Complaint Review: Best Buy Store 1408 - Cumming Georgia

On christmas eve, I read about this deal that best buy was giving on a Sony 40" LCD + Song BluRay Player + Sony 5.1 Surround Sound System for an amazing price of almost $1,300! I wanted to buy it right away so I called and the stores were closed so I call the 24 hour service and the systems were down so I had to wait until the 8AM on the 26th when the store who has the package deal opens.  Well what I did was actually leave my place at 7:45AM Saturday morning and got out to this best buy and right away found the package and yes it was their last one.  The full package was their last one because they had only one box of the theater system left but there were still tv's and bluray players. It was an amazing feeling at the store to get this deal that not many other stores even had because of one part of the package already sold out.  I noticed that the sound system box had some damage on it and the sales associated made a joke about how these packages are treated when they are being shipped but that this units are packed up really well.  We paid for the units and even set up that best buy rewards program and we got a free $10 gift card since our total came up to almost $1800 which we also put on our Best Buy Credit Card to take advantage of their 0% special financing.

We took the packages home and surprised our parents very much so and I slowly went into the process of setting up the surround sound system with all the wirings and speaker set ups on the walls.  It takes a bit of time for all the measuring and hiding of those monster cables that I also had bought ( I really don't like the cables what come with the speakers, too tiny and cheap looking with no shielding of any kind).  Now if someone takes as much time and dedication in setting up their surround sound as I do, they understand the amount of time it takes to make sure the speakers are at the right height/distance/volume before anything else.

After dinner I was finally ready for the LCD TV.  We took it out of the book and put it on it's stand very carefull and I screwed in the screws to hold the stand in place.  I put the tv in my mother's amoir and plugged it all up.  My family was very excited to see how everything looks because this LCD is not only 1080p but also has 240Hz which makes the picture just outstanding to see.

Well guess what... we turned it on and saw a HUGE crack looking colors everywhere sort of thing and right away turned it off and inspected the tv.  There were NO marks on the screen of the tv except for a little scratch near the middle towards the top of the tv.  When turn it back on and there it was... a HUGE crack on the inside with NO marks on the outside.  Right away I called Best Buy and spoke to a lady and she told me to bring it back in.  It was 9:30pm and at this time I was very tired and I told her that if I am coming back in now that I want another tv (same one) or something extremely similar, nothing less.  My brother helped me pack up the tv in it's box (showed no damage on the box at all) and we right away put the tv into the car and left for best buy.  We literally got there at 9:58 and I parked the car outside.  Went inside and I told another girl that I was here for my problem with the tv.  She knew the story so she went to check with a salesperson on another tv that was similar because she said that they don't have anymore units of that model.  While waiting we decided to just walk around and look at the tvs on display to see if I can find the one that we bought.  Eventually I did and saw a box sitting there all by itself.  Right away I went to find the girl and I asked her about this box and the salesperson with her came and looked and said that yes that is our tv.  NOW at this point after what had happened I asked the salesperson if he could plug in the tv just so that we can check to make sure that there is nothing wrong with it.  

After he opened the box and removed the tv out of the box, he was about to plug it in and turn it on when this other man walked up to me.  He asked me what had happened to the original tv and I had explained to him my whole day.  He flat out told me that he is not returning the tv.  I had asked him why and he said that there is no damage on the box.  I told him that of course there is no damage on the box and that there is NO damage on the tv except for a small scratch which is not close to the location of the huge crack.  This was apparently the sales manager which I found out later on when I asked him who he was because I wanted to talk to someone higher than he is and that was the general manage who was not in.  He continued to tell me that he will not exchange the broken tv the store sold to me and that we are not getting our money back either.  I kept asking him that this does not make any sense that why is this happening to us.  At this point it was approaching 10:30 and the sales manager gave me one option of leaving the store with my broken tv or he will call the local police.  I told him to call the police because I am not afraid at all, I was not there to cause any problems and that store was the one who sold me a broken tv.  He did call the police on us and I had called my older brother who was listening in on the whole conversation over my cell phone and he had told me to leave and to see if corporate will be willing to help since this sales manager was being completely rude and inconsiderate towards customers who don't spend a couple of dollars at the store but nearly $1,800.  

So they wrapped up our broken tv and brought it outside which at that time the police had shown up as we got to my car (which was parked right outside the doors of the store).  The sales manager told the police officer that there is no problem anymore that we were leaving.  At that moment my brother made a comment to the officer asking what is the law regarding a store selling a broken tv?  He didn't hear him correctly so he walked up to us and asked what was it he had said so I explained to him very briefly what our situation was.  I explained that we were not there to cause a problem but that this manager was being very rude to us and being completely inconsiderate to how upset we were for spending this much money for a gift for my parents and how upset we were that our first LCD tv was broken.  The office told me that he has had problems which this store too and that he had stopped shopping there all together.  He felt really terrible about what my brother and I just went through there but that when a manager says to leave the store that we really have to leave the store.

We got into our car and we drove home very shocked and upset that out of all places this happened at was Best Buy... we got home at nearly 11pm and explained what happened to our parents who then were in shock as well.

I really don't know what to do at this point, I am going to call corporate but I don't know how should I even go about getting this issue solved.  I have never felt this cheated before in my left and it really hurts that our present to our parents was broken and I never even thought about check it at the store before buying it.  My emotions got the best of me but now I know that if I am to ever buy something from a store to make sure that product works properly.  Yes I did actually go and check out the BluRay player and surround sound system to make sure that they worked.

So now it is nearly 2AM and I have this broken 40" LCD TV in my garage and not sure what course should we take now.  I know that we didn't pay almost $1800 for just a bluray player and a surround sound system by Sony.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.