Zodduska
1000+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2007
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I bought a Western Digital Velociraptor 300GB hard drive today from the BestBuy in Oswego Illinois for $250.
I opened the sealed box when I got home and discovered a badly abused 2GB WD Caviar that was manufactured Feb 97 within a tamper proof sealed anti static bag which I didn't open.
Needless to say I was not a happy camper and knew I would be looked upon as a potential scammer, I immediately called the store and explained the situation to a geek squad member. He put me on hold then came back and told me I would have to contact WD directly.. I told him I would be in the store within a half hour to figure it out.
When I got to Best Buy I immediately asked to speak to a manger while I explained the situation to the Geek Squad working the CS desk, the extremely smug manager Adriana lurked near by listening but did not address me, only asking me for my name and number. Again I was told there was nothing they could do by Stephen from the geek squad and I would need to contact WD directly, I demanded they contact WD and work it out while I was there. Stephen called them but didn't get any positive result from WD's outsourced tech support.
So I was left standing there with a $250 box and piece of scrap metal, Stephen told me things like this have happened before and my only other option was to call Best Buy corporate, he even dialed the phone for me and handed it over. I explained the situation to BB corp CS and she regurgitated the same policy I heard in store and offered to conference call WD's tech support which again was worthless.. they offered to transfer us to level two then we were disconnected. The CS rep asked to speak to the manager who was then paged and took the call elsewhere.. I waited around twenty or so min until Stephen offered to go check on her for me. Adriana walks over, looks at me and says "Did you have a question?" I returned a blank look then she went on to explain that corporate basically just told her they couldn't do anything and she figured they would have talked to me more. How could they if she never gave me back the call??? She basically treated me like a scammer and offered up no apology as I pleaded for her to make an exception to their policy. She even damaged the tamper proof seal as she fidigited with the package when we were talking, I told her I was very unhappy about that.
So, in the end, I'm screwed. Sorry for the wall of text, any advice or suggestions on what I should do? Paying $250 for this piece of worthless junk makes me feel sick.
**UPDATE**
This afternoon I spoke with Jody the stores GM and explained my situation, she asked if I could come in and meet with her. When I got to the store she was very easy going and told me she would take care of me, pulled a new drive from the shelf and we proceeded to check it at the counter... low and behold it was another old drive, this one a Maxtor from '99! It was perfectly wrapped in a pristine anti static bag and sticker just like mine, to be honest I was pretty happy at this point as I was completely vindicated of any suspicions. Jody was pretty shocked and apologized to me even more for what I had to go through, they proceeded to open up the remaining two drives and they were both good. One went home with me and now im gearing up to tear down my pc and test it out.
So in the end it all worked out thanks to an excellent GM, thanks to everyone who responded in this thread for your suggestions and sympathy and also a special thank you to David who went the extra mile for me and his employer.
After this experience I'll never be leaving a big box store after buying expensive electronics without first checking the merchandise in front of an employee, an important lesson for everyone IMHO.
I opened the sealed box when I got home and discovered a badly abused 2GB WD Caviar that was manufactured Feb 97 within a tamper proof sealed anti static bag which I didn't open.
Needless to say I was not a happy camper and knew I would be looked upon as a potential scammer, I immediately called the store and explained the situation to a geek squad member. He put me on hold then came back and told me I would have to contact WD directly.. I told him I would be in the store within a half hour to figure it out.
When I got to Best Buy I immediately asked to speak to a manger while I explained the situation to the Geek Squad working the CS desk, the extremely smug manager Adriana lurked near by listening but did not address me, only asking me for my name and number. Again I was told there was nothing they could do by Stephen from the geek squad and I would need to contact WD directly, I demanded they contact WD and work it out while I was there. Stephen called them but didn't get any positive result from WD's outsourced tech support.
So I was left standing there with a $250 box and piece of scrap metal, Stephen told me things like this have happened before and my only other option was to call Best Buy corporate, he even dialed the phone for me and handed it over. I explained the situation to BB corp CS and she regurgitated the same policy I heard in store and offered to conference call WD's tech support which again was worthless.. they offered to transfer us to level two then we were disconnected. The CS rep asked to speak to the manager who was then paged and took the call elsewhere.. I waited around twenty or so min until Stephen offered to go check on her for me. Adriana walks over, looks at me and says "Did you have a question?" I returned a blank look then she went on to explain that corporate basically just told her they couldn't do anything and she figured they would have talked to me more. How could they if she never gave me back the call??? She basically treated me like a scammer and offered up no apology as I pleaded for her to make an exception to their policy. She even damaged the tamper proof seal as she fidigited with the package when we were talking, I told her I was very unhappy about that.
So, in the end, I'm screwed. Sorry for the wall of text, any advice or suggestions on what I should do? Paying $250 for this piece of worthless junk makes me feel sick.
**UPDATE**
This afternoon I spoke with Jody the stores GM and explained my situation, she asked if I could come in and meet with her. When I got to the store she was very easy going and told me she would take care of me, pulled a new drive from the shelf and we proceeded to check it at the counter... low and behold it was another old drive, this one a Maxtor from '99! It was perfectly wrapped in a pristine anti static bag and sticker just like mine, to be honest I was pretty happy at this point as I was completely vindicated of any suspicions. Jody was pretty shocked and apologized to me even more for what I had to go through, they proceeded to open up the remaining two drives and they were both good. One went home with me and now im gearing up to tear down my pc and test it out.
So in the end it all worked out thanks to an excellent GM, thanks to everyone who responded in this thread for your suggestions and sympathy and also a special thank you to David who went the extra mile for me and his employer.
After this experience I'll never be leaving a big box store after buying expensive electronics without first checking the merchandise in front of an employee, an important lesson for everyone IMHO.
