Open your box before you buy at CompUSA! *UPDATE employee reveals they shrink wrap returns and put them on the shelf as new

Unbelievable! OK, I went to CompUSA in Overland Park, KS and bought a 3D Prophet II GTS 64MB. I walked out and got in my truck and opened it up so I could check it out in all of it's blue glory and I looked through the static bag before I opened it and I saw a different video card in the bag! I high tailed it back into the store and took it up to the customer service counter. The kid at the counter opened the static bag and pulled it out and it was some old Creative Labs video card with an inch of dust on in!

The box had what appeared to be factory plastic shrink wrap on it before I opened it in the truck. You could tell that the static bag's seal had been pulled away. It is obvious that someone got them a free $400 video card.

The kid takes the card off someplace and after about 5 minutes someone else comes out with it and asks me what the problem was. He then runs off with it and I wait 15 or 20 minutes and the store manager, Albert Richards, comes out and gives me a line about how it was in factory shrink wrap and so I would have to take it up with Hercules since it was packaged at the factory. Oh man, I could have strangled that MF. We had a few choice words and he made comments that were basically accusing me of switching them.

The funny thing is, before Albert came out, another kid at the counter just told me that returns went back to the CompUSA warehouse and they probably shrink wrapped it and sent it back. He also said something about them having a shrink wrap machine there at the store. I told Albert that one of his employees probably did it and shrink wrapped it back up. He told me that it didn't match their shrink-wrap. I said that I wanted to see his shrink wrap, but he never showed it to me. I told him that I was going to call my credit card company immediately and file a complaint.

I went to the pay phone and called the credit card company and the representative on the phone couldn't believe they wouldn't exchange it and said she would mail me an incidence form to fill out. In the meantime Albert handed me the district managers phone number and I called him and left a message.

God, I even had my mother with me in the store and she witnessed the whole thing and after she explained what happened, Albert was still a d**k.

Finally after about an hour of BS, he finally gave me what I paid for. He never would let me see an example of their shrink wrapping!

I can't believe it! Why does CompUSA even have a shrink wrap machine in back? So they can shrink wrap returns and put them on the shelf as new? I guess so eh? I have been to Fry's in California and at least they mark returned items they have wrapped.

I will never, ever, never buy from CompUSA anywhere again!

DR Ephemeron

P.S. I never got a call from the district manager about the incident after leaving two phone messages!