Complaint Review: Circuit City

It seems that many people out there don't want to accept responsibility for their actions. I worked for Circuit City Service for 4 years and I have to say that in the 1000's of products I repaired many of them were under the ESP warranty and many times it was when things should have not been covered (customer abuse, physical damage, insect infestation).

It is a fact that only 10% of the people who purchase extended service plans actually utilize them. But there are some things that ESP covers that the manufacturers warranty does not. Such as lightning hits, which is very common with electronics.

Circuit City works in bulk. They make, believe it or not, a penny on the dollar. I know this to be a fact because many of their sale items I purchased were at a better price than if I would have purchased them at cost as an employee.

Warranty is a warranty. It is unfortunate luck to have an item break shortly after the warranty expires. But those are the rules. Should a company make a customer happy and just give them what they want? If that were the thing to do no company would stay in business. Try taking a purchased car back to the dealership for repairs that has 40,000 miles on a 36,000-mile warranty. See if they repair it for free.

A product breaking shortly after the warranty expires is unfortunate and not the fault of the consumer or the company. I myself have seen Circuit City bend over backwards when they were to blame. I personally saw my manager pay for a Disney World trip for a family whose camcorder tape of a similar vacation we had lost. I have also witnessed many products come in with one or few days left on their ESP policy and still be repaired with no stall tactics employed.

I hope that this has brought some insight as to how Circuit City works. I worked there for four years and still go there primarily for my electronics purchases because I know how they work.

Ok Editor, so you've made your point as a consumer advocate, but you've missed the point..a retailer wants to keep his customers, they spend a great deal of money getting them in the door, tv ads, newspapers and catalogs, but they also have to be fair and reasonable when it comes to warranties, do you remember Curtis Mathis? this electronics retailer sold other manufacturers product with thier name but with a higher price and longer warranty.they no longer exist. Products break. electronics built today cost a good deal less than 15 years ago and they also cost a good deal more to fix. so what does a retailer do? offer to repair every item that breaks outside of a manufacturers warranty, swap it out with a new item and eating the cost of the broken one? That retailer would not be in business much longer.most offer plans to cover breakage and those customers who buy them usually use them..complain to the manufacturers

Hey, I work for cc and i agree, we should accept that we were the ones that sold the product, the customer is trusting us. One solution that works though, is for the customer to call phillips and ask for a warrenty extension. I have had customers do this in the store and have it faxed to us so that it is repaired for free.
At the same time, consumers must realize that if it is the cheapest product in the line up, or the most expensive, it comes with the same warrenty, the manufacturer treats no one differently.

so you've worked at both circuit city and best buy, it is true that some salesmen will miss lead customers into buying something but that happens all the time even with car salesmen the truth of the matter is the service plans that the companies offers is an excellent value to have because it does go above and beyond the warranty that comes with the product, like a tv come on you and i know that 3 monthes on a tv is useless cause if anything does go wrong with the tv it happens after the 3 month period, the problem with the complaints is that the consumer doesn't read the terms and conditions of the service plan and they assume that they are protected against everything, to where the fact of the matter is they aren't so you can't blame a company for their service plans, if your going to be blaming someone you should be blaming the consumer

so you've worked at both circuit city and best buy, it is true that some salesmen will miss lead customers into buying something but that happens all the time even with car salesmen the truth of the matter is the service plans that the companies offers is an excellent value to have because it does go above and beyond the warranty that comes with the product, like a tv come on you and i know that 3 monthes on a tv is useless cause if anything does go wrong with the tv it happens after the 3 month period, the problem with the complaints is that the consumer doesn't read the terms and conditions of the service plan and they assume that they are protected against everything, to where the fact of the matter is they aren't so you can't blame a company for their service plans, if your going to be blaming someone you should be blaming the consumer

so you've worked at both circuit city and best buy, it is true that some salesmen will miss lead customers into buying something but that happens all the time even with car salesmen the truth of the matter is the service plans that the companies offers is an excellent value to have because it does go above and beyond the warranty that comes with the product, like a tv come on you and i know that 3 monthes on a tv is useless cause if anything does go wrong with the tv it happens after the 3 month period, the problem with the complaints is that the consumer doesn't read the terms and conditions of the service plan and they assume that they are protected against everything, to where the fact of the matter is they aren't so you can't blame a company for their service plans, if your going to be blaming someone you should be blaming the consumer

so you've worked at both circuit city and best buy, it is true that some salesmen will miss lead customers into buying something but that happens all the time even with car salesmen the truth of the matter is the service plans that the companies offers is an excellent value to have because it does go above and beyond the warranty that comes with the product, like a tv come on you and i know that 3 monthes on a tv is useless cause if anything does go wrong with the tv it happens after the 3 month period, the problem with the complaints is that the consumer doesn't read the terms and conditions of the service plan and they assume that they are protected against everything, to where the fact of the matter is they aren't so you can't blame a company for their service plans, if your going to be blaming someone you should be blaming the consumer

This is your opinion. Now let us tell you ours.

We have had a great deal of success insisting that the retailer assume a great portion of liability. The most reputable electronics retailers will stand behind their sales if they want repeat business.

Just look at the number of complaints on circuit city and best buy and what they complain about. Many of the complaints are about the worthless warranties that the sales personnel spend so much time convincing the victim to buy, only to have one of these shills tell them, "Too bad, so sad," and then devising some technicality to justify their disqualification. Some reports indicate that some inscrupulous salespersonnel stall the client just past the deadline for disqualification.

The Lesson: Only deal with companies that honor the warranties they sell and service the equipment above and beyond the company's warranty.

The fact of the matter is that there are lemons out there and if you get one, demand your money back, regardless of the terms of the warranty.

EDitor@ripoffreport.com

you shouldn't blame Circuit City for something that they didn't make it's not their fault that you didn't purchase the ESP and it's not their fault that the warranty expired, if your going to blame someone then blame yourself for this cause you had the option to buy the ESP that they offer but you elected not to and to take the risk if something did happen so your sol and you wanna pass the blame off on someone else Best Buy would of done the same so I guess your not going to shop there either