Best Buy
I’ve never been much of a fan of Best Buy. Over the years, I’ve always been able to find what I was looking for somewhere else, for a better price. Not to mention the low quality of service that is usually expected at superstores such as this. However, in the last month, there have been two items that I’ve needed or wanted RIGHT NOW that Best Buy actually had the best (or nearly the best+instant gratification) price, due to either a sale, a coupon, or both. One was the 1TB external hard drive that I picked up Monday night to help get the media server back online. The other was my 160GB iPod Classic. I’ve been wanting one of these since they were announced, as my 80GB iPod was full. Finally I couldn’t stand it any more, and Best Buy had them on sale. So I went down to the store, where it turned out they were not on sale. But the helpful store people actually matched their web price (not something that all their stores do) just based on having the web page with the price loaded on my iPhone. So I got the last black 160GB iPod Classic in the store, and it was wonderful.
Until it started squeaking a little over a week ago. Yes, I said squeaking. When it would change songs, there would be a little squeak. Then, it was changing songs or navigating to the settings menu. Then it was those, plus sometimes the song would stop playing while the iPod squeaked. It was loud enough for my coworker sitting next to me to hear. So I took all my music off it and sent it into Apple repair. Who “couldn’t reproduce the issue” and sent it back, unrepaired. Two nights ago, it came back, and it didn’t squeak! Yay, shipping fixed it! Only yesterday morning, it started squeaking. Hmm, maybe the case is too tight. Took the case off. Yay, no more squeaking! Oh, wait, there it goes again. So last night, I went down to Best Buy with the iPod and the box it came in. No receipt, and a partially functional iPod because it crashed while trying to remove my music. The customer service person looked up my purchase date, said that yes they could reprint the receipt, and yes I could return the iPod. After a not-very-quick but relatively painless transaction, I walked back out of the store with my full purchase refunded, plus a $10 store gift card to account for the difference between the sale price I paid and the price the iPod was currently selling at. On what I’m pretty sure was day 31 of the 30-day return period. And if I had wanted to buy an iPod Nano last night (I would have, but I couldn’t decide which color I wanted) they would have price-matched Circuit City’s sale price.
So, I take back most of the bad things I’ve said about Best Buy. Or at least, I don’t apply them to the Southcenter Best Buy.