BestBuy Store 268 rip-off! Unfair 15% restocking fee! They opened the box, not me. Charlotte North Carolina

I am a former employee of over 10 years with Best Buy and I left the company on great terms. I say this because sometimes the responses you get to postings like this are from former employees that are disgruntled. Anyway, during my time at Best Buy I was both a store manager, a district services manager (this position supports the technicians in the stores), and I spent several years as a technician in the store. In your case, the manager of the store made the WRONG CALL, in my opinion. I had similar situations occur in my store in which after listening to the customer's story, I made the decision to go ahead and return the computer and waive the restocking fee. This is a decision that the store managers can make, especially in your case. It just makes good business sense to take care of a loyal customer when given the opportunity. NOW, having said that, here's what I suggest you do. Take the computer and the receipt back to the store and ask to speak to the GENERAL MANAGER, not a customer service supervisor/senior, area manager, or assistant manager, ask for the BOSS. Explain your situation and if he/she still will not give you a refund (or at least store credit), ask for the number to the district/regional office and speak to the store manager's BOSS. If they offer the 1-800#, take it and call it because you can get the phone number from them. In almost all cases, district/regional management will give you what you want, so YOUR situation would be a no-brainer. If they still won't take care of you, as a last resort, tell them you'd like to have a refund on the Performance Service Plan. The terms of the PSP state that you can get your money back at any time during the life of the plan, however the refund will be pro-rated for the time beyond the 30-day return/exchange period. (Computers have a 14-day r/e period, but the PSP is a 30-day period) Best Buy doesn't make any profit on the computer itself, the profit comes from the PSP. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean the PSP isn't a good value, I believe it is in most cases. Anyway, this in a way is a "jab" back at them, and they can't stop you from doing this. The REALLY sad part of this whole thing is that if you hadn't of purchased the PSP at all, they might have returned your purchase without a restock fee the first time you asked for it. Taking back a PSP hits their measurables HARD and the manager may have used the restock fee as a way to discourage you from doing the return. This really sucks, but it happens. I feel bad for you that this was handled poorly, especially since you appear to be such a loyal customer. I can honestly say that I believe 100% in what Best Buy stands for as a company, unfortunately the people they sometimes trust to operate their stores in a "CUSTOMER FOCUSED" manner often drop the ball. Yes, Best Buy is responsible for their people's actions, but I can attest to the fact that Best Buy DOES NOT condone such actions and people have lost their jobs for poor decisions like that. GOOD LUCK!!!

It is true about the restocking fee, but at My Best Buy, as long as the "inspected by Best Buy" tape is sealed and you have the SETUP listed on your receipt, you are OK. It looks like some employees at the Best Buy in San Jose are out to get people, or at least the Geek Squad is.

I used to work at a Best Buy and that is one major reason Best Buy offers the "free" check out service on new machines and laptops, it cuts returns dramatcially and gets BB an nice restocking fee if you really do want to return it. It also gives BB a chance to sell some features such as removing uneccessary software and installing more RAM and software for you.

It's also something we used to do to be particularly nasty to people who didn't buy the service plan, so that if they came back we could say "Shoot, if you had bought the PSP we could have helped, but sadly not now, have a nice day :)"

I advise if you skip this free service from BB, it's free so you end up at the end of the line for whatever is going on and you could easily be there for hours, and since you have a 14 day return period, just take it home, set it up and see if it's broken yourself, they won't test anything you wouldn't test just by turning it on and playing a CD.

If you do take this free service, have Best Buy rewrap the box in "Certified by Best Buy" tape so you can at least clame you never opened it.

Sorry to hear they got you on this, but because you can't prove you didn't open it also, I think your kind of screwed. I never saw my BB waive the return fee on a box we opened.

If you feel that you have been unfairly treated by the store's GM, it's time to contact the District GM or the Regional GM. You can contact Best Buy to obtain this information.