Once upon a Best Buy, in a sealed Western Digital VelociRaptor 250GB150GB drive box, there lived an ancient 30GB drive called a Quantum Fireball, from Maxtor. It sounds like the beginning to a really nerdy fairy tale, where maybe the Fireball ends up outperforming the Raptor, but no. It’s more of a corporate ripoff story. The poor guy this happened to was told he could return it, then told he couldn’t, then told it was Western Digital’s problem, then told it was Best Buy’s problem. So he’s going to make it everybody’s problem except his by filing a police report and having the charge reversed. Good for you, guy.
The story at the Consumerist notes that the only way to be sure is to open your product at the store. I’ll tell you what, considering what people have found inside Best Buy boxes (my college roommate found pubes in his surround sound setup), I’m going to take that advice, but only when I shop there. I’d go to Fry’s, but those jokers set up 80 miles away in Renton.
Renton.
These kinds of shenanigans are what happens when there’s a lack of competition.
Here’s to hoping that CompUSA’s relaunch goes well, and/or Fry’s goes national.
I just wanted to state that this stuff happens because of theft, not someone trying to play a joke. Stuff like this happens when someone buys an item, takes it and then puts an item of similar weight in the box and then returns it. Sometimes people are able to not damage the seal when they do this, so retailers don’t catch the problem. Its customers causing this not best buy.
I once had a hard drive given to me for Christmas that had been purchased at Best Buy by my wife. I thanked her kindly, and then took the receipt and returned it. I then went online and bought two of the same drive for the same amount.
Moral of the story: You’re getting ripped off even if the correct product is in the box. Don’t let this happen to you. Shop online for computer parts.
Whenever I venture in there I like to entertain myself by looking at the prices for the “latest” in video card technology.
Personally, I’ve never been a fan of Best Buy. I guess I happen to be in the minority of geeks that actually miss Circuit City. :-(
I don’t love Best Buy (too expensive) but I sure don’t miss CC (dungeon like stores, and too many workers that didn’t know what they were talking about).
This is exactly why I am not going to shop at Best Buy anymore. They treat their customers like crap.
a quantum drive in a “sealed” WD box? what was best buy supposed to think, this dude was trying to rip off best buy is probably what they were thinking. imagine if you owned a business and somebody tried to return something with the wrong product in the box. would you return it? no. if anything it must have been WD’s fault, how is it best buy’s fault again? retarded.
Do you really believe WD would be putting other manufactures hard drives into their boxes so they can make a bigger profit? I for one find that a bit far fetched. It would be too risky for a large company to do something like that for a quick buck. “Sealed” box… I’m sure it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how to re-apply some tape that seals those boxes (at least the one I bought last month). If I had to guess, one of the underpaid employees at Best Buy (or someone in their supply chain) is running their own little eBay business on the side by switching out hard drives. Should Best Buy return it? Probably not agreeing with the previous poster but that is why you buy things on credit so you can cancel it and report it to the BBB or just stop going to stores who value their financial figures and not their customer’s satisfaction.
in the same regard some little worker at WD could be doing the same thing, point being it is speculation. you kidding me? and it was sealed??? im sure everyone the geek squad is just a cover company that just takes pieces out of old computers and switches them out for new in box products…lol. come on, let’s be serious and stop making stuff up off the top of your head and saying that is probably what happened.
To be honest, WD likely has machine automation that determines if the weight of the package is correct before packing it into a shipping container. This is 99.9% a waste-of-life Best Buy employee who either wanted the drive for themselves and switched it with what they had (which I think I would plug in that drive and see what’s on it) or sold it on ebay. Sorry alexander but almost almost all signs point towards Best Buy being the culprit.
this was absolutely a Best Buy employee. when i worked at BB, we would do stuff like this all the time. it’s easy to seal product back up. when you’re paid $9/hr, you get creative to take advantage…
yeah probably not. 99.9% this is a made up story, considering there isnt a 250gb raptor drive. and the dude had a old drive, put that old drive in and kept going with the story that it was in the box “sealed” lol. what a joke. best buy has cameras everywhere in there stores, it is not likely. but keep going on thinking it is. and i guess it is the ideals you have are the ideals that are putting retail stores out of business. keep buying stuff online, im sure people love unemployment, and would love to just buy stuff online and wait for shipping, when you can just go and have them price match most of the things. and then you can complain when there are no retail stores to go to and you can only wait and order stuff online. but oh well.
@alexander
I’m just going to assume that you are some piece of the Best Buy spin machine or a gigantic moron. I can tell you that it is easy as pie to shoplift from either the back or front of the store. And trust me… it’s probably pretty easy if you cut the dude who is also making minimum wage that watches the cameras an extra $25 or $50.
Fry’s out in Renton isn’t that far. Tho the Best Buy at Northgate refused to pricematch Fry’s because they ‘weren’t local’. Haven’t shopped at BB since, the rat bastards.
BestBuy is the worst place to shop at. I like to shop online, you can find better deals.
In the midst of all the finger pointing, I wonder if anyone has tried looking on the drive to see if there is any data that would truly point out the culprit? I’d wager there is something recoverable on there.
The VR WD 10000 rpm drive does not come in 250Gb.
74, 150, and 300 only.
To be exact the Veloci-raptors only come in 300G. The previous were just called WD Raptors, no Veloci in the name…
consumerist is trash, so I wouldn’t be so quick to believe it.
i love this post, Really
Where the hell is Renton?
Like everyone should know.
Cuba, it’s in Cuba…
Was it a brand new quantum fireball?? if not maybe the guys was just lying. I mean im not a fan of bestbuy but if it was factory sealed with tape and whole nine yards, how the hell did it get in there. Its he said she said, this wouldnt even make it to judge judy.
geesh, you are right i guess. everyone is super psyched about stealing stuff at best buy. i guess i wouldnt know. but it sure does seem to me that being a customer it would be easier to steal stuff, being able to take it home, open, take an old drive, put it in the box, take it back, and proceed. rather than an employee bringing a drive in, grabbing a new one off the shelf, finding a place where there is no one around, no cameras and then replacing the new drive with the old one, then sealing it back up like it was new placing the old one on the shelf then trying to get the stolen drive out of the store. i would just assume since the first choice is much easier that it would be more likely, but dont take my word for it, think what you will….wrong or not.
I’ve stopped shopping at BB all together. They care nothing for the customer and employees are encourage to flat out lie to sell product. Everything I could ever get at BB, I can often find online for the same price or better. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were the next to go under.
A “sealed” box means nothing. All stores have shrink-wrap in the back. All of them. It is a trivial matter to open up packages and re-seal them to a perfect, “factory” state.
They sell cheap home units, too, that do the same thing. We used them ourselves in our home office.
I know employees who used to do this with software all the time. They’d slit open packages, rip and burn them right there on the “display” PCs, and then package it up again and put it on the shelf.
An employee could have stolen something and swapped the drive. Easily. But I find this unlikely- the swap is pointless when you’re already inside. They’d just take the drive and toss the box or report it stolen.
Another customer could have done the swap himself then returned the “sealed” box. They resealed it themselves. No questions would be asked, and they wouldn’t cut the packaging open to check. It “felt” the right weight, and the box was sealed. They refund the money and put it back on the shelf. Next guy buys it and gets screwed.
We’ve also had customers swap parts. “Oh, hey… I bought this DDR2 from you and it somehow had these old PC-133s in the neigh-bulletproof plastic bubble! I demand a refund!”
I’ve seen it happen each way, so it is hard to say who I’d believe.
Same exact thing happened to me at Best Buy. I hate their stores and will avoid them at all costs.
I bought a DVD burner, went home. Opened it and found a 10 year old SCSI cd-rom drive.
I think nothing of it and go back to return it.
I dealt with them for 30 minutes and the return manager basically said to fuck off.
So i called corporate and they did nothing. Then I called the BBB. 3 months later I get a Best Buy gift card in the mail, saying that its still my fault but they’ll give me a refund out of the goodness of their hearts.
Fuck them.
LOL it’s still your fault but were giving you a gift card anyways. thats great for a company to say to a customer heres what it should have said.
Dear BEST BUY customer were heard you have a problem returning an item at one of our stores. please take this gift card as our apologies.
sincerely BEST BUY employee number 2202 ( ok that was a joke )