Which chain has the WORST customer service?

[Jolly Rogers]

Tell a friend to avoid bad stores to buy anime/sci-fi from...

The Ultimate Customer Dis-Service

Today my brother and I drove my mom up to Best Buy so she could get a new phone. She's legally blind and we're both in college, so it was one of the few chances we had to help her get a phone she could easily use. We selected a nice Panasonic with an additional handset, $250 worth of phone equipment, and headed to the register. The woman at the register of course offered us a warranty on the phones, which my mom declined. Not able to drop the subject, a nearby employee commented that my mom really should get the warranty, but she told him no as well.

The guy wouldn't stop. He mentioned again that the warranty was a good thing and should be added to this purchase. My brother told the guy to leave my mom alone because she had already said no to two people now. The guy couldn't let it drop and said, "I'm just doing my job." I told him that's fine, but we had said no and his job was done now. The guy got mad and said he was just doing what he's supposed to do. I told him the cashier already did what was supposed to be done by initially offering us the warranty, and that we had turned her down and then turned him down multiple times, and we would like to be left alone about it now.

The guy became angrier and kept on defending the warranty, so I asked him where the GM was. He said, "the GM's not here today" so I asked where his manager was. As it turns out some guy right behind him was the acting manager, so I asked him to come over. The manager walked the five feet over to the register and I said, "This guy won't leave us alone even though we already told him we don't want the warranty." The manager didn't care and simply said, "you were raising your voice and swearing at him, get out of my store." This was not the first response I expected the manager to give to a complaining customer. For some reason the manager found it necessary to lie, because I certainly was not swearing and if my voice was raised I had good reason for it to be, and I wasn’t outright yelling. I asked the manager what words I had used that might constitute swearing. He couldn't tell me and just said, "You were swearing and raising your voice, get out of my store."

My mom and my brother, among the many other customers around, had heard the entire argument and knew perfectly well that no swearing was taking place, so I'm not sure where the manager got this idea. I told him I hadn't done anything wrong that should have me thrown out of the store and that we simply wanted to buy the phones and not be hassled about warranties. He again said, "Get out of my store, this is private property." I told him again that all I wanted was to buy some phones and not be hassled. Raising his own voice so that the entire front end could hear (all customers and cashiers alike), the manager then called to the loss prevention guy and said "Throw this man out of my store!" The loss prevention guy walked over and asked me, my brother, and my mom to walk outside with him, but I pulled out my cell phone, dialed 911, and told him that if they really wanted to throw us out I'd call the police and let them decide if I was being disruptive. The loss prevention guy said, "You're really going to call the police?" and sort of stepped back.

My brother finally told my mom to have the cashier cancel the entire transaction and give her credit card back. Even after all this my mom would probably have still made the purchase, but there’s no way a store treating us in this manner was going to get her money. My mom then told the manager that today was her only chance to get a ride to the store and have some help picking out some new phones, and explained to him that she can't even see well enough to drive and that the harassment was ruining this opportunity.

The manager acted as if he couldn't have cared less and simply kept saying, "get out of my store." I asked him if he had any idea what a customer was worth to the store over the course of even ten years. He didn't respond and just walked away. The original guy that wouldn't shut up about the warranty said "we aren't even on commission, so I don't make anything off the warranty." I told him that whether he was on commission or not, we said no several times and wanted to be left alone, and that there was a list hanging somewhere in the back rooms with names and sales numbers of every employee selling warranties, so it must make some difference who sells them. He walked away with no response to that comment.

The loss prevention guy then said, "Well you aren't going to get anywhere arguing so you might as well leave." By this point other customers were watching my family get harassed and I wanted an apology. We weren't budging, so the manager came back and said we were causing a scene. My brother told him we were simply trying to spend $250 in his store and instead got harassed to the point of deciding not to make our purchase. The manager didn't care at all and seemed intent only on throwing us out of the store, even though our only request was that we be allowed to make a purchase without declining a warranty over and over and over. The manager walked away again and then came back. I asked him to look at me and quit leaving every 5 seconds, but he just said "no you're just sitting there swearing at me and raising your voice." I pointed out that I wasn't sitting anywhere, I was standing at the register at which I'd tried to make a $250 purchase, and that I didn't expect treatment like this and would like an apology. The manager simply walked away to the safety of the interiors of the customer service counters.

The loss prevention guy gave me the number to the store and the extension of the GM. He said that the GM was on vacation right now but that we could call her at a later date. A second loss prevention guy told my mom that they should have left us alone after we turned down the warranty once, and definitely after we actually asked to be left alone about it.

I find it hard to believe that the only manager present in the store on a busy Saturday was what looked to be a high school drop out, but if that's whom Best Buy wants to leave in charge then I guess this is the sort of thing that is bound to happen.

Overall the ordeal was an unnecessary experience that both upset and embarrassed everyone. I only hope that this was one idiot on a power trip because his GM was out of town, but given the track record of Best Buy I doubt it. I don't think I am ever going into another Best Buy again ever.

[JB0]

Personally, I've never had a problem with Best Buy.

My one quibble was a DVD that rang up as more than it was tagged. I commented that it rang up diffrent, and the error was quickly corrected.

Fry's I've also had one quibble. Bought a DVD. The tabs holding it in broke, and the disk was scratched when I opened it. Attempted exchange failed, because it was the only disk in their stock. Full refund, no questions asked.

...

Of course, they DID pull the return tag off, reshrink-wrap it, and put it back on the shelves as a new product.

And given the # of times it's disappeared and re-appeared(the package in question is out of print, and was when I bought it, so it's not exactly like they're getting new shipments), I doubt it was an isolated incident.

Personally, I can't stand Circuit City. The store layout is poor, and they can't be bothered to keep their shelf prices even remotely reflecting the real price.

[MicronianDevil]

Circuit City has HORRIBLE customer service as well.

Years ago, I had $300 on me and wanted to purchase a stereo. I went to the stereo area and waited some 15 mins for someone to come over and help me. No one came. Well after looking at all the stereos in my price range, I chose one and just wanted to be rung up. Every employee I asked, and I mean every, said, "I cant ring you up, I dont work in that department". This went on forever. Even though I told them, "Look I know what I want, I just need to be rung up". Well after over an hour of waiting, I just left. Circuit City lost a $300 sale plus a customer. I am happy to relay my Circuit City horror story to keep anyone from buying from those morons.

So my vote goes to Circuit City.

[JB0]

Circuit City has HORRIBLE customer service as well.

Years ago, I had $300 on me and wanted to purchase a stereo. I went to the stereo area and waited some 15 mins for someone to come over and help me. No one came. Well after looking at all the stereos in my price range, I chose one and just wanted to be rung up. Every employee I asked, and I mean every, said, "I cant ring you up, I dont work in that department". This went on forever. Even though I told them, "Look I know what I want, I just need to be rung up". Well after over an hour of waiting, I just left. Circuit City lost a $300 sale plus a customer. I am happy to relay my Circuit City horror story to keep anyone from buying from those morons.

So my vote goes to Circuit City.

Tha thappened to me once in WalMArt. After 45 minutes waiting for someone to open the case and get one lousy video game out, I left.

At this point some 3 people had been by. As near as I could gather, someone had hidden teh key in the stockroom and no one knew where.

[Myriad]

Interesting!

Sad thing is if people don't get a certain amount of warranty's or credit card sign ups they can loose their jobs. Asking once if enough though.

Who is the guitarist in your avatar?

[eugimon]

I'm not surprised at all...

my firend bought a nice DVD player from them and he did buy the warranty, the player was for his family and he wanted to ensure trouble free service from them.

Well, after a few months the player broke down and so he took it over to best buy... the manager told him they couldn't replace the player until they had attempted to fix it, they kept it for two months before they told him that they weren't able to. At that point, best buy opted to send the player directly to the manufacturer which took an additional 3 months.

Keep in mind, when these guys offer their extended warranty they make it sound like if anything goes wrong, you can bring back the item and they'll replace it on the spot for you.

More recently, the same friend (why he keeps shopping there I'll never know) bought an xbox from the same store. The cashier asked if he wanted the extended warranty. He said no and and even explained that he wasn't satisfied with the service. She kept preasuring him, asking him all sorts of questions and offering several scenarios... he said no again and ignored the cashier... she actually stopped ringing up the sale to ask him again.

At this point I stepped in and said that disapointment was something everyone has to learn in life and the sooner she learn it the better off everyone would be. The people behind us all said something to the effect of: that's right and she finished the transaction without comment.

And these guys do get a cut on the warranty. The sales person gets a few bucks as do the managers. bonus off warranty sales can give them a pretty significant boost in pay and the stores are ranked on how much warranty they sell... they get special prizes based on their performance.

I worked at the compusa flagship store in San Francisco back when I lived there and sales people are coached to flat out lie about what the warranty covers... they will often tell customers that the warranty will cover the screens (on PDA's) and even things like dropping items or sitting on them... in fact these events are not covered. The extended warranty only extends the manufacturer's warranty for however long.

Also, the margin on most of the stuff these people sell are so low... the margin on warranty on the other hand is nearly 100%. that 30 or 40 bucks (or more depending on item) goes directly to profit... that's why they'll risk losing a sale of a couple hundred bucks for the extended warranty... they honestly only make maybe 10-15 dollars off of a 200 dollar sale... depending on the item... cables (USB and the like) are the exception, the margin on those items is like 65%. It's crazy how much the mark up is on them.

[Anubis]

Best buy is by far the most annoying with the damn warranties. I watched a cashier bug a lady this week about the warranty on a cheap CD player. After she said no, he also pitched the warranty for the cordless phone she was buying. I don't buy many electronics stores anymore (most of my PC stuff is done online now) so I don't have to worry about that often. I go for DVD's (and shake the case every time to check for floaters). I also hate stores' renewed love of mail-in-rebates rebates instead of just doing the sale price upfront.

Jolly Roger's horror story isn't the only one I have read about power-tripping-over-zealous jerks at Best Buy.

They're stupid when it comes to those damn warranties. Circuit City here isn't as bad with the warranties, but the store layout absolutely sucks, so I never go there.

The guys at Suncoast here are cool, know a few of them from high school actually, but the prices are too high, like any dvd place in the mall.

The worst customer service ever though that I have experienced though is at the BX when I was in the Air Force. Name your location. Competency was always lacking. Only reason I shopped there was for the no sales tax, even then I sometimes went to the vastly superior local Target.

[Wumzi]

I'm voting for Best Buy, since they own Future Shop in Canada where I had most of my troubles.

I used to work in a small computer store chain and I did have to ask customers if they wanted an extended warranty. I always ask once at the cash, and if I get a no, that's the end of that. I wouldn't try to ram the damn warranty down the customer's throat.

But these Future Shop guys, holy hell are they presistent. I've had problems when trying to buy just about anything from them. Hard drive, printer, DVD player, Gamecube, laptop. On every single occasion I was surrounded by at least 2 guys trying to convince me to buy an extended warranty.

The laptop for example. I helped out my cousin in picking a nice toshiba. I knew the margins on these things is often around 3-4% only, which is why I can understand why they'd want to sell me the extra protection. But what really bugged me was that after every single no, the salesperson kept saying "I don't understand why you wouldn't want to get the extra coverage?" .

No thank you, I'll take my chances I said, at which point a second guy came in to give me an example. Something about how frequently laptops break since they're so delicate.

No thank you, we'll be careful I said, at which point a third guy came in to tell me that it's not much more money for piece of mind.

No thank you, I can't justify 300 more dollars on a 1500 dollar laptop. When I saw one guy open his mouth again, I just took the laptop box out of his hand and walked to the cash.

I usually have lots of patience, but not for this kind of stuff

[Wumzi]

they honestly only make maybe 10-15 dollars off of a 200 dollar sale... depending on the item... cables (USB and the like) are the exception, the margin on those items is like 65%. It's crazy how much the mark up is on them.

That's true, cables are usually insanely marked up. I remember in one case where my boss made more money on a serial to usb cable than a desktop computer.

[Jolly Rogers]

Who is the guitarist in your avatar?

Kirk Hammet.

I had bad experience getting defective DVDs replaced at Best Buy and Fry's. They'd unseal the new copy for exchange and take the disc out. Usually these morons act as if they've never handled a disc in their lives and leave their greasy fingerprints on the under side of the new disc you're getting. I suppose that kind of behavior is supposed to discourage people from coming in for exchanges.

[CoryHolmes]

I'm voting for Best Buy, since they own Future Shop

Future Shop *shudder*

Don't get me wrong, I like the products they have and their prices usually are very competitive. It's just that I dislike being beset by jackal-like vultures that wear the skins of salesmen the second I step one micron into the store.

Now, it's understandable that they'd act like that because they're all working on comission. No sales for the store = no money for them.

[areaseven]

The worst on the list is Fry's Electronics. The one in Burbank has the worst customer service in town (and it's not just because the salespeople don't speak English).

I've had very few problems with Best Buy. However, I will be going there today to exchange my Sledge Hammer! DVD, as episode 4 won't play on my 5-disc changer and it pixelates heavily on the XBOX.

[kanata67]

they honestly only make maybe 10-15 dollars off of a 200 dollar sale... depending on the item... cables (USB and the like) are the exception, the margin on those items is like 65%. It's crazy how much the mark up is on them.

That's true, cables are usually insanely marked up. I remember in one case where my boss made more money on a serial to usb cable than a desktop computer.

radio shack... 12' foptal (fiber optic audio cable) cable was over $40 retail... cost was $8 and change. Lord knows I refuse to pay retail fow just about everything now-a-days. It's usually cheaper.

My favorite scenario was actually at a best buy as well. As some know I use work at radio shack for a long wile... till my store got fired because I abused the system to much LOL. Anyways... I was #1 salesperson in north florida for quite some time PRIMARILY because I helped customers solve their problems rather than sell them stuff they didn't need. "all you need is this three dollar adaptor.. not a $300 dollar digital covertor... and they would come back and buy complete systems from me just 'cause they knew I wasn't messing with them. Bo diddly was one of my favorite customers as the man would spend a lot, and he would only buy from me as I wouldn't try to sell a man who knew more tham me crap he didn't need.

Anyways... SO I'm at best buy getting a sprint pcs phone for no other reson than mine died an untimely death and none of the radio shacks in the area had the one I wanted in stock. Buying thge phone was no problem but the annoying cell guy insisted on activating it on the spot. I know doing an ESN (electronic serial number) swap isn't that difficult but this fool was talking to lord knows who for over an hour with no progress and repeated re-requests for all my personal info. I have more tolerance for bullshit than most {I am a hippie } but this guy wouldn't listen to a thing I told him. I finally got to the point where I asked to borrow the store "demo" phone to take care of the situation myself. He rolled his eyes and said "here you go but you can't activate your phone from a different phone... Anyways... I called my rep at regional headquarters, got the esn unlock code, programmed my phone (which was instantly activated) and then handed him the phone so he could be fired by his bosses boss! I can't help but think that anyone who ignores the fact that you know the are rep on a first name basis is to friggin stupid to work around electronics!!!

I have also been responcible for the almost immediate termination of the three car salesmen my last three cars came from... Homey don't play no games!

I don't quite agree with this pole however as it's perspective biased. Wallyworld sucks ass... which is what makes it great. Look at me... I just bought a bunch of clearence toys at target for three dollars each. I just returned them to wallyworld for $15 each without a reciept. I know I can only do three returns per pre set time period [They will tell you if you ask] but I find it well worth while to spend $30 at TRU on clearence crap and get $150 worth of credit at wally world. Sure it's not cash money (unless you pm me to find out how ] but buying stuff from wally world at .20$ on the dollar almost makes the MPC prime worth buying.

[eriku]

Wal*Mart. First I learned never to ask any employee any question. Then I learned to just no go to that store.

Circuit City is just as bad, but you can't avoid asking their employees questions since they hawk you and wont leave you alone. The last time I was in Circuit City I got accosted by three employees before I was able to get to the computer section, while I was in the computer section three more came by asking if I needed help, and on my way out there were another two. I was in the store for maybe 10 minutes total. I've never seen such an overstaffed store.

[Hikuro]

We've all had disatasfication from CS in stores. I'm a sells guy at my autoshop, I sell parts, I hate to say it, but I get the good customers, and I can get the what we all call "The Freaks".

I'm being bluntly honest abot this too just to give you guys some insight on what it can be like.

Last week, an old man and his wife came into the Parts Department where I work, we have a Retail end, and a backcounter which is for Employee's Only And we have that marked in two locations, the door, and by the door saying EMPLOYEES ONLY THRU THIS DOOR

The old man came in with his wife (okay they had to been maybe 62?)

and went into the candy dish first, even though that's for the techies 0_o.

So he came into the restricted area, the back counter and wanted a battery for his Car. We quickly had to stop him, he shouldn't have come in period and show have been stopped since he had walked thru the service shop which is an Insurance regulation, that we can't have.

We stopped him and politely asked him to step out cause this was employees only and we'll meet him on the other end and we gave him directions which were easy to get into the retail end.

He gave a lil bit of a dirty look and he did what was asked.

I met him personally at the retail end and began searching out for the battery. I asked him if there was anything else and he declined. I went, got the battery, and quiclky he said,

"I think that's the wrong one"

I looked at him with a odd expression,

"No sir, this is a nissan sactioned battery"

"But I got a different kind from Autozone."  "I understand sir, but they sell something that's more generic, this isn't, this will probably last alot longer seeing it has a 60 month life span and a 16 month warranty on it."

So I rang him up on the computer and told him "

That'll be 178 dollars and 46 cents"

He just about had a fit, "

I was told it was 174 dollars!"  "Who told you that sir?"  "I called earlier and they told me that. Why is there an extra 5 bucks?!"  "That's for the core charge sir."  "I don't want no god damn core charge!"

"I'm sorry sir, but unless you make an exchange with the battery you presently have, I have to charge you for the battery core until you exchange your old one for this one, than I can give you your 5 dollars back."

He continued to say he di dn't want no "God damn core charge" And it got to the point my buddy came in trying to explain to him.

"Sir I don't think you understand"  "I perfectly damn well understand and I don't want no core charge!"  "Sir you clearly don't understand, its a recycling issue, you have to exchange the cores so we can recycle the old one so it can be processed as a new one again, it's almost a law."

My boss, my own father, was watching this while talking to another employee and shaking his head quietly at the old man. We finally dropped it and changed it to No Core just so we could get him out of there. Before he paid his ticket he said he could go across the street to ford to get a "God damn battery and wont charge me a core" Unfortunatly they would....all parts departments will charge you for the core cause that old core has to be recycled, it's the same with starter motors, alternators, distrubtors, the works cause they can all be remanufactored!

We discussed later after the old man had left and my buddy said,

"Bastard just wants to keep his old battery and put it in his boat."

And he probably wasn't to far off with that really....

I don't really get paid comission, I still make hourly wage, but to me it would of made no difference if he bought the battery or walked off in a huff.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Customer service is dead everywhere. I have had bad experiences at all the places people have listed that are in my town. Best Buy, Walmart, Target, you name it. The prime reason for that is (get ready to get angry at me you youngsters out there) the people these places hire are generally teens or twenty somethings that don't give a damn or middleaged uneducated blue collar schlobs that never bothered to do anything with their life other than work at a retail store. They are usually uneducated (or in the case of the kiddies in the process of trying to get educated, sometimes even doing their homework on the job), low paid, treated like crap by their management and basically told to do the grunt work that the white shirts don't want to do. If they could get away with it these places would just hire illegal aliens and pay them a shiny new nickel every other week to do the same job. The days of the educated, product saavy, overly nice and cordial professional salesman are long gone and buried. Nowadays if you do not do any homework yourself before you shop nine times out of ten you rely on some blueshirt to give you the info... and most of the time they either don't know, don't care, are talking out of their ass or have this strange "holier than thou" geek attitude that just makes you want to cave their head in. How many times have you (like me) gone into a Best Buy or Target with the soul intention of getting something specific only to bump into a blueshirt (who you don't want to talk to) who starts bagging on the thing you are about to buy and trying to sell you something else (that you know from doing your own research is a piece of crap). Blueshirts are like cops, they are never around when you need them and always around when you don't want them (sorry to all the cops out there, this saying is more appropriate for the blueshirts than cops anyway). Every other time I shop a retail chain I have a "bad experience". Either from poor salesmen, poor customer service, poor selection or just plain "I hate this place" feeling that comes over you. In their rush to shove more cheap crap into their converted barn warehouse pop up stores the main chains have totally alienated their consumer base. People expect to have rotten customer service nowadays.

[KingNor]

my biggest problem with frys is thatt they don't hire people who speak english.

i've never been to the frys in my area and talked to anyone i could understand. literally some of them don't speak a WORD of english, they just stare at me like i'm some kind of zombie mutant.

i asked one guy where a paticular DVD would be, and he just kept pointing to the sterios.

another guy, i asked about an adapter to connect a PS2 controller to a PC, after walking me all over the store for 5 minutes, we landed in the games section and he handed me an Xbox controller....

[Myriad]

Customer service is dead everywhere. I have had bad experiences at all the places people have listed that are in my town. Best Buy, Walmart, Target, you name it. The prime reason for that is (get ready to get angry at me you youngsters out there) the people these places hire are generally teens or twenty somethings that don't give a damn or middleaged uneducated blue collar schlobs that never bothered to do anything with their life other than work at a retail store. They are usually uneducated (or in the case of the kiddies in the process of trying to get educated, sometimes even doing their homework on the job), low paid, treated like crap by their management and basically told to do the grunt work that the white shirts don't want to do. If they could get away with it these places would just hire illegal aliens and pay them a shiny new nickel every other week to do the same job. The days of the educated, product saavy, overly nice and cordial professional salesman are long gone and buried. Nowadays if you do not do any homework yourself before you shop nine times out of ten you rely on some blueshirt to give you the info... and most of the time they either don't know, don't care, are talking out of their ass or have this strange "holier than thou" geek attitude that just makes you want to cave their head in. How many times have you (like me) gone into a Best Buy or Target with the soul intention of getting something specific only to bump into a blueshirt (who you don't want to talk to) who starts bagging on the thing you are about to buy and trying to sell you something else (that you know from doing your own research is a piece of crap). Blueshirts are like cops, they are never around when you need them and always around when you don't want them (sorry to all the cops out there, this saying is more appropriate for the blueshirts than cops anyway). Every other time I shop a retail chain I have a "bad experience". Either from poor salesmen, poor customer service, poor selection or just plain "I hate this place" feeling that comes over you. In their rush to shove more cheap crap into their converted barn warehouse pop up stores the main chains have totally alienated their consumer base. People expect to have rotten customer service nowadays.

Interesting!

A little bird told me that most of the sups and managers do have college degrees of some sort. Maybe degrees in Liberal Arts, degrees that never quite worked out due to job market in the area or perhaps they just work part time so they can take care of the kids.

So people who work in retail stores are considered losers? I treat store employees real nice. You may run into a bad apple here and there but if you are an @$$ to them expect the same treatment back.

I think the pay is a problem for the normal grunts. The grunts are probably just considered part time and don't get a lot of benefits. The ones that are considered full time probably get worked to the ground. The sad thing is that when you go into Wal Mart and buy something you are actually supporting their low wage.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...mart_assistance

[JB0]

Wal*Mart. First I learned never to ask any employee any question. Then I learned to just no go to that store.

Circuit City is just as bad, but you can't avoid asking their employees questions since they hawk you and wont leave you alone. The last time I was in Circuit City I got accosted by three employees before I was able to get to the computer section, while I was in the computer section three more came by asking if I needed help, and on my way out there were another two. I was in the store for maybe 10 minutes total. I've never seen such an overstaffed store.

My Circut city is terminally understaffed.

Half the time there's not even anyone on the register.

...

Of course, tehy use the return desk for ringing up sales, too. Saves them the effort of walking someone out to the registers.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Interesting!

A little bird told me that most of the sups and managers do have college degrees of some sort. Maybe degrees in Liberal Arts, degrees that never quite worked out due to job market in the area or perhaps they just work part time so they can take care of the kids.

So people who work in retail stores are considered losers?    I treat store employees real nice. You may run into a bad apple here and there but if you are an @$$ to them expect the same treatment back.

I think the pay is a problem for the normal grunts. The grunts are probably just considered part time and don't get a lot of benefits.  The ones that are considered full time probably get worked to the ground. The sad thing is that when you go into Wal Mart and buy something you are actually supporting their low wage.

Obviously you do not work in retail in my town.

St. Louis is terrible for retail stores. Yes, once in a blue moon you find a friendly, happy, upbeat, knowledgeable sales person in a mass retail chain... they are usually management, a lifer and a decent person. But that is one in a million in this town.

Hence why I shop at mom and pop shops and small independent stores for most of my goods and only enter the mass retailers when I need something in a hurry.

And just for the record in high school and college in the '80s and '90s I worked my fair share of retail and I know that 1) it blows, 2) there is a way out and 3) there are just as many bad employees as there are good ones and the good ones tend to be nowhere near the sales floor.

Edit: I am not trying to bash each and every sales person or mass retail employee worldwide as I have no doubt there are a few shining gems... but for the love of jebus the people they have in my town are horrendous. Just now I had to run out to a Circuit City to get some DVD-R discs as we ran out and we needed them ASAP. So I walk in... empty. Not a person in sight. No employees, no customers, no nothing. I got the discs and found a register. No one. Waited and waited. Walked around and found a kid (perhaps he was 19) playing the X-Box demo. He had a name tag so he must have been an employee. I asked him if he could ring me out. He said, without looking away from the screen, "I'm on the stock team I can't ring you out". No effort to find someone who could mind you. Walked around some more. Found who I believe was a manager at a register. Asked her if she could ring me out. No go she was closing the register however she glady paged the person that was supposed to ring me out. Walked back to the first empty register and waited... and waited... and waited... ok here the cashier comes now, talking to her friend and taking her sweet time. She finally slowpokes her butt into the register and rings me out. By the time I get back to my car almost 20 minutes have passed. This... town's... retail... places... SUCK!

Edited August 5, 2004 by JsARCLIGHT

[Hikuro]

Back in April I picked up my Transformers game, when I got home, it told me I needed a PS2 dual shock, I was using PS1 oh well. So I decided I needed to go to Walmart and pick one up cause they'll do it cheap (even if it's 3 cents cheaper).

The walmart in woodburn was remodeled and haven't been ther efor some time. So I went to where they're game section was, but couldn't find controlers. I asked the guy at the retail end of the section if he knew where they were, he just said "yep"....silence for like 30 seconds till I just sorta waved my hand like "Keep going" and he just looked at me some more..."Okay.....where are they?" And he just pointed....I hate that...

[areaseven]

You want a bad Wal-Mart. Go to the one in Panorama City, CA. To call it a pig sty is an understatement. It's literally a third world country in a two-story building.

[Roy Focker]

The people these places hire are generally teens or twenty somethings that don't give a damn or middleaged uneducated blue collar schlobs that never bothered to do anything with their life other than work at a retail store.

Mostly True.

They are usually uneducated (or in the case of the kiddies in the process of trying to get educated, sometimes even doing their homework on the job), low paid, treated like crap by their management and basically told to do the grunt work that the white shirts don't want to do.

Mostly True.

If they could get away with it these places would just hire illegal aliens and pay them a shiny new nickel every other week to do the same job.

Most places want workers to be good at English. It's only at call centers where speaking English isn't important.

You rely on some blueshirt to give you the info... and most of the time they either don't know, don't care, are talking out of their ass or have this strange "holier than thou" geek attitude that just makes you want to cave their head in.

What do you expect most of these places only train people about a week at the most and expect the more experience workers to do the training. The experienced

workers are too busy at their own job only help train the newbies.

I worked in retail, still do. I can't escape it even with a degree I got during long break from work. Ever wonder why a few workers seem like they almost have some mental problems in some giant chain stores? Look at the application you have to fill out. There's a page or two asking if you get government aid for a variety of reasons. Stores get tax breaks for hiring 'special' people. I filled out applications for retail and unretail professional jobs. It's only in retail that I've seen this. As for non-special people they aren't brightest either but besides that they are poorly trained and paid low for the work that they do. With low pay some workers aren't going to care. Workers who are smart aren't sold on that "Come on we love are customers and want to kiss their asses because we love them and

not because of the pay" attitude. You also have petty co-workers wanting more power and people acting like their on a reality tv show. Me, I'm trying to work hard, earn some bread and get as little hassle from customers or coworkers as possible.

Customers aren't the easiest either. Some are great, other fair and some like to create a hassle. That battery story sounded like one that happen to me. A person had a rain check. The item was in but wanted to use the rain check on an item that cost 300% more. The customer was lying, first they knew there a difference in the items and then they didn't. To cover my ass I called a manager who said what I said before letting the customer have the different item. The customer was pulling a scam, infact a lot of customers pull scams. If a customer is being difficult and abusive you're suppose to give them what they want no matter how ridiculous their request and by ridiculous I mean ridiculous. Some customers know this and have no problem making you jump through hoops for them even if they can see 10 customers are already in line. After seeing workers handling difficult customers only some places will management come to the employees afterwards to give them a pep talk, "Yeah that customer was a jerk but you did well." Others will show up to tell an employee what they are doing wrong.

The best customers are those in banks. Since your handling people's money few try to get on your bad side.

My biggest problem is a messy store with no selection and no one to help you. Also notice how the cheaper the store the clearer it is to see security features? Do we really need an uniformed security guard at the entrance of Target? Also try to return items to a cheap chain store compared to a fine department store. I worked in both. A fine department store you walk up to the area where brought the items 2 minutes later you got your money back. In cheaper store you stand in this big line which make you feel like you stole something.

[Isamu Atreides 86]

i vote for a tie between Target and Circuit city. last week, looking for ESPN NFL 2K5, both stores were complete asses in trying to help out. neither wanted to help me out, nor did they want to let me know when the game would be back in stock. when i asked for a damned raincheck, both stores refused to give one. to hell with them. i went to Best Buy, and they had the damned thing there. not a big deal for a 19.99 game, but damn it, i have spent some serious cash buying TV's, and other big ticket things there, it sucks to know it don't mean poo in the way they deal with you.

[Ladic]

Brandsmart, Crappy Broken Products, even worse customer Service.

[Ladic]

I bought a DVD/VCR Combo Player in Brandsmart, and when I hooked it up it had lousy picture and some weird lines across the screen while Watching DVD's, and the player (panasonic) didn't even come with A/V Cable, just one of those lousy cable that go RF cables, so when I went to return the player, they didn't want to take it back because they said I had lost the A/V Cable, so I opened the Player Manual and showed them that it didn't even come with that cable listed, and they were still mad because they couldn't understand how the player could come without it.

Needles to say they are a bunch of idiots that don't know what they hell they sell.

[Solscud007]

As an ex-patriot of Best Buy i.e former employee I can say customer service blows unless you work for Best Buy and have a friend in both Customer Service and Tech Support (the place you take you things when it needs to be fixed)

[Max Jenius]

My vote is for WalMart, Best Buy, CompUSA and the local chain 2 Geeks.

2 Geeks because the OWNER was out talking out of his ass. Trying to peddle his overpriced swag.

WalMart generally has stores that look like my room... messy. I like Fred Meyer/Kroger(though Kroger is starting to ruin Freddies with their Kroger-ness) because they have for the most part goods in neatly arranged rows(I know Freddies up here does this, because I did it all last summer lol)

Anyway, as a geek... it pisses me off when salespeople try to lie to me or talk out of their ass. But I have no problems sending them away, usually I just say "Just browsing(regardless of what I'm actually doing)" or "No, I'll come find you if I have any questions."

That usually sends em packing.

[areaseven]

my biggest problem with frys is thatt they don't hire people who speak english.

Wow. I thought the Burbank branch was the only one with that kind of problem. Looks like I'll stick with Obi-Wan Kenobi's thoughts on Fry's:

"You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."

[Global]

Wow. I thought the Burbank branch was the only one with that kind of problem.

I hate that Burbank Fry's too. My wife always makes fun of me because every time I leave that store I say I'm never going back.

[Limbo]

Best Buy sells used gear as new. I had problems with virtually every piece of equipment purchased there.

And don't get me started on CompUSA....

[eugimon]

oh man, if you're going to talk about selling return stuff, look no further than Fry's... no lie, they have shelves where every freaking unit of a particular item is an opened return... (my local fry's in fountain valley, CA)

the service there is also amazingly bad... but for a while tolerable because they had some pretty cute girls working there...

[Jolly Rogers]

Do we really need an uniformed security guard at the entrance of Target?

There's a Target near where I live, it's the newest one in the area but often I see a police car parked near the entrance and you know the cops are in that little "hidden" room near the customer service area where they detain shoplifters.

[areaseven]

Do we really need an uniformed security guard at the entrance of Target?

I'm actually down with having guards at Target. In the Philippines, even the nearest McDonalds and Pizza Huts have guards on duty.

[Dat Pinche Haro!]

this is exactly why i don't bother asking about anything at any store...except bestbuy...they're not as big of pricks there...i usually bring a friend who knows what some stuff is...i don't really need help, unless it's about music or dvds...besides that i'm pretty good on my own