Whoa really, so you mean they profile?? That's nuts...

There are policys on someone slipping and falling...so yes if you brought you opened DVD back to return it and you fell.....Id fire the Employee....write all your info down....let the higher ups handle you....and not return your opened DVD...

BUT

What your talking about has nothing to do with you returning an open DVD to a store when EVERY store has the same policy.....you open you dont return...

Merchandise Credit is crap....its making you spend money in the store....big woop.

Fact is you cant return an open DVD or game for anything other then the same DVD....and no there is no way around this....want proof?

Go buy a DVD right now and return it opened......I bet you wont be able to....just saying....

This is one policy that you wont get around...

Again I work in retail and we will bend over backwards for a guest in the store, but again this is a big no, no....next time read....look for Blue Ray Symbol....and dont get mad if you open a game or DVD and dont want it when you get home.

Im done....

If they're being rude or inconsiderate on purpose, be even nicer to them. It'll really piss them off, or they may realise they're being asses and adjust their attitudes accordingly.

For one, there is no US law stating that opened media cannot be returned to the original point of purchase for return or exchange. If there is, show me. Because I haven't found it.

However, I am not denying the fact that most stores have a policy either prohibiting or at least limiting that action. My point is that it is not because there is an actual law against it. The policy is designed to protect the stores against fraud and piracy.

As far as the re-sale of used media is concerned, it falls under the first-sale doctrine, which is a legal exception to the copyright laws of the US.

There is some legal confusion to this exception with regard to computer software, as the EULA (end-user license agreement) included with most copies of software attempt to circumvent the exception by prohibiting resale. Most have some statement to the effect of saying the consumer is buying a license or "right-to-use", not purchasing the copy itself. Therefore ownership cannot be legally transferred without prior consent of the original copyright owner(s).

But that doesn't apply to the resale of video games, DVDs or CDs. Not to mention that the copyright owner must prove you knowingly agreed to the EULA before purchase, otherwise the EULA is unenforcable.

They accept games, movies, CDs and used electronics, among other things.

BestBuy.com Trade-in Center

And as I've shown, it is perfectly legal to do it.

Then I issue a challenge....go to a store (Any) with a cam and buy a DVD, Game, BR and return it opened.....get it all on camara....pick whatever store you like and prove your words will bypass a huge No, No....

Smooth talk them anyway you can and show me that it can be done.....

Extra points for doing it in as many stores as you can.....

I bet not one with the product being opened will return them except for the same thing....


Ill bet my entire MU collection you cant.....

I never said the stores would accept it. I just said it was legal.

In fact, I thought I was quite clear that stores do have a policy against it and why.

As I said, parallel conversations.

Bump...may solidify your reasoning not to shop at BB.

Best Buy Shoppers Find Black Friday Deals Unreliable - Yahoo! Finance

Would it help our back and forth conversation if I completely changed my position and argued that it wasn't Best Buy's policy to refuse opened dvd returns?

Brilliant. Another reason why Black Friday deals cannot tempt me anymore. But I'm sure Classified will have a fun time reading that article. Especially around the 4th or 5th full paragraph.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say no, it wouldn't.

They wouldn't be able to do something similar for me because I opened my dvd.:D

Look I hate BB....HATE them....but no store....I mean no major chain will do it.

Anyhoo it was fun...

I don't mean to burst Spacemafia's bubble but Wal-Mart did give me a refund for an opened DVD once. Here's what happened:

I had a playback issue when I purchased the 20th anniversary Caddyshack on DVD as the disc would freeze and numerous pixels would appear right about where the dual layer switch occurred. I returned the opened movie twice for an exchange after encountering the problem in the same exact spot on two discs. After my third time returning the item to the store due to the same issue the manager nicely agreed to refund the purchase price back on to my CC.

Later on that week, I purchased Caddyshack from Circuit City and there were no problems with the playback on that disc. Therefore I can only conclude the problem was the Wal-Mart where I had originally bought Caddyshack must have received a defective shipment of Caddyshack DVD's as no cleaning procedure was performed on my DVD player.

Opened movie returns do happen. However, in Classified's case I think the store was justified in refusing a refund as he obviously made an error with his purchase.

Nope not bursting my bubble....You had an issue which showed by the 2 other times.....

Class was atfault....your merchandise was at fault...

He did indeed burst your bubble because he received a refund for an opened dvd which goes against the policy you keep refering too.

By this logic, had I lied and said my dvd was damaged I could have gotten a refund.

Off topic but Best Buy's cousin Future Shop isnt much better.

Heres my 2 cents:

Went to Best Buy the other day to pick up Jurassic Park Trilogy on Blu-Ray since it is on promotion for 34.99$. When we got the store (my gf and I) I went off looking at the other blurays that they had on promotion. When she found it I went and checked the price on the scanner. It rang up at 39.99$. I got excited. Went and checked where my gf found it and there was a price tag at 34.99$. I went to find a manager. Found one. Asked what there policy was on wrong priced items. He told me that they would have to sell it to me at 24.99$ (34.99$ - 10.00$ because of the wrong price). So I showed the manager the price, he told me no problem. Never really checked what I had in my hands, just saw that it was jurassic park. Went to the cash, paid the 24.99$ plus tax... Got home, opened it up... Shit. I had bought the DVD version, not the bluray... damn it.. Well since I wasnt going to try to return the DVD since it was open, Im cutting my loss.

I got a 50$ gift card for Future Shop from my work for christmas. Well since Future Shop does not have the Bluray on special I wanted them to do a price match... Found a worker, asked him for a price match. He went on Best Buy.ca and checked the price. Then went and called them. in the mean time he was tapping and playing with the box for the movie... a few minutes later he came over to me and said "I would like to price match but with it being boxing day week I normaly am not allowed but I needed to speak with best buy first to make sure that they do not have it in stock. Because if they have it in stock I would send you to them. If they didn't then I would reduce the price and sell it to you. But since I cannot reash them I cannot do the price match"

WTF.

To all you Best Buy hater's out there:P

Why Best Buy is destined to fail - 1 - Online retailers - MSN Money

You know that sales pitch thing is EXACTLY what Circuit City clerks did. We all know how that worked out for them.
That just drives the customers away. :rolleyes:

I'd have just offered to be part of their focus group.


Seriously though, one of the biggest things that irks me has to do with how many of these places (hardly just limited to Best Buy) seem to make it a point to have their staff as ill-informed as possible. Now, this is of course from the customer end, but more times than not, I haven't found the employees physically being the problem, but rather how little training & support their given from management & of course corporate. Then when it comes to asking for policies, they rarely even have stuff in the store for you to read, so they give you a phone number to call... which often ends up with you being intentionally dicked around for the sake of making you give up.

I remember when I was a kid, and I first broke into retail, I used to get these questions from customers all the time, and thinking that customers must think that there is some kind of big meeting before every shift where all employees are given every bit of information they could possibly need to answer that customer's specific question.

While I can't speak specifically of Best Buy, per say, from a Walmart Stanpoint how the management tends to do things ends up with uninformed employees.
Walmart tends to move employees around constantly. Often to departments they really have little to no business being in.
For instance, one of our cake decorators got promoted and randomly placed as the supervising manager over Auto.
One of our gardencenter guys was constantly being pulled and put over into produce, or meat.
On Walmart's level, that tends to result in employees who really don't know much about anything. Combined with the fact that customers do not distinguish one department from the next. And if they catch you walking by somewhere (On your way to clock in, clock out, find a manager, whatever reason), they expect you to know everything about the area they're in, which just is not possible in these megaretail stores.
I never pretended to know anything about what they were asking,a nd I was all too happy to find someone who did and bring them over (Made customers happy, and most usually understood). But a lot of managers don't like that.

So, I can't imagine that Best Buy is *too* different in that they're probably moving people around constantly.

And from a retail employee's standpoint, everything Classified said feels absolutely true.

Speaking as someone who used to work in retail, I made it a point to try to be as informed as I could be on the products I was selling. The customers who came in the store I worked at sought me out for advice because they knew I wouldn't BS them on items they were interested in buying.

Were you 15 and a stock boy at K-Mart?

I completely agree with this statement. I worked in retail for 3 years 10 years ago and WOW, the level of customer service is really fell off. I would love seeing a customers face when I could find exactly what they were looking for and knew what I was selling them, that was part of the reason I worn so many hats in that store.

Anyway, one of the policies I can remember was the one on opened media. Even exchange for the same EXACT product. No gift card, no refund, nada. I had plenty of people get pissed when they tried this and I told them that. Otherwise, their return policy otherwise was pretty lax.

I don't believe the policy has changed in any store but, I could be wrong. It is what it is.

avoid best buy
 

im with you. bro. i have had a few probs with these guys over the years too. i wont go there at all. they are unorganized, have lousy service and most of the managers act like they are doing you a favor. theres other places to buy from.

Yeah, I was always like this too when I worked in Crappy Tire (especially since part of my job involved working as a parts person as well as "everything else"), but damn it was still a beast on most days.

Not exactly, but I did have a somewhat similar job. I worked in a movie theater and both kids and teachers would ask me what my opinions were on movies that were playing at that time. We also had to prep food and drink, run the cash register and clean up after the theater closed for the evening.

I never once showed up to a job just to collect a paycheck. Every job I've had I've done to the best of my ability, even if the workplace was less than desirable to work at.

Same here. And you know you're appreciated when the same people come back to the store you work at and ask for you to get your input on whatever product is sold in the store.

I agree that the level of customer service has fallen off in recent years at brick-and-mortar stores. And it's gotten to the point that it's pretty pathetic in my opinion.

From what I've observed the opened media policy is still the same. However, there are some exceptions that do occur as I've previously mentioned.