From: http://www.jrdeputyaccountant.com/2012/02/why-best-buy-deserves-to-die-horrible.html

Disclaimer: I'm pissed off right now. Really pissed off. So this is going to be a rant and it's warranted but you might need to grab a beer and settle in 'cause it's gonna be a long one.

My love affair with Best Buy started long long ago when I was a starry-eyed, music-loving teenager. This was back in the day before we had fancy shmancy awesomeness like high-speed Internet and uTorrent, so I bought my CDs like everyone else did back then. Best Buy scored plenty of FRNs from young, hard-working JDA, who might have been making something like $4.50 an hour at some crappy retail job after school. I liked Best Buy then, they had lots of shiny things I would stroll around and admire and think "Man, when I'm a grown up, I'm gonna have all that in my house."

Fast forward to the early 2000s, when I'm now in my early 20s. I needed a laptop (Windows XP had just come out and was awesome) so I shlepped my butt down there, picked up a $1400 Compaq on Best Buy credit (remember when laptops were a true luxury?) and went about my business. Or didn't.

After a month, the laptop completely crapped out on me. I fell for the "extended plan" so brought it down to the "friendly" Best Buy in San Francisco to say it was fried and wouldn't turn on. They took it away, leaving me without a laptop for a month and a half (yes, a month and a half) while they replaced the motherboard. OK, all better, right?

No. A few months later, I'm back at the now less than friendly Best Buy in San Francisco with my laptop explaining how the motherboard appears to be fried again because it isn't working just like last time. Fine, they took it away and a month later (hey, at least they did it faster this time), I had my laptop back. Well yay, I was able to get back to playing Counter Strike and, uh, whatever other business I had.

Too bad it died again not a handful of months after that. Smart girl that I am, I read through the extended warranty plan, which specifically laid out a lemon clause that allowed me a full replacement of the item in question should I have to send the item out for service on the same issue three times. It was written right there with my pretty little signature below it, so I grabbed my fried laptop for the third time, headed down to the totally hostile by now Best Buy in San Francisco and demanded a new computer per the terms of this $300 contract we both signed. Except Best Buy in San Francisco did not want to get me a new laptop. In fact, they didn't even want to fix the motherboard this time, and tried to convince me I somehow reached into the device and ruined it myself just to be difficult. O rly?

Conveniently enough for me, I was scheduled for a vacation to the Minneapolis suburbs to see my mother around the time my laptop failed (for the third time, mind you). Having lived there once upon a time, I knew that the global Best Buy headquarters sat right there in said Minneapolis suburbs, so I packed up my $1400 paperweight, grabbed the contract and got on a plane.

Read the rest HERE

From HERE

Best Buy Tells Its Employees Not To Worry About Store Closures Because It's Opening More In China

Don't worry that you could be losing your job, because we're opening new stores in China!

That's pretty much the gist of a memo from Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn's corporate HQ to employees on the closure of two stores in Missouri and Arizona, according to Chris Morran at Consumerist.

While the memo was conceivably meant to comfort employees (Executives say they will work to find other jobs for workers affected by the closings and will give severance to those they can't place), it also repeatedly mentions the retailer's growth in China, according to the report.

From the memo:

Is this the beginning of more closings?
While we are closing this location, Best Buy has opened 106 stand-alone Best Buy Mobile stores this fiscal year with 22 more openings scheduled in February as well as 40-50 Five Star stores in China...

Is Best Buy opening new stores as a result of this closure?

While we are closing this location, Best Buy has opened 106 stand-alone Best Buy Mobile stores this fiscal year with 22 more openings scheduled in February as well as 40-50 Five Star stores in China. This closure is consistent with Best Buy's stated goal of reducing overall square footage by 10-percent in the next three to five years while also increasing our points of presence in different ways.

This is a bizarre move on the part of Best Buy executives. Sure, China stores may be able to boost the company's profits. But why should that make employees on the brink of unemployment feel any better?

In the age of sensitivity regarding corporate outsourcing of jobs abroad, it seems to be in especially bad taste.

I used to think Best Buy was ok, i mean it a store and had what i needed... some times.

That changed today..

I needed a USB wireless stick for my laptop so i went down and purchased a Belkin wireless device that would get me connected. I got home and unwrapped the package and was extremely excited to go on with my usual teenage boy internet activities (Aim,Forums, Online Game, Facebook/Myspace, and ok..porn too, darn horomones!" so anyways i open up the box and the side of the device is cracked and there was a crumpled up user manual. I tried using in OSX and Windows, installed countless drivers, phoned tech support and eventually deemed it a lost cause and exchanged it for a Netgear device that works. About a week later my power supply dies after about four years. So i run to the store and grab a power supply unit. When i open the case the power supply wires are damaged and there was a pin missing in one of the connectors! So now tommorow will be the last time i step foot in best buy, once i dump the piece of crap off im off to PC City where they treat you with a smile and sincere service. And the staff actually knows what there doing, they gave me a free diagnostics and a better quality screw for my case, no charge!

sincerely,
Pissed off in New Jersey

From: http://blog.chron.com/lorensteffy/2012/01/when-price-tags-dont-always-mean-its-a-best-buy/

When price tags don’t always mean it’s a Best Buy

What's it cost? It's pretty much anyone's guess (Bloomberg News)

A couple of weeks ago, before my son returned to college, we decided to make a quick trip to Best Buy for a small TV for his dorm. I’m not, as I’ve pointed out before, a fan of the Big Blue Box. But it’s close to the house, and we didn’t want to take a lot of time. We had already identified what we wanted online. So we swooped in, verified the price by looking at the tag on the shelf, snapped up the TV and headed for the checkout line. Total time invested: less than five minutes.

But when the cashier rang up the TV it was $30 more than what it said on the shelf. I protested, and the checker went back to look for himself. He told me that there was another TV, the same brand but a slightly different model, to which the shelf price referred. So I said that’s the one we wanted. As a result, five minutes of shopping turned into 10 minutes of trips back to the TV area, sorting out the various inventory issues, attempting to up-sell me on warranties, reward programs, email solicitations and probably donations to charity. I sort of stopped listening.

Years ago, an attorney in the attorney general’s office told me that under Texas law, if a retailer prices an item incorrectly, they have to sell it to you at that price. That was back in the days of actual price tags stuck on every item. It becomes much harder to enforce when it’s a shelf tag and it may not be clear which particular item the price if for. Big retailers tend to just shrug and blame their computers, laws — and customer service be damned.

It turns out, though, my Best Buy experience wasn’t unique. In fact, Best Buy apparently has systemic problems with mispricing. According to the Consumerist, one Best Buy even posted a sign alerting shoppers that items may be priced incorrectly. The sign says: “Due to technical difficulties beyond our control, some price tags may display incorrect prices or pricing errors. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”

Beyond their control? No, it’s their store. It’s all about their control. They are responsible for every price they post, and in Texas at least, they should be required to honor it. But more to the point, the store’s name is Best Buy. Yet by its own admission, it may not be.

From: http://con.st/10026824

Best Buy Apologizes If Your Item Doesn't Cost What It Says Due To "Technical Difficulties

So you thought you just scored a sweet deal on something at Best Buy? Sucker! It's just that they're having some problems putting the right prices on their items. You'll find that out when you get to the cash register, or from handy signs posted about the store.

Consumerist reader Garrett spotted these signs sprinkled about his local Best Buy, reading: "Due to technical difficulties beyond our control, some price tags may display incorrect prices or pricing errors. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause."

Of course, that could go the other way, where you might think a DVD of Gigli is $1,499, only to be pleasantly surprised that it's actually free. Perhaps they should invest in a back-up price gun.

Garrett adds: "I guess if the computer prints a wrong price, they have no choice but to post it? This example is the first thing you see when you walk in the front door, really sets the tone for the whole experience!"

High five, Best Buy! You never cease to amaze us with your ineptitude as you blunder your way about the retail world.