Complaint Review: Best Buy Stores - Elk Grove California

I took my disabled brother to the Elk Grove, CA Best Buy store to purchase a e-machine bundle pack advertised in the Best Buy flyer for $399.99 after rebates.

The store informed us they were out of the Lexmark printers that were offered with the package. They called another location in Sacramento CA and were told that 1 (one) was in stock. Then told us that WE had to go and get it and return to their location.

We arrived at the other location and spotted the printer sitting on the counter. We asked for the printer and were told that it was already being sold to another customer and there were no more.

We drove BACK to the Elk Grove location and informed them of the situation. The salesrep replied we already know and furthermore they had 3 more in stock over there and they were not aware of it.

The Elk Grove store decided to substitute another printer for the "out of stock" printer. The clerk did not know how to do this so they had to call someone else over. The transaction took another hour. After the transaction was complete, the rebate forms were printed.

There was another problem with changing the MSN service offered to a 6-month period. They had to start the entire transaction all over again. It is now 9:00pm, the store is closing, we started this transaction at 7:00pm

The rebate forms were in one of the supervisor's possession and in the process of trying to get us taken care of, they forgot to give them to us.

I travel BACK (I live 75 miles away from my brother) to take him back to the store for the rebates. We wait ANOTHER 2 hours while the clerk printed out the rebate forms. Then the clerk has a problem with the printer rebate (uh-oh) the substitution.

He called his supervisor over to explain the problem. She did not have the authority to authorize a $210.00 replacement rebate form. so she called the Manager of the store and informed us that, because the printer they substituted was not part of the bundle package we would have to go back home (27 miles) box up the substitute printer and bring it back. This would constitute a 100-mile+ trip for us to correct something that was never our problem from the beginning.

We spoke personally with the manager (Ken) who was adamant about the policy, did not care that we were not the cause of the problem, and an overall attitude of don't give me any trouble in my store. When I said I've have enough, let's go he assumed I was planning on bringing the entire system back and told us, Hey, if you want to bring everything back, that's fine, too. We never once mentioned anything about bringing the entire system back. The message was clear Just go away!

I was not able to return with the printer that day, my brother never received the total amount of rebates. I wrote to the complaint department of the main office in St Cloud, Minnesota.

A message was left on my machine that said "because the printer they substituted was not part of the bundle package we would have to bring it back. No apology, no nothing. Just hey, that's our policy.

Amazingly, a friend of mine asked my advice on purchasing a computer and mentioned the Best Buy rebate deal. I informed him of our nightmare and still told him to go ahead and try since he would be going to a different location.

He called me the next day to inform me that he did go to Best Buy, he did purchase a "bundle" pack and yes, he too had to travel to another location round trip, to pick up the memory for the computer because they had ran out at the original location.

When he arrived at the location, the clerk informed him that there were no bundle packs on sale. He had to go to his car and get the flyer and bring it back to show the BEST BUY clerk the sale item. He was then given the memory.

He said the only difference in our experiences was, they DID apologize to him.

Unbelievable!!, this is apparently the norm. Advertise a bundle pack, but don't keep enough inventory for it in one location.

Louise

Hayward, California

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