Dear Best Buy…
Dear Best Buy,
I enjoy your large selections and relatively low prices. I bought 50 packs of blank CD’s from your fruitful shelves a couple weeks ago for $5 a piece without having to mail in rebates of any kind. I enjoy buying CD’s when they come out for well under the $17.99 selling price of Tower Records and/or Virgin Megastores. I love the fact that I can dork out in the computer section, follow that up with some obscure music purchases and buy DVD’s of my favorite movies and TV shows all under the same warehouse styled roof.
A couple things though. Please if you don’t know what you are talking about don’t pretend as if you do. And if, by chance, you know more than I do, please try and keep your smug, arrogant attitude under wraps while you are talking to me. I hate to scream SUPERIORITY, but there are a great many things unrelated to HDTV’s and electronics that I know a whole lot more about than you. I am probably middle to upper middle of the road as far as intelligence goes in this world, but that, I think puts me firmly above your smug ass despite what you know about $150 A/V cables for connecting electronic components from my stereo to my television.
Also, when I have finished choosing the things that I want to buy from your shelves and I get to the register to pay for those things, please do not assume that I forgot anything. If I wanted to buy a Best Buy gift card for a family member in this holiday season I could have snagged one 25 times while waiting in the overpopulated line.
Also, I have two credit cards already. The Best Buy branded credit card with introductory offers and things might actually be appealing, but I am not going to make a split-second decision on a financial institution with which to pay interest payments. You make it sound like you mean well, but really you just want to rope me into a bad deal in all probability.
Also, throwing in “risk free” trial subscriptions to magazines is not really what I want to do. That will involve me giving you my address, which will in turn make sure that I am spammed with physical pieces of mail as you or someone who purchases my information from you decides I make a wonderfully large marketing bullseye for them to pepper with propaganda and cheap marketing ploys.
So thanks, but no thanks, my blue shirt wearing friends. You may take my money in exchange for goods of my choosing, but please please please take a cue from the structure of your building and act more like a warehouse. It really fits you best. Stock ridiculous amounts of goods and offer me low prices on the products of my choosing. Don’t assume that I need you to tell me what to buy.
You see the Best Buy is a a subjective thing for each individual consumer. What may be a Best Buy for me, will not be a Best Buy for the person behind me in line.
Anyway, I still like you and I will continue to shop at your store, but your attention to these matters would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Craig
P.S. I know you aren’t breaking any laws or rules, but could you do me a favor and stop selling Karaoke devices of any kind? Have you seen these people sing? We shouldn’t be making it any easier for them. Thanks again.
Comments
Dear Best Buy…
Dear Best Buy, I enjoy your large selections and relatively low prices. I bought 50 packs of blank CD’s from…
Best Buy once ripped me off for $100.
I bought a Playstation there way back before the second installment came out. I got it home, and it was clearly old and broken, leading me to believe that someone pulled the old switcheroo on them. I tried to return it, and they accused me of the old switcheroo and told me to get the hell out of the store before they called the police. I haven’t been back there since.
I would have told them to call the police. Go for it. They can’t prove anything.
I got my sister a scanner there once, when she got it home the serial number was scratched off. Turns out someone stole it, it was somehow recovered and put back on the shelves.
The warrantee would not have covered it w/the scratched off serial number.
They are lucky they returned it!! Levey and Gruin would have given them QUITE the run for their money!!!
Well, they were saying - at that point - that I was trespassing. Apparently after they rip you off, you’re no longer welcome there. They want you out of sight as soon as possible.
Fuck Best Buy with a rusty pole.
I love the in-store “experts”. I find it really crazy that all of their “advice” leads you to make higher dollar purchases . If I didn’t trust their superb knowledge of devices & the like I would swear they were trying to up-sell me. Thank god for their honest & knowledgeable staff. It would be a sad state of affairs if any Tom, Dick, or Harry could walk in off the street and get a job at Best Buy.
Wow.
I just get stuff at Best Buy ’cause my brother works there and I use him for his discount.
Though, now that I’ve seen the seedy underbelly of the blue shirts…
The opportunity to heckle the help in Best Buy and Circuit City is proof that there is a gawd and she loves us.
That had to be one of the most hilarious and achingly true letters I have ever read! Thanks for the laughs on a slow day at work!
No problem… thanks for stopping in!
I like to mess with the BB employees, actually.
I can’t go down an aisle without getting hounded by 3-4 different salespeople. “Can I help you?” If I needed help I would have made eye contact with you instead of avoiding you. In addition, I don’t need to be asked that same question at 30 second intervals by different salespeople.
SO, I get even. “What kind of bus speed does this puppy have?” … off they shoot to ask. This buys me about 3-4 minutes of peace. They eventually return, often with very erroneous information. Instead of laughing … “And what AGP speed is this motherboard?”. Off they go again. I call it “Best Buy Yoyo-ing”. The first time my wife saw me do it, and figured out what I was doing, she had to leave before she started laughing out loud.
If I tell someone I’m there to browse … leave me the hell alone. Once I say NO to your handy warrantee extension at checkout, that is not an invitation to ask me again, several times, or say “Are you sure?”.
On time I actually had to raise my voice to be heard a few aisles over: “Are you going to finish checking me out, or waste my entire day declining your damned warrantee and credit card offers?” That did the trick, actually.
It’s sad when you have to morph temporarily into an ass just to avoid pressure sales.
D
Yeah the other thing that is a joke is when they try and explain the benefits of a $40 extended warranty on something that cost $100. That is by far the worst insurance rate I have ever seen in my entire life. Don’t you think that I am going to take a chance that it won’t break, rather than pay 40% of the purchase price to ensure that I am covered? Really, there is no way to explain it where I am going to go “OH, I didn’t think of it that way! Give me that plan!”
I will have to try BB Yo-yo-ing one of these days.
I don’t know if it’s still the case, but there have been years in the past when Best Buy made more money selling insurance (warrantees) than they did selling products. This is an indication that many of our countrymen should not be allowed to drive or vote.
Now that you mention it… I know a little something about insurance and they measure an agent’s success on sales as they are compared to claims. I bet they sell a crapload more warranties than they have people exercising their extended warranty claims.
Sigh. Sounds just like my job at compUSA.