NEVER do business with Bestbuy Again

[FarAway Sooner]

Yeah.  It takes more than 5 or 10 smart people to run a huge retail operation.  And Best Buy  just doesn't seem to have enough smart people left a couple rungs up the management chain to stay afloat much longer.

I still buy stuff there it's something I might want to return quickly if it's not working well.  As one example:  My wife took our son into Best Buy to purchase a cheap flatscreen TV for her office there 2 months ago.  They offered in-home installation for $75, but because the TV was on clearance, it went through a different interface in their order system, and they couldn't access the $75 install without first requesting a $49 service trip fee.

The tech helping my wife called the manager over, and they both agreed that there was no reason to require a $49 service trip fee if the TV was bought on clearance.  He was adamant that it was not in the terms of the TV purchase or the $75 install deal.  They just couldn't access the $75 install deal from the purchase screen.

My wife (who was somehow born without negotiating skills in situations like this, but earns enough money that she can justify pissing it away to herself) caved in and ordered the whole thing, paying almost as much for the installation as for the TV.  They tell her that they're coming on Tuesday between 8am and noon, and finally call her at 2:45pm to tell her they're on their way.  She tells them not to come, because she has a 3pm appointment and she won't be there.  They regretfully inform her that if they show up and she's not there, they'll have to charge her for the $49 service trip fee.

So she tells them to cancel the ticket and she'll reschedule.  This is where it gets bad.

It turns out that, since the order was placed using my Best Buy Rewards Card (I guess they got that via my wife's phone number), only I can cancel the service trip.  She has the receipt in front of her, complete with credit card.  The credit card bill is in her name.  She paid for the trip.  But, because it's on my Best Buy Rewards Card, they need me to cancel the trip. 

So my wife has to call me up at work, conference call me in to talk with the tech, and authorize cancellation of the trip which I neither ordered nor paid for.  I was never even in the store.  But I was sufficiently annoyed that I forbade her to schedule a new trip, and I went out on the web and found a local small business to do the install for $68.

This is what happens when you just don't have any good management that can keep these things working together in normal fashion.  It's funny to see the decline in certain retail stores (Sears and JC Penney's both come to mind), but I think Best Buy is falling further faster than most.

Oh well, Tiger Direct and Amazon and New Egg work well for me...

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

I've been suspecting over the past few years that Bestbuy is actually owned and run by Satan himself. Tonight, my suspicion was confirmed.

My main PC rig was purchased at Bestbuy (I know, I know). I've been pretty satisfied with the rig, but it came with a norton anti-virus subscription as OEM that seemed tied through Bestbuy.  Having my anti-virus subscription connected to Bestbuy annoyed me from the get go, and was one more sign of influence of the Beast. Anyway, I never really had any issues with it so, whatever.  Not too long ago, after the free trial subscription expired, I renewed. No big deal.

Tonight, while I'm just getting ready to start a massive battle in Wargame: Red Dragon, the game minimizes and I get a message from Norton that my computer is unprotected and my subscription has expired. The message continues, stating "You must" call Bestbuy at 1-888-BESTBUY" to sort this out.  Instantly, blood started rushing to my head and I was quickly losing my temper.  I was totally unable to renew through Norton.  I thought, "this can't be right..." Why the hell would I have to call Bestbuy to renew my anti-virus subscription??? So I rebooted. Still, Norton was telling me no protection, subscription expired.  Begrudgingly, I picked up the phone and dialed the number.

After struggling through the voice activated automated menu system, I get my first idiot.  I explain the situation as calmly as possible and quickly get passed onto someone else "who can help me."  After waiting another 10 minutes and suffering through extremely loud and annoying music, I get my second idiot.  This one tells me that, I kid you not, "Norton anti-virus is no longer compatible with Windows 8, so we cancelled all of our customer's subscriptions." Dumbfounded, I told her its impossible that the largest anti-virus provider on the planet is no longer supported by the largest OS on the planet. Nevertheless, I was transferred off to another person "Who could help me." 

Idiot no. 3 then explains that Bestbuy made the decision that Norton anti-virus "does not work too good" so they have cancelled all of their customer subscriptions and have switched to a program called "Webroot."  To keep me from reaching through the phone to strangle this poorly disguised demon, she tells me they will provide me with free three months of coverage.  They will not refund my money from my norton subscription.  I've never heard of "webroot" so while I'm trying not to scream out every 4 letter word I can think of, I google it (still unprotected, mind you).  I find some fairly mixed reviews, but some seem pretty positive, so I decide, I'm not going to get anywhere further with this idiot, so I might as well take the free three months, try it out and head for the hills.

OK, so I ask her, what do I need to do to install it and get my free subscription. "Sir, I need to transfer you over to someone else who can log into your system and take care of that for you."  No f*cking thank you!!!!  Give me the God damn activation code and I'll do it myself!

Holy $hit! What a joke.  Bad credit card program, terrible rewards program, awful customer service and now this.  That's it. I'm done with Bestbuy. I have literally spent tens of thousands of dollars there. Never again! Additionally, I am going to write corporate a VERY strongly worded letter.  If you can avoid doing business with this storefront for the devil I think you will thank me when it comes to judgment time.

Norton is uninstalled and I'm running webroot secure anywhere.  I still don't really know anything about it, but unless one of you guys tells me it is really weak, I'll give it a shot for the free three months.

Webroot is a good AV. It scans fast, has a small footprint (probably from running on their cloud servers) and has top reviews. If you actually get a virus bitdefender was the top rated for removal. Its a CPU hog though.

[SgtRock]

Bestbuy farms out all of their services and individual stores have no control over them, that's the big issue. You think your doing business with Bestbuy but, anything outside their stores your not, it's a third party. Sense you don't pay the third party directly, they don't give a shit about you the customer.

Never ever buy a computer from Bestbuy!

[damned]

webroot is a very good product... cant say much for the rest of your unfortunate experience...