What is a Best Buy?

I recently turned 30. By recently, I mean within 365 days of today. We had a big 30th birthday bash, and some friends came over and celebrated. One friend, speaking on some topic, made the announcement that there is "no such thing as a best buy at Best Buy". Now, this is, most probably true. It, however, did not bode well as a public comment as the next 4 gifts that I opened were gift certificates to Best Buy.

So, why am I reminiscing about this now? I used to love Best Buy. You knew the prices were a little bad, but you went in there to shop for ideas, inspiration, and the greedy, self-ego-inflating knowledge that you knew more about networking than the blue-shirted teenager hawking wireless-G. I even went to Best Buy to purchase a purplish i-pod mini for Linda for Christmas:



Then, I discovered the website Best Buy Sucks . Now, granted, *many* major manufacturers have web sites put up by disgruntled customers and employees. What struck me about this site was just how... LARGE it is.

Now, some of it is just piss-poor stuff like "I didn't show up for work and the jerk fired me". But much of it (that I saw) was informational. For example, those reduced rate i-pod warranties that I bought were (verbally) sold as covering the i-pod mini's battery. Posts on the site said that employees were told to say that about the warranty. Customer posts claimed that the warranty does *not* cover the battery.

From: http://www.bestbuysux.org/html/cust3-05.html

These past few days I saw some posts about Best Buy warranties and how the employees sell them by lying about what they cover. I had just bought an iPod from BB in October and bought a Replacement Plan warranty for $40. I'd never bought a warranty before, but the guy at the store sold me on the fact that if the battery died they would replace it free of charge. ... (The guy also said no matter what I did to it I could get it replaced, which from what I see on this site is a commonplace lie.)

Well, the posts I saw here had some folks saying that's a load of ****. I went to the warranty pamphlet they give you AFTER you buy it and sure enough it said it doesn't cover replacing batteries.

Batteries are a big deal if you own an i-pod.

You might want to take a gander, I'm glad I did.

-Ed