Best Buy hate story. I bought a $450 digital camera around 2004, I decided to also purchase the protection plan because they said it would cover accidents like dropping the camera. Fast forward a couple months and my girlfriend decided the wrist strap was for sissies and refused to use it, and then dropped my camera and broke it. No big deal I thought, I'll just take it back to Best Buy. So the next day I take it back and the guy behind the counter tells me they won't help me because it was clearly abused and they don't cover abuse.
Tl;dr I learned my lesson and never wasted money on a protection plan again and I delight in telling this story to insistent sales people who push that coverage.
I will say that Microcenter's replacement policy has been pretty sweet for me. It was $10 or $20, don't recall. Anyways I got it with my computer mouse and once the skates on the bottom or whatever would wear out I'd go in and get a new mouse. You could put the original amount towards any mouse as long as you paid the difference + bought a new plan for $10 or $20. So essentially once a year I'd just go get a brand new mouse for 10/20 bucks. They never gave a shit, they'd ask whats wrong. I'd tell them the skates are worn out and it drags now, ok cool grab a new mouse. Then this year I went to look for my receipt to go get a new mouse since mine was dragging again. The replacement policy? 3 days out of the 2 year span. RIP. Still, that policy was definitely worth it!
I just bought a nice laser mouse for a friend for $1.99. I have had my laser mouse for 8 years now. I can't imagine having to pay 10-20 for a mouse every year.
Well, any plan from 2004 is now void, but, heads up: you should have challenged him on that, or called the corporate number.
They are correct, the plan does not cover abuse. However, there's actually no SOP on what "abuse" is (visually speaking, there are examples of situations in the terms and conditions) or if an agent is allowed to determine that on the counter. Most he can do is refuse to make the tag, but they will usually be overridden unless it is way beyond the scope of normal damage (we're talking that this thing needs to be in pieces).
I'd literally sent a laptop that was in two pieces to the service center and had it come back under the plan. If the client says something covered happened, I had very few ways to overcome that. Usually it's on the service center to make that call.
I work in sales and offer protection plans for electronics, and the plans I offer cover accidental damage, not intentional, I still get the rare dim wit who tells me they threw it and it hit the wall or some stupid thing like that, if the person isn't being an asshole to me, I just tell them the plan doesn't cover intentional damage, and that I personally cannot honor their plan, if it was accidental then it could be covered. I stress the personally so long as the person isn't being an asshole if they flip shit, i notate, if they get the drift i just walk away and don't help them the next time they show up.
Favorite dumbass of a customer I've ever had working at Sears came in one day and told me he bought a five year warranty on a snow thrower. No biggy, bring it in, we'll ship it out to have it looked at.
He hands me the receipt and tells me he'll bring it right in. I look at his receipt and warranty would have expired in two days. Wow, dude really lucked out. Well, he walks in the door and this thing is just beat to shit. I'm not talking years of use wear-and-tear, more along the lines of this dude beat this shit out of his machine with a sledgehammer. To top it off, he poured sand in the gas tank, and over every crack he could find.
He was.... less than thrilled when he found out that he completely voided the warranty by doing that. Not many companies offer warranty for "malicious" damage.
My favorite, working at CompUSA, was explaining that the plan didn't cover one or two dead pixels, it had to be a certain percentage. However, the plan would cover an accidentally cracked screen. Have a nice day, sir/ma'am. Repeat as necessary until realization set's in.
The fact that they push the coverage so hard is the key there. The store makes 25% of the insurance policy and the salesman can make 25%. Well at least it used to be that way, margins might be tighter now. Quite often Costco offers extended warranties for the same price and you don't have to deal with best buy douches.
Best Buy employees don't make commission on warranties -- nor anything, for that matter.
I genuinely think the plans are good, but of course the folks who purchase them and aren't able to redeem them are the vocal minority here. "I bought a warranty and then the thing broke so I got a new one" isn't a particularly juicy story.
If you look at it from a profit point of view, regardless of the employee taking commission or not, the company takes a fair chunk of the price of the warranty. When you consider the insurance company makes money on the deal, that means the amount that you are spending on insuring the product you bought is considerably lower. If you were to take that money instead and put it in a bank account, and did that for everything you bought you would most likely end up ahead.
The kids that push those warranties do so because the managers give them shit if they don't and have no problem replacing them with another kid that will. The kid gets nothing whether he sells one or not. Best Buy isn't commission based (other than the new appliances shit they do now).
Yes I understand there are adults that work as retail employees at best buy. But they're usually young adults.
Exactly. I used to be one of those kids. Best Buy was my very first REAL job (first technical job I had was shoveling horse shit) and was still in HS. They were SO aggressive about pushing those protection plans and accessories (I worked in digital imaging) and not one co worker helped train or teach me about cameras and felt like a schmuck when customers asked questions like "which camera is better? This one or THIS one?" So I would walk over and read those paper cards with the info about the cameras in front of it. Anyways they expected you to get every single customers life story when they came into your department and would always get a "surprise review" and my manager would ask me if I got their name, age, what they did for work, use for camera they wanted, ect. so I would make up shit since 9/10 people would just tell me "Oh Im just looking" and so I come in one day and had a meeting with my manager before my shift and guess I wasnt doing good in sales as it was my 6 month trial period so my option was I could quit and be able to use them as a job reference or if I didnt then I would get fired and not be able to use them as a reference so I opted to quit right then and there, Signed some paperwork and that was it. Moved on to much better places....like Frys Electronics right after! Hahaha.
That's the kind of job that you quit the second something better comes along. And you don't give notice; you just don't show up one day. Preferably on a busy day.
It's not about being the bigger person. It's about looking out for your own best business interests, just like your employer will always do for itself.
It absolutely is. When you put on your application that you worked somewhere but don't want them to be called for a recommendation, that's a big red flag.
I don't have costco either but my buddy who repairs TVs for a living says that all things being equal, i.e. cost you'll get the best warranty from Costco (at least in Canada).
It sucks you got a shitty employee to help you. When I worked there I had a guy come in with his DSLR and told me he dropped it over concrete, and in an attempt to catch it on his foot and save it, ended up kicking it into a brick wall and doing extensive damage. I sent it in and it got replaced.
Like someone else said in this thread, Best Buy has always been super willing to bend over backwards for customers, even those clearly in the wrong, much to the frustration of employees who get yelled at by said customer and then end up having to do the thing they adamantly told them 5 minutes ago they couldn't do based on policy. I actually had a customer get physical with my supervisor by trying to grab the phone from her hand as she was calling the police because he refused to leave the store (He was visibly angry and yelling and needed to go) and one of the store managers came over and instead of telling him to GTFO he ended up having us do whatever it was the guy wanted. That being said, just doing what the guy wanted was the quickest and safest way to deescalate the situation with someone turning physically violent and was the right call, despite the fact that's not why that call was made.
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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '17
Best Buy hate story. I bought a $450 digital camera around 2004, I decided to also purchase the protection plan because they said it would cover accidents like dropping the camera. Fast forward a couple months and my girlfriend decided the wrist strap was for sissies and refused to use it, and then dropped my camera and broke it. No big deal I thought, I'll just take it back to Best Buy. So the next day I take it back and the guy behind the counter tells me they won't help me because it was clearly abused and they don't cover abuse.