These companies will shrink wrap returns or broken display models and try to pass them off as new product. Then they won’t refund/exchange it when you return it.

Who knows it could have been a laptop display model that Best Buy was using they could have just shoved in a box, shrink wrapped it, and sold it to you.

To the Geek Squad guy, brush up your resume, if I was your boss and I caught you doing the above, you would be hitting the unemployment line.

If anyone has problems like this in the future, you don’t need a lawyer to take them to small claims court. Also, make it known as this guy has done.

Companies will try to screw over the little guy, because of caveat emptor (buyer beware).

http://consumerist.com/consumer/best-buy/best-buys-secret-employee-only-instore-website-shows-different-prices-than-public-website-235379.php

Connecticut has even sued Best buy for the “duplicate employee only web site”: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2136241,00.asp

1st problem: Several years ago I bought a Kodak Digital camera. Tried it out for one day and decided I wanted to exchange it for a higher quality unit. When I took it up to the customer service desk they told me that they were going to charge me a 20% restocking fee. That took me by surprise considering I was looking to exchange the Kodak camera for a better more expensive unit. I asked to speak to a manager that finally, after arguing for over 10 minutes, decided to take the camera back without the restocking fee.
I’m sure there are people out there that will buy a camera for a vacation then try to return it once they return from vacation. That is the only time I would think that a restocking fee could be enforced, but I was wanting to exchange the camera, not return it. Plus I was wanting to exchange it for a better model costing over $100 more. Hardly seems like I’m trying to scam them to me, but that’s how they made me feel. Once the store manager determined that I wasn’t trying to scam the store, he agreed to waive the restocking fee.

2nd problem: Less then a year ago I was wanting to purchase an LG DVD recorder. Online, the DVD recorder was listed at a price of $179.99 including a 30 pack of DVD’s. Once I got to the store to purchase the recorder, they tried to charge me $188.99 and didn’t give me the DVD’s. I told them how much it was listed for online and they directed me to a kiosk in the middle of their store where customers could look at their web site. The kiosk showed a price of $188.99. I called my wife from the store on my cell phone and asked her to look up the DVD recorder. It showed a price of $179.99. The employee I was speaking to didn’t believe me so I went home and printed the page showing the $179.99 price and took it back to the store. They then accused me of printing the price last week when the item may have been on sale. I had her lookup the item to see what it was listed at last week, it was $188.99. The best they would do was to charge me $188.99 and give me the 30 pack of DVD’s.
At first I was satisfied with that, but later it started to bother me that I was charged more for the item then it was listed for on their web site. I did some research online and found that there was a class action law suit against Best Buy for them failing to change the prices listed on their kiosks and deceiving customers into believing that they were actually looking at the real web site. In reality, they were viewing a best buy web site stored on the pc in the kiosk and not actually on the real web site. The store will manually update this information, most of the time with inaccurate information.
Once I read about the lawsuit, I called Best Buy customer satisfaction and simply asked the CSR to look up the DVD recorder on the web site. I directed him click by click directly to the recorder. Once he got there I asked him how much it cost. He told me it was listed as $179.99. At that point I asked him if that price is the same in store or online only, his reply was in store and online. I then asked him why my local Best Buy store charged me $188.99 and proceeded to tell him about the price showed in the stores kiosk. He told me that I was charged too much and gave me a code to present to the manager of the store for a refund of the difference. Once I got to the store the manager had no idea how to key this refund of the difference into the cash register. He then decided to just give me a $10 gift card instead, which I accepted.
I received the price I should have received for the LG DVD Recorder but it sure was a long road to get it.

3rd problem: By comparison to the problems I have listed above this one seems mild but the compilation of problems I have been having with Best Buys customer service, (or lack thereof) is the real issue here. In late May, I purchase a Wii Play game that included a Wii controller. I have a pretty busy schedule so our game system isn’t played very often. 3 months later the batteries died on the controller. No matter what I did, I could not get the controller to power up. No matter what batteries I put in it, I couldn’t get power to the controller. Without power, a controller cannot be synchronized so I know that is not the cause of the problem. So I boxed it and the Wii Play game and tried to take it back for an exchange since it’s obviously a defective remote. They refused to exchange the remote stating that their return policy is 30 days and the controllers only have a 90 day warranty on it anyway, so it is out of warranty too. They then suggested I contact Nintendo to have it repaired. I have only used this controller maybe six times due to my busy schedule but no matter what I said they would not exchange the controller. This happened today so I have not been able to reach Nintendo to see what they can do for me.

With all the problems I’ve been having, I will not buy anything else from Best buy!