Best Buy Vita BS

[The 1 2 P]

Be warned: angry rant ahead.

So, I preordered (and paid $325 for) a Playstation Vita from Best Buy in early November. I did this with the intention of receiving the console on release day. Turns out that some time after this Best Buy (or Sony) had a pre-order offer where you could walk into the store, put down a $5 deposit, and get your system on Valentine's day. I was NEVER notified of this, and never given an opportunity to take advantage of this offer. I had no idea about it. I figure that if I spend $325 on a product, they should keep me notified of things like this.

So for some reason I can pick up my preordered Wipeout game tonight, and I go in there and ask the big question: where is my console? They basically look in the computer and concretely and robotically told me it'll be fulfilled on 2/22. I talk to everybody, a manager, online customer service...NO ONE can explain to me why, when I ordered the product before all the people who took advantage of this offer, I get it a week later than them. Not to mention that pretty much 100% of the people I talked to about this were rude and dismissive to me about it. The manager just said "sorry about that." He had no intention of explaining any of this to me. He was basically telling me to fuck off. Hell, if they'd at least have sincerely said "wow, that really sucks. That is bullshit." or something to that affect, it probably would have diffused me. But they had no intention of putting ANY brainpower into this or making ANY attempt to assess the justice of the situation. They were perfectly happy with me leaving the store pissed off.

I'm going to call customer relations tomorrow. If they can't get me a console ASAP or comp me on something, I'm not shopping there anymore. I pay WAY too much for stuff, deal with new releases arriving in me mailbox a week after release date, and put up with lines and clueless sales staff all because I'm a premier member and I get cash rewards there. You'd think that since I've been spending thousands of dollars a year there for some time, they'd want to take care of me.

Okay, whew, that's off my chest.

So, anybody else pissed at them?

G

If they don't help you out after calling customer relations cancel your preorder, get your money back and get the system somewhere else.

That's some rewards program they've got too, $5 off for every $400 you spend. As soon as you save up enough points for a coupon it's issued immediately and has an expiry date, you can't save up your points like with every other rewards program in existence.

I'm a premiere silver member, which basically means I'm a Rewards Zone member with a credit card. It doesn't take $400 to get a $5 gift card, it takes 250 points. When you use you credit card you get double points and they also run several promotions wehre you can get triple points or some amount of bonus points. So I could spend $125 and get that $5 off coupon or only spend around $70 or $80 while taking advantage of their many deals. You will be hard pressed to find other rewards programs from electronics stores offering you a similiar or better deal. And for the record, I can save up my points and issue them when ever I like. But again, I realize that you are talking about non-premiere members.

But their program is one of the best ones I've seen. The worst is Toys R Us. They issue your certificates immediately and you have a mere two weeks to use it before it expires. On top of that atrocity you are not allowed to use your certificates on any video games, consoles or accessories even though thats what I used to get the certificates in the first place. Best Buy lets you use them on almost anything in the store besides gift cards and a few other things. And the certificates are valid for atleast 3-5 months so you aren't rushed to use them like TRU.