I was thrown out of Best Buy

[bdgbill]

Sorry for the long post. My point is that Best Buy blatently lies to non tech-savvy customers to sell them useless or horribly over-priced crap. Details below.


I was in Best Buy last night pricing plasmas. There was a couple there who were buying a 37" LCD TV.

Mr. Blueshirt was giving them a very hard sell on a $49.00 HDMI cable. He actually told them that "cheap cables degrade the picture so much that they will not carry them". He also implied that the warranty would not be honored for picture quality problems unless they could prove they had bought high quality cables. At no time did this guy even ask if their STB had an HDMI connection!

I never do this kind of thing but I actually walked over and asked them if they had cable, satellite etc and asked if they knew if they had HDMI available or not. They didn't know. I also told them that I had spent a couple hundred bucks on Monster cables and saw absolutely no difference in picture quality over my old dollar store cables. I told them they could probably get a perfectly fine HDMI cable (if they need one) for $15.00 from Wal-Mart.

Mr. Blueshirt is rolling his eyes like I am some kind of crazy person. The people tell him they are going to wait on the cable and go to pay for their tv. Mr Blueshirt returns with one of the "Magnolia home theater" people. Mr Magnolia tells me I am "disturbing" customers. Tells me I have no right to give advice to anyone and If I am not there to buy something to please leave the store. I tried to have a reasonable conversation with him about the cables. He said that I "didn't know what I was talking about" and outright told me to leave or he would call security.

Last year I saw an old couple buying a laptop for their grandaughter who was starting university. They were practically forced to buy about $400 bucks in useless crap (portable surge protector, headphones, travel mouse, rolling case etc). They were also upsold to a more expensive laptop with a bunch of mumbo jumbo about floating point calculations and hyper threading. These people did not appear to be rich and I have regretted not pulling them aside since.

Best Buy employees are not supposed to be on commision. They must threaten to fire them if they don't push cables.

[groover km]

Good for you, 100%. I have actually done the exact same thing over cables, although I wasn't thrown out of best buy! I have told people that it's digital and it's either going to work or not; I don't think they took the advice but I had to do it for the sake of my conscience.

I did read somewhere that they ARE told to push the cables due to the incredibly high mark up. One could argue that it is just retail business and it's the same everywhere. But I think there is nothing wrong with helping people when you can. Oh and among my other pet hates with these people and their ilk (rant mode on) -

> Killing music by over-compressing CDs when mixing, just to make it sound 'louder' and therefore in some way 'good'. Idiots.

> Doing the exact OPPOSITE with mastering DVDs, so that they are not balanced; meaning that I have to constantly turn it up when people are whispering, then get blown off the couch at the first loud noise (yes, I know I can compress it on my amp. Not the point, it sounds like sh*te).

> No thank you, I don't want to buy a $40 service plan on the $40 earbuds I have in my hand. Please go away.

> Pushing the colour on their tvs to look 'good', or running those continual demo disks (latest offenders that pee me off: The blu-ray demos with the line down the middle. OF COURSE the demo disks are produced with the max possible bitrate; actual disks are not going to look that good).

> Not having a clue about anything that deviates from the 'sales script' (mitigating factor: I overheard someone at the geek squad desk the other day recommending to a punter to install firefox. A good guy!)

> And basically annoying me.

So yeah, bdgbill, good for you striking a blow for consumers everywhere; I hate to see people ripped off.

[HTPCGB]

I know how you feel. At Futureshop (Best Buy's sister corporation) they will do or say anything if results in a sale. However, I never try to intervene when other people are being conned for a couple of reasons:
1) Most customers are clueless and would trust the employee more than some random stranger
2) If a person didn't do their research before coming into the store, it's sortoff their fault for getting conned (It still hurts to watch it happen)

What's interesting is how the employees stop asking if one needs "help" once it's clear that a customer is tech savvy. Once when I was looking at networking adapters, an employee pointed out one and said that it will increase my internet connection speed by up to 100%. Needless to say, I loudly called him an outright liar in front of other customers. I wasn't offered any "help" for the rest of my visit.

[bdgbill]

I used to know a guy who made a successful little business by charging people about $400.00 to accompany them to car dealerships when they were shopping for a new car. He would not let the salesmen or the finance people screw his client. This guy owns a Hundai dealership now - lol.

Maybe someone should do this for computers. People who are clueless about tech (like the grandparents) are not going to be able to do effective research.

[5058]

I have almost the same story from a Future Shop here in Ottawa. My 72 year old aunts 21 inch TV bite the dust and she was having problems with here 12 year old VCR as well so off to Futureshop we go to get her a new setup. I am her IT/PC/TV you name it guy for years so she trusts me. I grab a 23" Samsung LCD (space limitations)and a Samsung DVD-recorder (after much discussion on why it wouldn't be a good idea to buy another VCR ) I leave here with what seemed like a decenet enough saleman to ring up here purchase while I went over a few isles to grad some blank DVD's for her. When I get back he has ...... Monster composite cables , a Monster HDMI Cable and 5 years warranties on both items. I told him to remove the cables as we don't need them , she has a DVD player that the new recorder is replacing and they have good cables already , I get the bit about how old are they , picture quality blah blah blah . I also say get rid of the HDMI cable and he says how are we going to hook it up to our STB. I explain she doesn't have Digital or HDTV so it will be coax only. His response was well once she she's how good this tv looks on DVD's she will want to get HDTV. Fair enough but I'll cross that path when or if we go that route. As for the warranties, $199 for 5 years on a $750 tv was a pretty good deal and she kept that , but $79 for 5 years on a DVD recorder that was $119??? I don't think so.

I can just imagine how many older people walk in there not knowing what they need and get taken for a lot of money.

[-Oz-]

I try to help those users who go to Compusa and don't know what to get, but I try not to get involved where the clerk who's making the sale would loose it. Got to know when to take a step back. I have a beef with BB because they show on their site wireless routers cheaper than what they sell in the store. I am told they can't match internet price eventhough it's them. CT Attorney General I've met in person nice guy I always call him governer, anyway has forced BB to sell at the same price on the web and in the stores.

I've noticed this too and definitely argued until they gave me the lower price, idiots.

But way to go on getting kicked out. People really are dumb.

[Ted the Penguin]

Bill, I applaud you!!!
thank you for actually having a brain and a conscious!

I was in bestbuy, and I was looking at a wireless sensor bar for the wii, and the salesperson came over and said that it was a really good seller.
I said: funny, since its some batteries and IR LEDs.
they replied: really? thats it.
I said: yeah, all the processing is done in the Wiimote, all the sensor bar is, is some IR LEDs that give a point of reference, the cord is only for power. some people have even just used tea lite candles, I haven't tried it, but I have heard it works.
they said: I will have to try that when I get home.

so, I went to BB and educated their employees.

the one I usually go to is pretty good about leaving me alone. since I pretty much go in, look at exactly what I want, sometimes lecture my girlfriend about stuff as I am doing it (telling her how DLP works etc.) however, I really need to go in sometime and play the fool, see what they try to sell me
so I need some cables
what are you hooking up?
my VCR
oh here, take these MONSTER composite cables, they will make it look really good.
excuse me while I full arm slap you across the face. !!!

yeah, I was walking through Home Depot, and saw MONSTER composite cables, I just went WTF, NO, that is so wrong, SO WRONG!!! and coming next.... MONSTER COAX cable !!!!!!!!!111one

ok I am done now

[bdgbill]

I bought all my monster cables because I was unhappy with the picture quality from my GBPVR rig.

Saw no difference at all.

I later figured out that my invidia settings for the 2nd monitor were set to 16bit color

Oh well, at least they look cool.


BTW, I went to Bureau en Gros (Staples) the other day for a USB printer cable. I expected to pay 6-8 bucks. They only had one brand of cable and it was $20.00! I bought a cable at the dollar store for 2.50 - works fine.

[Ted the Penguin]

lol, I <3 teh intarweb. and monoprice.com yay actually reasonably priced cables :eek:

[McBainUK]

I went into a PC World about 5 years ago to look at thier CD-RW drives. Was told to get this phillips one which was £50 more as it has BurnProof techonology and so is safer than the old ones as they can cause fires and burn your CD up! No joke.

It goes with out saying I havn't been back there...