Complaint Review: S.C. Kiosks Inc. (aka) Radio Shack - Fern Park Florida

I worked for Radio Shack many years ago as a part time employee.  I don't know if it is the same now but then it was the District Manager who established store policies.

I remember one case of a lady who bought a mini cassette recorder.  She left it on the dash of her car in August and it melted.  She brought this glob of black plastic into the store and wanted a refund.  I used the best judgment I could and told her:  "There was nothing wrong with the recorder before you abused it so there is no return."  She called the district office and talked to our DM, Larry.  He called me and told me to take it back and give her a full refund.  I did exactly as I was told to do.

If it is the same now as then, different stores in different parts of the country may have different policies on returns, etc.   However, overall, Radio Shack is a very customer centric company and backs up their products.

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I am an employee at Radioshack in California. I have been employed with the company for a little over a year now, and my training regiment did not include memorizing the ins and outs of the service plans. I studied them on my own.

The service plans (not insurance plans) vary depending on the product you are buying. The replacement plans are offered on lower priced items, or items that would cost too much to repair individual parts as opposed to replacing the item (these we offer to 'buy back' the product with a radioshack gift card). The other is a repair plan, which is offered on more high-end electronics like GPS systems and television sets. These involve calling the service center and having the item sent out for repairs, in which Radioshack covers completely.

It is a general rule that the service plans do not cover 'physical abuse'. This includes any damage incurred by dropping the device, getting the device wet, or mishandling the device. When the lady at the call center said that they did not cover it because the screen was cracked, she was correct, because a cracked screen was likely caused by your son dropping the phone or something similar. If the item was cracked right out of the box, it would have been a different story, but because you had it for three weeks, you're kind of SOL.

Now, the employee pitching the service plan to you as 'Insurance' was wrong in doing so. The service plans Radioshack offers is by no means an insurance plan, and I would have talked to the management about him saying that to you. He was likely a product of poor and/or no prior training like so many Radioshack employees before him. It's not an uncommon occurrence for new employees to be dropped onto the sales floor without knowing policies and left to their peers to learn the ropes.

The insurance plan Sprint offers DOES cover physical damage, granted you must pay a deductible fee (I believe it was 50 USD), and you can only replace a certain amount of phones per year (the limit is seven for most accounts). Radioshack's service plan DOES NOT cover ANY physical damage!

While I can understand why the employee may have knowingly pitched it to you as an 'insurance' plan (we are required to sell a certain amount or else we can get fired, which I think is BS), it doesn't make it right. There are plenty of other ways to sell a service plan that doesn't involve deception.

In the future, I would recommend asking for more information from the clerk before agreeing to a plan such as this. It's as the old addage goes; If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I wouldn't call it fraudulent as much as I would call the employee misinformed, and/or deceptive.

1st thing  DVD04  if you hate your job so much QUIT!!!   You won't because most other places have a better screening processing and no one will hire you!  Who did you training?

Might not help but to recoup some of your money for the RSSP that you boughtm but calling 18004335502.   That is the number for the Assurion.  They handle the warranty for RS STOREs so kiosks should be the same.  Just tell them  you sold the phone and you want a reimbursment of the remainder of the warranty.

They charge a $5 processing fee but it is prorated.  I have no idea how much you'll get back.  but something is better than nothing...

As for the matter of the employee not clearly stating what our warranties cover,  i'm sorry.  Not every employee in RS is like this.  And not every manager @ RS would allow this behaviour to continue.   It's allowed because District Managers needs hit certain targets for warranties.  So they pressure managers, to getting high attach rates.

Rookie managers succumb to the pressure and they generally find ways to cheat.

At my store every employee are told, if you can't sell a warranty on it's benefits alone, then don't sale any.  I rather you have a low attach rate rather than lie to a customer.   

Very recently a rookie manager was selling warrarnties 4-6 out of 10 customers.   Those numbers are just unheard of.  So during a store visit i express my concerns that these waranties need to be sold with integrity to my DM.  He told me to shut up and mind my own business basically.  I brought it up again during a conference call with all my fellow managers and called out the rookie without stating his name.  Emphasizing integrity.  Soon afterwards the rookie went from awesome numbers to 1-2 of 10.   It's much harder to sell warranties when you actually tell the truth.

sorry to hear this happened to you, this is actually a very common pratice at sckiosk, what you bought was a esp, the company actually tells us to tell the customer what the sells person told you. that it covers everything, its the biggest scam. whats worse if we dont sell it we get written up and are jobs get threathened. there is nothing you can do, the lady from the esp department was right. This is the worst company i have ever worked for, tryn to find a new job. Radio shack owns sckiosk inc and thats how they work. just dont buy anything from them in the future, radioshack also owns all the sprint kiosk in the mall as well, dont give them your business either