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caramellhoney

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 18, 2014
281
70
I went to best buy today. Picked up my gold iPhone 6 plus using the online tracker. I had paid my $424+tax pre-order on my debit card and had signed all the computer contract stuff. The guy opens the phone takes it out of the package and clicks the button on the computer to activate and all if a sudden he starts saying" no, ugh Oh, oh my gosh". He ask me to check my phone to see if sprint had taken the money and of course they had.
Then he tells me his computer errored out when he clicked to activate the phone! I was on the easy pay plan, so he starts making calls. First calls sprint, they can't do anything, then calls best buy management nothing. Then he calls best buy tech support. So they can't return my money. I can't take the phone. They keep offering up sorry apologies, but nothing can be done. They say the only thing we can do is repeat the transaction, I don't have the funds in the account at the moment to repeat nor do I trust that the error won't happen again. They call my bank BOA and ask them to release the funds. No they say the order is processing.... Call sprint.he calls Sprint again they can't do anything. The manager calls sprint back to cancel the transaction. He says it will be 72hrs before I get my refund. Probably Monday. I'm livid, all they do is apologize. I drove over an hour and a half after working a 13hr nightshift to the store. To pick up the phone. Then waited in the parking lot for another hour for the store to open. The best the geek squad/mobile supervisor can offer is to have the phone transfered to my local best buy so we can try the transaction again on Saturday. At this point I give up.
 
Ouch. Hopefully they will get it sorted out for you soon. I avoid best buy like the plauge. They always F something up. The least they could do is give you gift cards or credit you back some of the cost for their crappy computer system crashing.
 
This is why I use credit cards instead of debit cards particularly for online purchases (assuming you're responsible enough to always pay off the balance in full). Something effs up, it's the bank's money and not yours on the hook.
 
Don't give up. I know it's frustrating, believe me. It's frustrating for the associate too b/c Sprint makes us process their IB activations like this. What happened, was the system (known as BEAST) crashed. Now what annoys me, and this is more on sprint than best buy, is why in the ever loving hell do they require the customer to pay in BEAST as opposed to paying in POS, after the phone is fully activated? That way if BEAST crashes, then the associate can simply redo the activation...and the customer doesn't have to worry about losing money or repaying or any of that bs. As a person who works at best buy, I absolutely hate doing easy pay for this reason right here. I even told my boss and our sprint rep that is absolutely stupid AF that sprint makes us do their easy pay transactions like this. The reason that I was given, was that Sprint wants to collect the money on their end. Ok, fine. So why is it that when there's a system crash and customer is already charged, does Sprint not instantly refund their money after the associate calls and tells them what happened? It's frustrating. Sprint is honestly on my **** list. I absolutely hate dealing with them. With Verizon and AT&T, Edge and Next activations are done in BEAST, however the customer pays in POS. So again, if the AT&T/Verizon activation goes crazy, I can just redo it and the customer doesn't have to worry about losing money.

Things will work out, I know it's pain tho.
 
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Don't give up. I know it's frustrating, believe me. It's frustrating for the associate too b/c Sprint makes us process their IB activations like this. What happened, was the system (known as BEAST) crashed. Now what annoys me, and this is more on sprint than best buy, is why in the ever loving hell do they require the customer to pay in BEAST as opposed to paying in POS, after the phone is fully activated? That way if BEAST crashes, then the associate can simply redo the activation...and the customer doesn't have to worry about losing money or repaying or any of that bs. As a person who works at best buy, I absolutely hate doing easy pay for this reason right here. I even told my boss and our sprint rep that is absolutely stupid AF that sprint makes us do their easy pay transactions like this. The reason that I was given, was that Sprint wants to collect the money on their end. Ok, fine. So why is it that when there's a system crash and customer is already charged, does Sprint not instantly refund their money after the associate calls and tells them what happened? It's frustrating. Sprint is honestly on my **** list. I absolutely hate dealing with them. With Verizon and AT&T, Edge and Next activations are done in BEAST, however the customer pays in POS. So again, if the AT&T/Verizon activation goes crazy, I can just redo it and the customer doesn't have to worry about losing money.

Things will work out, I know it's pain tho.

Side note i happened to catch a glimpse of the sales associates computer screen when the "error" occured and I saw at the bottom it said something about "frauduelent customer, customer has tried to obtain many discounted devices, customer has been reported with some fraud company" at that point the best buy mobile guy moved the screen so i couldnt see it

now thats what really upsets me. I did place a pre-order Wed in best buy for an iphone 6+ and got the gift card, i called and made sure it wouldnt be a problem for me to come in and buy the phone. he said no it would just cancel the pre-order out. I have also played around on the sprint website and have been signed in with a phone in my cart. And sprint telesales called me and asked if i wanted to complete the transaction.
I have ordered my last 2 phones thru best buy and never had an issue, and now this im confused. and insulted actually

i cant think of any other reason why it would say that on his screen, and if thats the case why he was pushing for me to repeat the transaction saying it was an "error"!!!

he said he had only seen that happen one other time with another sprint customer on tuesday and they repeated the transaction and it went thru.

EITHER WAY IM CONFUSED AND OUT OF $500 DOLLARS UNTIL SPRINT RELEASES THE FUNDS IF THEY RELEASE IT WE ALL KNOW HOW THEY WORK!!

I HAVE NO PHONE, I WASTED MY TIME, MY MONEY AND ALL THEY CAN SAY IS SORRY MY COMPUTER MESSED UP LETS DO IT AGAIN!!

im sorry thats totally unacceptable
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side note i happened to catch a glimpse of the sales associates computer screen when the "error" occured and i saw at the bottom it said something about "frauduelent customer, customer has tried to obtain many discounted devices, customer has been reported with some fraud company" at that point the best buy mobile guy moved the screen so i couldnt see it

now thats what really upsets me. I did place a pre-order wed in best buy for an iphone 6+ and got the gift card, i called and made sure it wouldnt be a problem for me to come in and buy the phone. He said no it would just cancel the pre-order out. I have also played around on the sprint website and have been signed in with a phone in my cart. And sprint telesales called me and asked if i wanted to complete the transaction.
I have ordered my last 2 phones thru best buy and never had an issue, and now this im confused. And insulted actually

i cant think of any other reason why it would say that on his screen, and if thats the case why he was pushing for me to repeat the transaction saying it was an "error"!!!

He said he had only seen that happen one other time with another sprint customer on tuesday and they repeated the transaction and it went thru.

Either way im confused and out of $500 dollars until sprint releases the funds if they release it we all know how they work!!

I have no phone, i wasted my time, my money and all they can say is sorry my computer messed up lets do it again!!

Im sorry thats totally unacceptable
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Normally the "fraud" error will pop up if the customer has tried to do a fraudulent activation in the past, either at that store or another best buy. Now what's weird to me, is the associate wanting to try processing the activation again. Anytime there's some serious fraud stuff going on (customer using fake ID or something like that) we are not suppose to keep trying the activation. And of course Sprint isn't any help. Tbh, if it's a fraud issue and you know that you didn't do anything wrong, I'd investigate the hell outta this. B/c somebody could have tampered with your account, did some fraudulent stuff, and that's why a "fraud" error popped up. And yes that is possible. That actually happened to customer that I was dealing with. Not trying to scare you, but I'd really look into this even after you get the phone.
 
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right, so yeah i have no idea what to expect when i go in on saturday or if i should even do it again.
i mean obviously im not a fraudlent customer and im not even sure if that message pertained to me and the sales rep just kept saying error, his manager said it happened tues with another sprint. i asked the manager would it happen again he said no it shouldnt have happened in the first place.

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Normally the "fraud" error will pop up if the customer has tried to do a fraudulent activation in the past, either at that store or another best buy. Now what's weird to me, is the associate wanting to try processing the activation again. Anytime there's some serious fraud stuff going on (customer using fake ID or something like that) we are not suppose to keep trying the activation.

right he even called the store manager in my city while he was in some best buy class to have him come pick the phone up and bring it back to the closer store, they said come pick it up on saturday. before i left he was processing a transfer request. im really confused now since you said that. like really?
 
right, so yeah i have no idea what to expect when i go in on saturday or if i should even do it again.
i mean obviously im not a fraudlent customer and im not even sure if that message pertained to me and the sales rep just kept saying error, his manager said it happened tues with another sprint. i asked the manager would it happen again he said no it shouldnt have happened in the first place.

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right he even called the store manager in my city while he was in some best buy class to have him come pick the phone up and bring it back to the closer store, they said come pick it up on saturday. before i left he was processing a transfer request. im really confused now since you said that. like really?

Sorry about the "m" response lol accidentally submitted my response before I was finished typing. But yeah this entire ordeal is weird. But like I said, even after getting the phone...I'd still investigate this b/c if they're saying that its a fraud issue and you know you didn't do anything wrong to your account and they're still willing to get the phone for you (which pretty much proves that they don't think you're committing fraud) somebody else could have done something. I'd just get with sprint and have them look over your account and check everything that they can to make sure nobody has tampered with your account. Some may say it's overreacting, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. If I even suspect something is going on with my VZW account, you best believe I'm calling and going to a corporate store and getting to bottom of the issue. I really do hope everything works out. And getting back to Sprint, they should've refunded your money right then and there. With easy pay, Best Buy had no way to refund the money b/c it's collected by Sprint (which is something that a lot of customers don't know or even understand)
 
I did place a pre-order Wed in best buy for an iphone 6+ and got the gift card

So I do not want to say your story isn't true, but Best Buy did not do any pre-orders on the iPhone 6+. They did them on the 6, so I am not sure if you possibly pre-ordered the wrong phone...
 
So I do not want to say your story isn't true, but Best Buy did not do any pre-orders on the iPhone 6+. They did them on the 6, so I am not sure if you possibly pre-ordered the wrong phone...

Is that only certain stores? Earlier this week I called a Best Buy in a bigger city than I live in to check on their 6 Plus stock. The sales rep said my best bet would be to come down and preorder. They required $50 and this was for the Plus model. I didn't go because this particular store was an hour away and my brother-in-law managed to find a Plus for me, but they did offer to preorder.
 
So I do not want to say your story isn't true, but Best Buy did not do any pre-orders on the iPhone 6+. They did them on the 6, so I am not sure if you possibly pre-ordered the wrong phone...

Best buy started pre-order on the 6+ on Wed. Certain models. If you go over to the best buy forums and read iPhone6 faq. You can find the info there. Also alot of best buys actually have the 6+ in Stock for sprint and verizon.

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Is that only certain stores? Earlier this week I called a Best Buy in a bigger city than I live in to check on their 6 Plus stock. The sales rep said my best bet would be to come down and preorder. They required $50 and this was for the Plus model. I didn't go because this particular store was an hour away and my brother-in-law managed to find a Plus for me, but they did offer to preorder.

As far as I know they are all supposed to be taking orders. Like a said on the BB forums some of the stores didn't know they could take orders on Wed so they may have turned people away.
Every BB near me is taking orders. I went Wed around 1 and was the first to order.
 
So I do not want to say your story isn't true, but Best Buy did not do any pre-orders on the iPhone 6+. They did them on the 6, so I am not sure if you possibly pre-ordered the wrong phone...

This is incorrect. Best Buy started preorders for the plus last week. They started AFTER everyone else.
 
Figured I'd update this thread. So the manager at my local best buy did pretty pick up the phone got me. Last Fri, I called sprint and put me in contact with the refunds dept. they called my bank on 3 way and had the hold on my funds released, money was back in my account! Sat morning on the way home I checked my account, the charge had reappeared#
Called my bank again, the told me to call sprint, called sprint as per usual they were clueless. They said they didn't send it back thru. Soooo how is the money being debted from my account and showing as processed?! Obviously I'm irate by this point. Sprint said the people in the finance/refunds dept weren't there to help right now wait until Monday to see if it falls off. My bank told me if it's still there Monday call back and file a claim.

While that whole fiasco was happening, I had managed to get sprint to drop the account spending limit from my account on Fri therefore making my deposit for easy pay or iPhone for life $0!! To bad I didn't do that from the beginning! I'm kinda glad the original transaction didn't go through, because now I'm getting the phone for $0 down.

Back to the phone my local best buy called me Saturday to pick up the phone. It went off without a hitch. Although their computers did crash like 3 times during the process.

As I check my account this Mon morning the charge from sprint for the $481.80 has not been dropped. So it looks like I'll be going to the back to file a claim.
 
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