Best Buy in trouble?

[Bonnie Campbell]

I think employee theft is often the biggest issue with any store of size. Google Walmart in Natchez MS for an example...

[Alan Lightstone]

I never go to "touch and feel" a product I want to buy. I research it carefully, select what I want and then click "buy", generally from Amazon, but sometimes from B&H Photo. I haven't been in a Best Buy for years...

+1. While I do some business with BB, I've been known to wait until their employees finish lying to an elderly couple, then take the couple aside and tell them what they really need, what lies the employee was telling them, and save them big bucks.

Nothing I hate worse than teenage store clerks on commission lying to elderly folks.

There's nothing I won't buy on the internet, given sufficient research, due diligence, etc.. And in particular, Amazon's customer service has been great. Also B&H too, for that matter.

[Brian Elfert]

Nothing I hate worse than teenage store clerks on commission lying to elderly folks.

My understanding is Best Buy quit doing commissions store wide years ago. I'm sure employees do get something for selling warranties and service contracts though. I wouldn't doubt if certain departments may still have commissioned sales people.

It isn't right for any employee to lie to a customer regardless of how the employee is compensated.

[Van Huskey]

Nothing I hate worse than teenage store clerks on commission lying to elderly folks.

.

Lying would assume they knew the correct answer!

The reality for many of the sales associates is they are just repeating the company line and/or the only solution they know/think will work.

[Kevin W Johnson]

Circuit City was just as bad when they were still in business... see a pattern here?

Being in computers, I have a tendency to listen in on the sales pitches. It should be criminal.

[Mike Null]

Being a customer of BB and also a former supplier who made presentations to both the CEO and president I am absolutely amazed at the almost unanimous negative reaction to BB. While I haven't always been pleased with every transaction, on the whole I've found them a pretty good place to shop. CC, on the other hand, also a former customer, was not a place I would ever do business with.

I do get annoyed with the pressure to use the Geek squad though I admire the concept and the void they fill.

[David Weaver]

Being a customer of BB and also a former supplier who made presentations to both the CEO and president I am absolutely amazed at the almost unanimous negative reaction to BB. While I haven't always been pleased with every transaction, on the whole I've found them a pretty good place to shop. CC, on the other hand, also a former customer, was not a place I would ever do business with.

I do get annoyed with the pressure to use the Geek squad though I admire the concept and the void they fill.

Sometime executives have good intentions, but set up a structure and situation with compensation that encourages the ranks below them to do things they didn't have in mind.

I don't know if that's the case for BB or not, but I have seen it before where the philosophy and the executives are "good", but what goes on at ground level irritates people.

[Matt Meiser]

Some also oversee empires that "accidentally" cheat their customers. Case in point: the internal vs. external web site. Case in point #2: Attorney general investigations by numerous states.

I'll admit to occasionally forgetting just how much I hate Best Buy and going there again, only to be re-reminded. The most recent time was when we bought iPhones this fall--arriving at the store at 6:30, waiting until around 7:00 to be waited on, and finally leaving an hour after they closed at 10:00. That was probably the first time in a year. Its still fresh in my mind so it will probably be a long time before I forget. I swore off them for almost 2 years when we got our DirecTV system about 8 years ago. We went on a Sunday morning and came home to find in the ad in the paper they were supposed to have given us a few different discounts amounting to over $100 off what we paid then gave us a major runaround to get it taken care of.

Before that there was the time my dad bought a PC package. They were out of the printer but had him pay for it anyway. Weeks later it still hadn't come but he found out another store nearby had piles of them in stock. They refused to give him one, he threatened to walk out the door with one to which they threatened to call the police. He invited them to do so at which point the manager decided to figure it out. A process that involved giving him a cash refund (actually handing him bills and coins) and then selling him a printer.

There were also the cases of Best Buy calling the police on customers when they were seen writing down prices in the pre-Internet days.

Best Buy would steal an old lady's walker if they thought they could get away with it without to much negative PR.

[Brian Elfert]

I do get annoyed with the pressure to use the Geek squad though I admire the concept and the void they fill.

Geek Squad is not necessarily a bad thing for the technically inept, but Best Buy does some unethical things with Geek Squad. Best Buy has been known to bundle Geek Squad services with a new laptop or desktop in their ad. A customer shows up to purchase the advertised PC and Best Buy tells them the only ones they have in stock have been opened and optimized by Geek Squad for an extra $99. Only by wasting a lot of time and being very persistent can one buy at the advertised price.

Best Buy had some incredible clearance prices on some PCs after this past Christmas about two weeks ago. One person saw a PC clearance priced for $419, but Best Buy insisted he had to pay an additional $99 for "optimizing" the PC and adding an anti-virus program. He still bought it as it was a bargain even at $519. I don't know how hard he tried to get the Geek Squad charge dropped.

[Pat Barry]

I've never had any problems with Best Buy, but I know that in the grand scheme of things they have millions and millions of customers and not all are happy. Here we see the truism with one unhappy customer doing more damage than can be offset by 10's of happy customers. The happy customers get forgotten.

[Kevin W Johnson]

BB uses it's customers...... SO, I use BB for it's loss leaders. Thats pretty much ALL I'll buy at BB. I always 100% price shop with BB on anything else, which means I rarely buy anything else there.

[Mike Null]

Whether the Forbes story has a foundation or not is rather immaterial when one reads the comments here. Clearly, a company that arouses such strong negativity is in trouble whether they know it or not.

I hope they find a way to right the ship because, as much as I like Amazon, I like to have options. And not Wal-Mart which I genuinely hate.

[Scott Lux]

I've been known to shop at BB, when the prices are reasonable. But I don't listen to their associates. Very few there know the merchandise beyond the company line. In their defense, knowledge is way above their pay grade.

I've not had any bad experiences there. That may be because I don't go in uninformed. Like any store or transaction, the more you know going in, the better off you are.

[David Weaver]

Geek Squad is not necessarily a bad thing for the technically inept, but Best Buy does some unethical things with Geek Squad. Best Buy has been known to bundle Geek Squad services with a new laptop or desktop in their ad. A customer shows up to purchase the advertised PC and Best Buy tells them the only ones they have in stock have been opened and optimized by Geek Squad for an extra $99. Only by wasting a lot of time and being very persistent can one buy at the advertised price.

That sounds a lot like the deals you get at tire places when they say you get a fourth tire free..
... and then when you get there, they tell you that you only get a fourth tire free if you spend $70 on a road hazard warranty. So you find out that you wasted your time, anyway.

Retail places that operate like that pretend like they don't know why customers don't trust them, or why people lose interest in even checking on deals (I don't even bother looking for those kinds of deals now, the investment of time is too much). I would still buy a loss leader PC from BB if I could get in there at a time where there were few people in there, and if I were sure I didn't have to pay GS fees.

But I'd be likely to not go in there to find out in the first place. The best thing I ever did there was drop off a TV and give them 10 bucks to take it (even though our garbage pickup would take it for free, I'm assuming BB does something with CRT TV's other than throwing them in their dumpster).

[David G Baker]

BB has a "long" history of bad customer relations and if it hasn't yet caught up with them yet, it will eventually. There are many Internet sites where there are serious complaints about BB, if you have a week or two to view them all, have at it.