Opinion: Beware of Best Buy In-Home Service Plans!
An opinion piece from me after my continuing horrible experience with Best Buy service... Don't buy in-home service plans from Best Buy!
On a side note: It sure is getting difficult to get service today. With Call Centers being our only recourse as customers, there's not much we can do except grin and bear it. If they say they can't do anything, we really are out of luck for the most part. The stores just point you to their "customer service" telephone number. But if the person on the other end of the line, who has been trained to evade helping you get more than they want to give you, you're done - you have to do what they say. Look at the America Online fiasco. If you haven't seen their tactics for avoiding customer service, rather they just try to sell you more services instead of helping you (those are called WINs), you should take a look at that here.
I need to warn my readers about Best Buy's service plans. I know it's a bit off topic, but I want to make sure you don't get duped like I have. The only option you get when you need service is to talk to a live person, which normally would be a good thing. But not with Best Buy.
Intro to story: I had four appointments, all but one canceled on the day of the appointment by Best Buy, or their outside service firm,
Top Tech. No excuse other than "death in the family." I feel horrible for the technician they keep assigning to me, really.
So the first appointment was set up, but then their system "went down." (why is software so buggy these days that it goes down all the time?) They said they'd call me back to confirm my appointment in 24-48 hours. Of course, no call. When I called back, they set up the first of the four appointments. They called me later in the day to tell me that appointment had been canceled and rescheduled for the next day.
The next day (Tuesday) came and they called that morning and canceled and scheduled it for Wednesday. The technician had a death in the family.
Wednesday came and they called and canceled the appointment and scheduled it for Thursday. Apparently that technician also had a death in the family.
So I called back and asked to talk with a supervisor. His name was Tony (x151225). His supervisor's name is Bea, but she's not allowed to talk to me directly unless she calls me back, again within 24-48 hours. I'm not expecting a phone call.
Tony says the only thing he can do is schedule me for next Tuesday. So now I've lost about two weeks on my brand new 65" television set that didn't work right when they delivered it.
Oops.
So I suggest you save your money next time you go to Best
Buy and are deciding whether to buy an in-home service plan. I imagine their
Product Replacement Plans for the PSP are still fine, though, since you’re not
stuck talking to someone in a call center who isn’t obligated to help you.
I can only imagine that if you work on an hourly basis that calling in three days in a row might get you fired... apparently they don't appreciate that at Best Buy...
FYI!
Best,
-Auri