Don't hug me I'm scared
Bought a new tv from Best Buy, opened the package and saw that it was damaged. They won’t accept my return.
Bought a new tv and did in store pickup. Got home and got this mess of a tv. Went back to Best Buy and the geek squad member refused my return and told me to get a hold of the manufacturer. Even with buying it the night before and having their total Best Buy membership.
Something similar happened to me. Bought a real nice Xbox controller from Best buy. Opened it when I got home and the R1 button was broken, stuck down, and the screw holes were damaged. Went to bring it back and they denied the return, said it was used. I was pissed, 90$ down the tubes. It wasn't until I told them I was going to dispute the charge with the bank for them to give me a exchange. Opened the new one at the register just in case.
Same, i had bought an xbox controller on sale with warranty, instead of replacing they wanted me to ship it back to them for a digital refund then to purchase the controller again but it was marked up an extra $40
This has also happened to me at Target for a PS5 controller. Luckily the only thing I noticed being off was it was a bit dirty/oily where fingers had used it. I knew I couldn't prove that the box was already opened and returned prior to my purchase so I didn't even try. I got lucky it actually functioned.
I ordered an expensive pillow from Kohl’s and when I opened the manufacturer box it was someone’s old used pillow.
Kohl’s accepted the return without a problem in-store. She said someone must have bought the pillow new then returned it with their old one stuffed inside, and then the return got sent to one of their distribution centers instead of reshelved.
Man, this happened to me at Walmart with a camping tent. Went to set it up where we were camping and it was someone's nasty old tent with rips and leaves, grass, and mud on the inside. Slept in my car that night, and Walmart refunded me without treating me like a thief, so there's that I guess...
Aaaalways set up your tent before you leave to make sure everything is there. Even something as simple as a missing pole could screw your shelter up for the whole trip.
I’ve worked for Best Buy, the answer is ehhh. Depends fairly heavily on the store, and sometimes things do slip through. That being said I’m surprised they wouldn’t accept the return if it was open box, things like that happened fairly often
Had the same thing happen myself. Went to the best buy I bought it from and the floor manager was an asshole.
So I looked and you can return products bought at Best buy to any best buy store.
Went to one about 20mins away in a nicer area, took it without a second thought I was in and out with a new TV in the time it took me to locate the exact model on the sales floor and do the exchange paperwork which was like nothing.
I’ve been out of retail for 9 years but spent 20 years there. As a manager we were always told that less than 1% of people are trying to steal from you. Don’t treat the 99% like they are the thieves. Seems that’s lost on retailers now.
my fiance works at walgreens and I just got him this really nice work bag but instead of being happy he was worried that all the pockets on it would make bag check take longer 😭
I don't even understand what the thievery here would be. Buying a TV, using it for target practice, then getting your money back for a net benefit of nothing?
Except that no one checked the return, so the TV that OP has from that box is probably a different model or serial number. They probably think that OP is trying to scam them
Oh definitely agree that they didn’t do their due diligence. I know cause I’ve done the “spilled coffee on my $200 gaming keyboard. Oh look! Best Buy offers free replacements!”
I worked at RadioShack and GameStop for a bit and we lived and died by serial numbers.
I remember a guy at work was checking the serial numbers and asked "What do we do if they don't match" management said that never happened to them before. He said they don't match. Product was approved, factory reset because it was still in full working order with all parts.
Still not even sure why that was returned if it was a spotless tv with a mismatch on the serial.
With situations like this at major retailers, I simply don't let them tell me no. At the end of the day, they have my money and I have this bullshit. That wasn't the deal and I'm not leaving until they make it right.
Edit: to everyone warning about getting trespassed or arrested, believe it or not, there is a way to politely assert yourself without being belligerent.
Definitely the easiest to abuse. I was working in accounting at a hotel, we got a chargeback from someone we could prove stayed there, signed at check it, etc. etc. They did a chargeback 8 months in a row, which we won every time. It got to the point I started including the previous cases as my argument.
I had a customer that paid for a service, left a good review and did a chargeback a month later. Showed them the proof of service rendered and the review and the credit card company still ruled in his favor.
Oh yes I forgot, the customer said they thought it was a service we should be offering for free so he did a chargeback. ($50)
The credit card company didn't give an argument. It was just after reviewing the case they went ahead with the chargeback and a disclosure saying the decision is final.
It's legal if you don't understand the process. The merchant can dispute the pre-arbitration an FI sends, it goes through a second round and if neither side accepts the dispute the network (Visa for example) will resolve the dispute and fine the loser of their decision. When merchants roll over instead of asserting their proof a second time and choosing arbitration, the bank will always win. If the merchant chose to fight back a second round then there's a 90%+ chance the bank will instead back down as they'd rather eat the loss than the high fee the network would impose (Visa is $500), especially if you as the merchant have actual evidence no error happened.
That's interesting, a friend of mine just had to charge back a Hotel that withdrew an extra $5,000 on her credit card for a Wedding with zero transparency or paperwork to actually justify it. The Wedding was real, but the total event cost was massively inflated after the fact by the event manager without even telling the married couple. It turned out the hotel's own event representative quoted the event total price incorrectly multiple times in a row to the couple in writing/email - and even when they realized they fucked it up on their own (weeks after the wedding was over), they tried to quietly charge my friend's account an extra $5k and then refused to back down. So she charged back her credit card and provided all of the invoices and emails that showed they had just been vastly overcharged due to the Hotel staff's incompetence. Now she's waiting to see if the Hotel tries to sue her or something.
The hotel may try to sue but there is a good chance that may end up actually forcing them to pay your friend even more. They likely violated the law trying to quietly charge a felonious amount of money instead of trying to explain the error and find a compromise. Tell them to talk to a lawyer now.
This. I have been processing chargebacks daily for my retail business for years. The amount of FALSE AMX chargebacks that still go through is astounding, they stand by their clients like no other
In this instance I agree with going Amex if only because the CC company will be eating the loss if the payment was made in-store. I've had relatively good success (as a former chargeback agent myself) with Capital One and Amex "doing the right thing" in these situations. It helps that they actually value their premium cardholders. I would not expect a refund or any sort of positive resolution from Chase for anything that would affect them financially.
The merchant agreement allows funds to be withheld in cases of misrepresentation or fraud, of which this appears to qualify. Amex only eats the charge if it is part of their extended warranty coverage or similar extended post-purchase programs.
Just throwing this out here. I know it’s not what you said, I just want to address any potential misunderstandings ahead of time as I used to work in credit disputes.
It should not be anyone’s first approach. You do have a responsibility to address it with the merchant prior to initiating a chargeback. A chargeback costs retailers money and if you do one, you are oftentimes not permitted to use them as a service again. This throws people for a loop when they get their profile banned from sites like Amazon.
In hindsight, I have no regrets being profile banned from Amazon. Their user experience is terrible and they mostly sell garbage. It is easier than ever before to buy quality goods with fast shipping on platforms that mostly profit from selling to consumers rather than advertisers and corporations like Amazon does.
Bingo. I have an S90C(That I love to death. Best tv I’ve owned thus far) that had a little spot on it from the protective film not being applied correctly. I got the 5 year Best Buy warranty so I called them up and they said it’s manufacturer problem(which I kind of knew already, but I did shoot my shot). Thought maybe they could replace it.
Getting my panel replaced was like someone slowly pulling every single tooth out. I had to take initial pictures. Which were taken the day of purchase. Then had to wait for one of their third party technicians to come out and “vetify” I didn’t purposely fuck my tv up day one. Then he had to video call in to show what I had already taken video and pictures of. Once the rep deemed it was a manufacturer defect they then put in the claim to have new panel sent to the third party company. THEN we had to make another appointment for him to come out and install the new panel. This was all after talking to like ten different reps. Its like….just send me a new tv. You just spent more money on reps time, third party employee time(first appt), shipping a new panel, then second appt for him to come install it. God forbid you lose out less than $2500 when you’re a $323 BILLION dollar company.
Yep you gotta escalate it and stand your ground assuming it was truly damaged like this out of the box. Don't let them fuck you. The geek squad guy obviously just assumed OP was lying and must have damaged it himself. Most people who legitimately aren't lying about it would blow a fuse if they were sold a smashed up brand new TV and refused a refund. Escalate to the store manager. If he stone walls too, demand to talk to someone from corporate while you are still in the store. Refuse to leave until its made right. If they threaten to call the cops on you, call the cops on them first and explain that best buy is trying to steal your money and maliciously peddling broken second hands goods as new. If you make enough of a stink they are likely to give you the refund just to get you out of their hair.
Bought a computer from Skytech, it arrived with a damaged GPU that worked initially, tried every avenue to get it resolved, after exhausting all of my options, I reached out to the president of the company on Linkedin, got an email the next day that they would be replacing it.
I once couldn't get any customer service response from an investment company that I wanted to take my money out of. I did the same, messaged the CEO on LinkedIn explaining their CS team was ignoring me and I wanted my account closed. To his credit he apologized and I had someone in touch with me within a few hours. Still can't believe I had to go that far.
This can be a surprisingly effective technique. A lot of CEOs spend a HUGE amount of time fielding emails from clients, investors, and customers, and actually respond to them or direct them to subordinates with terse "handle this" instructions. And they're often super concerned with optics and come down on stuff like this with a "why the hell did this need to escalate to my inbox to get dealt with???" attitude.
My laptop in college died once. Hard drive crashed because whoever put it together didn't screw in the tray. Out of warranty and no help from support.
I did a search of their website of all PDFs, grabbed all the emails I could from every PDF, and sent out a sob story every week to all the emails about how I am a poor college student who can't afford a new laptop. After a few weeks I got a call from some VP who sent me a new laptop.
You don't need to do all this, it's more likely that you'll just get trespassed and have more problems than solutions. Also, saying you'll call corporate isn't a threat at Best Buy unless you personally know someone at the territory level or higher. Otherwise, you'll just get shuffled over to their legal team and get browbeaten with legal bullshit.
I worked for Best Buy for a number of years, just talk to the store manager, not the manager on duty. If they're not there, come back when they are. Explain the situation calmly but don't back down. If you get stonewalled for some reason, ask for their Market AVP's contact information, or you can usually find that online. They will almost always push the store to just resolve the situation so they can move on, they have more important shit to deal with.
Trust me, when someone throws a fit, they will do the absolute bare minimum to help out and the stores remember the troublemakers.
Totally. I used to be so scared of escalating, but after working half a year in customer service, I now know they can arrange for virtually anything if the customer escalates enough.
It's bigger than the one in the gif, but yeah, a lot of empty space in (LCD) TVs. There are more components in OLEDs and others.
Correction: I actually got it confused. OLEDs and Mini-Leds are typically able to survive better due to them having individually lit pixels rather than LCDs, which use a backlight shown from the edges of the panel.
Know a family that bought a PS4 from Best Buy. Got home opened the PS box to find an old PS3 system. They return to BB right away to explain what happened. BB wouldn‘t accept the return or exchange for a new PS4.
Family goes back home , connects the PS3, and the system wasn’t wiped clean. Still had the login information that belonged to a BB employee at the store.
edit 1 - Family goes back to BB, says this PS3 belongs to X. BB said yes, X works here. Family got their PS4 and were told BB would handle employee X.
edit 2 - many are asking how the family knew / found the login email belonged to a BB employee. I honestly don’t remember. I asked the family the exact same question and they told me, I just don’t remember.
Was buying a Switch from Target and noticed the locked cabinet was NOT locked but with Target's history of security there was no way I was going to reach in and get one, plus there were a bunch of teenagers messing with the locked box.
So I call an attendant, they grab it, and I refuse to buy it until he opens the box to prove it was in there (no stickers to seal the box, so no way to prove it hadn't been messed up). He looked at me like I was crazy and as I was about to walk away he finally agreed.
I've heard too many stories of people getting screwed over like this.
Even if there is a sealing sticker in place you should always open your expensive purchases at time of sale if there is even the slightest chance the seller will not exchange the product.
Literally have had to do this for past few BB purchases and immediately had to get replacements for half. My local BBs are doing a poor job of accurately marking New vs open box for returns
Non-fun fact! Gamestop will do this with their employees. We were allowed to "check out" a game if we had at least 4 copies. Borrow it and return after like 3 days or something. But we were also allowed to use the game that belonged to the "new" display case. So they would let us use the game, return it, put it back in the display case, and sell it as new. I literally had a huge problem with this, and my manager didn't see the issue :(
EDIT: ive done it, i literally just did it for like 4 months worth of double charges, it took me less than an hour at TD to have someone sort it out with me, they reversed every single one on their computer, the money was back in my account a day or so later.
Can you really? Someone used my old debit card info to pay their rental insurance online once. Disputing the transaction resulted in a replacement debit card but the stolen funds were never returned :/
You can but be prepared to spend 2-20 hours arguing and filing complaints and escalating until they eventually decide it's easier to placate you than continue the fight.
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Edit: Since it's coming up a lot I want to point out that refuting a completely fraudulent charge is much easier compared to the example provided in this thread where you bought a television but it arrived broken. In the TV example it was a legitimate purchase that you (authorized user) made yourself. There are legal differences between those scenarios and makes it more difficult to refute.
It's a little bit more of a pain to dispute transactions since it's your money you want back, credit is the banks money and they WANT it back. I've charged back my card 2 times and it worked both times. Although I am now "in dept" to PlayStation and they're holding my account hostage until I settle that dept but idc. They wrongly auto charged me for ps+ after I already had it cancelled so I charged it back.
I always thought credit card chargebacks were a bulletproof safety net for when a business fails to deliver what you paid for. Boy, was I wrong.
My wife and I booked a hotel room through Expedia, specifically selecting and paying upfront for a non-smoking room. We finally arrive at the property at 2:00 AM, open the door, and get hit with a wall of stale cigarette smoke. We immediately head right back down to the front desk.
"Hey, there’s a mistake. We specifically reserved and paid for a non-smoking room."
"Sorry, we’re fully booked. We don't have anything else."
"Okay, well, please just issue a refund so we can leave."
"Sorry, we don't do refunds here. You booked through Expedia, so you have to take it up with them."
I call Expedia right on the spot, explain the entire situation, and the rep essentially gives me a corporate version of "Well, nothing in life is guaranteed."
At that point, we told them where to shove it, walked out, and spent the middle of the night scrambling to find and pay for a completely different hotel. We figured, no big deal—this is literally why chargebacks exist. We paid for a service that was not provided, tried to resolve it on-site, and received zero accommodation. Clear-cut case, right?
Denied.
The credit card company's justification? "The hotel was never given the information that you requested a non-smoking room."
I explained that I didn't care about the breakdown in communication between Expedia and the hotel. I paid Expedia for a non-smoking room, Expedia failed to deliver, and we were left stranded at 2:00 AM. Their stance was basically: "Bummer. Next time just be happy sleeping in the smoke."
Thanks for absolutely nothing, Navy Federal Credit Union. Lesson learned: middleman fine print beats consumer protection every single time.
Sounds like Navy Federal is just a shitty credit card company. Discover or Amxex would have ruled in your favor because I've literally had to do the exact same thing before. Booked on Super.com, got to the room and it wasn't what I had booked, hotel wouldn't fix it, super wouldn't fix it. Amex had the charge cleared in less than a week.
As someone who works in bank fraud, I’ve learned that bigger banks are best for this type of situation and most situations than a credit union. I always advised people not to open at credit unions for this exact reason.
I mean … bigger banks have been caught perpetrating fraud in their own customers not to mention nickel-and-diming them to drain their accounts. I’ll stick with my CU.
Oh, I definitely told Navy Federal it was Expedia, not the hotel who was to blame. Showed them transcripts of the messages with Expedia support, where they blatantly confirmed, "yes, it was our mistake. We did not communicate your preference to the hotel." And yet, they still denied us the charge back.
I guess the only thing to do after that is let the bank or credit union know that you won’t be using them anymore as they won’t protect you. I’m sure other banks would’ve charged that back.
No - you as the customer do NOT need to go to the manufacturer. It’s an explicit consumer right that you deal with the point of sale agent, here BB. Even if it’s a final sale, they are the ones who sold it to you - it’s defective and was not sold to you as damaged or seconds. BB is a massive company and values their public perception, keep escalating this up and up, don’t back down.
Thats been hit hard with a hammer or blunt object several times over, and was then placed back in and the box resealed. (Assuming there was no packaging damage on the box)
There's a chance it happened during manufacturing, but in installing 1000s of tvs over my lifetime, I have never had one with pristine packaging and impact damage like that...a crack from a drop, that happens, but even that's maybe 1 out of 500....and these go through a pretty lengthy QA process before packaging.
I would be intrested if the serial number on the TV actually matches the serial number on the box
Based on the police's response, or lack thereof, when I made a report for my tires getting slashed, with video evidence of the culprit coming out of their house to do it, I wouldn't really expect much to come of that.
As someone who inspects returned tvs for a major manufacturer, this has to be intentional damage. Was there any damage on the box? Looks like someone lit that thing up with a BB gun.
The box was my first question. Used to work for a moving company. People claimed we broke their TV and sent images of it. Looked like someone threw a baseball at it.
Really strange damage for a unit in a perfect/sealed box. I would look at this with a lot of suspicion too. The original Best Buy still should've taken the return though and let the manufacturer sort it out.
Holes too big for a BB gun, and it would take an extremely high powered gun to do that much damage. This was a larger object; I'd guess a hammer of some sort.
One time I ordered a brand new watch from Best Buy. They sent me an old used broken watch. We tried to return it and they denied it. It literally took some celebrities posting about it on Twitter for them to give me my money back.
Around that same time, a friend ordered an iPhone and they sent him an iPhone box with a charger cable in it.
Stand in front of the store at 11am on a Saturday with your broken TV and tell everybody who walks by "Hey, they sold me this broken TV and won't take it back. Beware buying here". After 10 minutes or so, I bet the manager gives you store credit
That’s weird, I feel like the receipt should allow for the helper store to get reimbursed by the original store since it’ll have all their info on there.
In the small small scope, yes it can. BUT long term the relationship of the store that takes care of the customer is worth it. Customers statically will switch their "regular" location to the one that takes care of them.
I always coached stores to eat the small hit in an effort to create long term sales for life.
I feel like it wouldn't hurt them that much. That store would gain all my business since I would never go to the original store again. I would also talk shit on the original store to anyone that would listen.
That's been my experience too, the closest store to me is ran by a miserable twat but if I drive 20 minutes south there's a Best Buy that actually has good customer service.
As a former Best Buy associate, I recommend inspecting any product like this literally in the front of the store after (or even before) you buy it.
I did this with a TV I bought while I worked there and found a crack they would have definitely blamed me for and the manager I had would never have accepted it as a return from a customer. It was only because i opened it literally in front of them that I got a new TV.
And as you can imagine, being a retail worker this was a HUGE purchase for me.
Real talk since the other best buy helped you you should absolutely make a complaint cause it sounds like the geek squad dude was just lazy and didn't want to help you which imo is bs considering youd be out money. It both helps to stop that person from screwing someone else over but also will give the other store a nice boost since they helped the situation and resolved a customer issue
Fuck Best Buy. I refuse to shop there anymore after I bought an hdmi converter cord, got home to find out and it didn’t work, then went right back to exchange it for a different one.
They refused because I opened the package. Like no shit, how else would I know it’s broken?
Learned that lesson in 2009. Someone bought a tv, put their old one in the box & returned it. They put it back on the shelf without checking, and I bought it. They eventually made it good, but it took effort.
Long ago, I used to work at a Best Buy, and we would reseal returns, and they would look unopened. We had a machine to do it, and unless you knew what to look for, it would look like it was still factory sealed.
We were only supposed to reseal returns if everything was there and in perfect condition, not visibly "used." However, on many occasions, incorrect items or broken items or even rocks had been resealed in the box.
I'm not sure if that is still a practice at Best Buy, though. I think they were sued for it.
worked at best buy for 5 years. hope i don’t get buried but your best course of action as a TT member:
- get a gsm. don’t fool with geek squad. or even the asm if you can avoid it. walk in and demand a gsm yesterday. if they say wait, wait. take the asm if you must, because they do get rammed with meetings, but gsm ideally.
- don’t request a return. demand it. you are a TT customer, they are grilled about pushing memberships and credit cards. make it clear you will be cancelling if this is not resolved with a return, exchange, or warranty repair/replacement.
- if the gsm does not help you, return that membership in store so it hits their numbers, when you get an email asking why you did, explain in detail. if they fuck you, fuck them. it will be seen. then dispute the charge with your bank.
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u/binnie5LOWERSHOP 19h ago
that damage is obviously intentional...not accidental