Best Buy Maze Of Customer Service
Waitng to Be Helped
My wife purchased the Best Buy telephone protection plan with a recurring monthly fee of twenty dollars. She recently called the account services department to update her card information after receiving a new debit card for the account she uses to pay the fees for our protection plan. Yesterday she spent two hours on hold waiting to speak to a customer service representative. Today she was on the phone for three hours waiting to speak to account services. After becoming frustrated, she hung up her phone and decided to drive to Best Buy and make the change in the store she purchased the plan. When she spoke with the Best Buy help desk, she was sent to speak with the cellular telephone department, where we waited another twenty minutes to speak with someone. When my wife did get her turn, she was told that they cannot access customer accounts to change the information, she had to call Best Buy Customer Service. While we were there, she asked for a copy of the protection plan coverages and was told she could ask to have one sent to her by the customer service department when she changes her account information. The rational for not getting help at the store was that account access is limited due to so many people having access to Best Buy accounts. so we went back home where my wife spent another forty-eight minutes waiting on hold to be helped.
When she finally was able to speak with a customer service member, she took care of the account update, but could not provide a copy of the protection plan coverages, we would have to return to the store and get a copy from the cellular department. When we returned to the cellular department at our local Best Buy, we inquired about getting another copy of the protection plan coverages. We were told that they can only print one out on a sales receipt after a sale. Additional copies would need to be obtained from the Best Buy headquarters.
As usual, this appears to be another way for a large corporation to keep information and services hard to obtain by creating a maze of departments to contact for simple information. We normally do not buy the Best Buy Service and Product Protection Plans because they have too many hidden clauses, or impulse clauses that can be temporarily created to limit service to people seeking to use protection plans. To date we have purchased four extended service and protection plans, we have had to utilize these plans for each of the products we purchased. Each time we attempted to use our protection or service plans to have a defective device replaced or repaired, we have been turned away. Each time a impulse or temporary clause has been in effect, causing us to either pay for repairs ourselves or having to deal with the manufacturer of the product. Resolution has never been to our satisfaction, we either have to pay for sending our device back to the manufacturer or we are offered a device that was defective for some one else and we are given the only option of accepting a refurbished device with no return of any funds or any assistance from these protection plans. It appears to me that these plans are simply a legalized form of fraud. We are concerned that we will not have our cell phone repaired or replaced if it were to become defective or damaged. At a cost of $240 a year we should not have those concerns.
Trying to resolve these issues are not only frustrating, but they are time consuming, and induce extra costs to customers who only want a defective product repaired or replaced. We had a Mac Book that was defective, the mother board fried and we purchased the service plan at time of purchase. We attempted to return our computer to Best Buy only four days after purchase. They refused to refund or exchange product claiming the problem was caused by intentional misuse. All we did was plug it in and turn it on. We tried to have the computer repaired via the repair plan, but Best Buy employee's kept telling us that we could not have the repair done under the protection plan because of alleged misuse.
We ended up having our issue resolved by Apple. We asked for a refund of the protection plan, and was turned down. I went back a second time with all of the protection plans I had purchased and the proof that Best Buy has yet to honor any of the four protection or services plans we have purchased. The only response I was given was the Best Buy has the right to modify or cancel portions of or the entirety of any protection plan. This response is usually the type of response I get when every other trick to get me to stop talking or to stop attempting to get my issue resolved.
So I no longer purchase these extra protection/service plans, when I get asked if I want one I decline and almost always tell the person that Best Buy has yet to honor any of the past plans I have purchased.
