I read two stories today that I’d like to share. The first one is in Money Magazine. A woman buys a hard drive and when she opens the box at home inside are 3 bags of dried beans. She goes back to the store, speaks to the manager, calls the corporate office and is summarily rebuffed by everyone. It’s not until Money Magazine calls on her behalf is she offer a gift card to replace the missing hard drive.
The next story is on MSNBC.com. A woman buys a new laptop and buys an extended warranty too. Good move because a few months later the power button breaks. She brings the laptop back to the store’s repair department and is told it will take 2-6 weeks for the repair. 4 months and many, many phone calls later and the store finally admits losing the laptop. The laptop cost $1100 and had hundreds of dollars of legally downloaded music, software, and priceless photos. Not to mention tons of personal data including tax returns on it.
Instead of paying to replace the $1100 laptop, not to mention inconvenience and all the music and software, she is offered only a $900 store credit. It took a complaint to the Attorney General and 54 million dollar lawsuit for the store to make a reasonable offer.
What do both of these stories have in common? As you might have guessed, both customer service quagmires were courtesy of Best Buy. Personally, I never shop there unless someone gives me a gift card and even then I loathe the experience. The moral of this story is to also back up your hard drive, especially before you bring your computer it in for service. As for the missing hard drive, you should probably check the box before you leave the store to prevent many unhappy returns.
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