the promotion, and thus what they did was technically illegal. I don't know how many other people were affected by this, but it really irritates me. I would have been posting a hate mail to this site (I used to love Best Buy) before this happened, but I am definitely now against Best Buy (because of this and because shortly after that incident they almost killed my family -- I'll e-mail that story later).


Close