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Experience of Buying my First Mac and Why I Now Hate Best Buy

I

Izraehl

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 16, 2011
4
0
Hi everyone. First post but I've been reading these forums for quite some time. Something happened and I feel like I need to share it with other people who might be able to relate. Not sure if I should have posted this here. Anyway...

TLDR: Best Buy didn't give me the gift card with my MBA because the salesman was incompetent. I had to go back to the store and got grief from customer service but finally got my gift card. while i was in the store my car got robbed. stolen items: MBA, ipad, GPS, all of my school stuff, and radio. I'm mad because of my bad customer experience and because I would not have even been there if their employee didn't make the mistake in the first place. Now I'm out $1700 (1232 Euro) of my belongings.

~~~

I’m 21 years old. I went to best buy to buy a macbook air because carrying around a full size laptop hurts my back and I have had several surgeries on my lower spine and I need to get rid of as much weight as I can. Anyway, best buy was matching apple's offer of giving students a 100 gift card. The nearest apple store was a while away so I thought I’d just go there. I get there and I’m lining up my macbook for purchase when i inquire about how the gift card situation will work. I ask if I will receive a gift card while I was there and the salesmen told me that I’d actually be receiving an iTunes gift card instead of a best buy gift card and the 100 dollars will be credited to my account when I register my macbook. this goes against what i knew but i trusted him because he was the salesman after all. so I get home and register my macbook and i get no notice of my account receiving credit or anything, so I call back the best buy (which is 30 miles away) and ask what gives? the salesman I had went home, but I talked to the manager or something and he said that they made a mistake and that I was supposed to receive a best buy gift card while i was there and that i needed to come back to the store in order to receive it. So after school the next day (where I was very much enjoying taking notes on my new MacBook air and not being in pain carrying around a laptop) I stopped into best buy get the whole gift card thing sorted out. I go up to customer service to request my gift card and the woman promptly lets me know that they no longer are doing that promotion and that I’m **** out of luck. I know that they are indeed still doing the promotion and I let her know that she’s quite incorrect about it and that I want my 100 dollar gift card. After a few rude remarks on her part and very much patience on my part, she agrees to contact her supervisor and ask. It turns out she was wrong and I ended up getting my gift card. After a little while, and buying my dad a birthday gift with my best buy gift card, I decided it’s time to go. As I’m walking back to my car, I noticed that my lock cylinder for my car door is hanging out of a hole in my door. When I get in, I notice that all of my stuff of value was gone and my car was a huge mess. Someone had broken in. they took basically everything. Among the items they stole: GPS, iPad, my school back pack, all of my school notebooks, some of my girlfriend’s notebooks that I was holding onto for her while she was in class, my prescriptions, one of my favorite hoodies, and a bunch of other stuff… but what they stole that really hit me hard… my brand new macbook air. The one I’ve had less than 24 hours. The one I bought at the same best buy it was stolen at. The best buy that I wouldn’t even have been at if they had trained their salesmen well enough not to make dumb mistakes. Dumb mistakes such as the one they made with my gift card, that brought me back to the store in the first place. The mistake that caused me to have to drive 30 miles to get my car broken into and robbed when I would have never been at that store otherwise. Thanks best buy, you bastards. What did I get from this? Two horrible experiences with customer service and roughly 1700 dollars of my belongings stolen. And a hole in my car where the lock was popped. I lost my three most vital electronic components of my life. My GPS (I’m a delivery driver and it’s my lifeline basically), iPad, and my brand new macbook air. Also my first mac. I have no idea when I’ll even get close to having the money to replace any of it. This totally sucks.
 
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To summarise; the OP wasn't given a gift card when they purchased their MBA, so they went back to get it, they were given grief from someone but finally got it and their car was broken in to while this was happening.

Not really sure where the break in comes in to this.

You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I feel for you, I'd be pretty distraught if all my school notes and MBP stolen, but I don't see how it's BB's fault.
 
In future, I recommend putting all valuables into your car's boot whilst you leave your car unattended. That way nobody can see them!
 
You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I feel for you, I'd be pretty distraught if all my school notes and MBP stolen, but I don't see how it's BB's fault.
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It's not directly BB's fault, but I would have never been there if they hadn't messed up in the first place. Not blaming BB, just hate how this whole thing went down because they messed up and I had to go back and get it fixed.

Also, I didn't mention this, but they're refusing to release the security footage of the parking lot. I blatantly see this as obstruction of justice by withholding evidence but apparently they're allowed to for whatever reason. :mad:

You didn't mention filing a police report. Please tell me you did that.
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Definitely did this! Although I think this city's police force is pretty much useless.
 
Sorry to hear about your predicement. But it is in no way BB's fault, although I understand that the fact that they needed you to come back to get your gift card is understandable. I'm not sure about the security footage; I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't.

I hate to be critical, but maybe paragraph that post? It was kind of difficult to read.

Anyway, hope you get your stuff back, OP.
 
If you leave valuables in the car at any place it might get stolen. It could have happened at your house too.
I am sorry for what happened to you and I hope that they can find your property soon.
 
Man sorry about the robbery!!! Though that is surely not their fault, the run around you got on the $100 card IS their fault.

I have decided to avoid Best But at all costs. They were fine for sometime, but I'd say the past year every time I've been there I have regretted even walking in the door. There employees are a disgrace, spouting misinformation, they are sometime rude or ignore you altogether.

The only way I can show my displeasure is by taking my business elsewhere. I suggest you and many others do the same.
 
Izraehl said:
I have no idea when I’ll even get close to having the money to replace any of it. This totally sucks.
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Man that totally sucks. You might want to check with your car insurance or renters insurance (if you have this) and see if can claim any of the stolen items on your insurance. Also, check with your credit card and see if they have some sort of theft or loss protection since you only got it yesterday.

Good luck.
 
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It really isn't BB's fault but I can't help but feel pure resentment toward them because I would never have been parked in their lot if their incompetent employee had known what he was doing. :mad: I think what I'm feeling may be irrational because of being mad and not really thinking clearly. You all are right. Can't blame BB, it could have happened anywhere. I'm just associating all of this negativity with them right now.

Still, I hate them so much right now.

as for the cameras, they do have them in the lot. It's been verified that my car was in range of the camera so the robbery was recorded. BB claimed that their security supervisor or whatever wasn't in that day so they couldn't release the footage to the officer while he was there creating the police report.
 
My car stolen

You were lucky they didn't steal your car too. Mine was stolen on a fine Dec 23rd evening. The thieves completely destroyed the car, for no good reason. Everything in the car, like the car stereo and speakers, had serial numbers that I reported. Nothing ever turned up! If you want your insurance carrier to cover the stuff, it has to be in a suitcase in the trunk.

While driving home with the assist of a friend, the friend told me I was lucky. LUCKY! How's that? She said, I wasn't in the car when it was stolen!

I thought about that quite a bit. Took classes and became a registered gun owner and carrier.

Sorry, just thought I'd try to cheer you up a little....
 
Izraehl said:
It really isn't BB's fault, but I can't help but feel pure resentment toward them, because I would never have been parked in their lot if their incompetent employee had known what he was doing.
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Own-up.

You are really mad at yourself, for not checking the receipt before you left the store the first time.
 
iJohnHenry said:
Own-up.

You are really mad at yourself, for not checking the receipt before you left the store the first time.
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Yeah don't assume things.

That's not how it went at all. The salesman told me that they don't give out BB gift cards with macs which seemed off to me but I figured this guy probably knows more than me about it so I was probably wrong. He told me that I would get the gift card through a process which would occur after i registered the Mac with Apple and that it would be an iTunes gift card. Checking the receipt would have done nothing.
 
To be fair, it isn't Best Buy's fault your car was broken into.


It's their fault for not giving you a gift card in the first place.


That's akin to me saying that it's my mom's fault for making me take out the trash before I left and got into a car accident. If she didn't make me take out the trash, I would have never crossed the green light at that precise second when another car ran the red light and hit me (I would have been a minute earlier, and therefore been gone from that intersection when the car ran the light).
 
1. you had a dispute with best buy about a gift card and they resolved it to your satisfaction. you got what you asked for.

2. your car got broken into and everything was stolen because you left it all there in plain view (i recommend never leaving a bag out in the open, because it is an invitation to thieves).

these are two completely unrelated events you have conflated and dumped on best buy. it's not best buy's fault.

if you have decent insurance coverage, you can get all of your stuff replaced. if you don't have it, then again, that is not best buy's fault. sorry op. it really sucks. but, just because it sucks, it isn't best buy's fault.
 
OP, you seem to think that it was BB employees who broke into your car while they were on duty. This is the only way you can blame BB for the fact that your car was broken in to. It's the thieves' fault that it happened, but how can you be so sure that the thieves are BB employees?
 
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