Boycott Best Buy

Best Buy used to be my favorite place to purchase dvds. No more. I used to really enjoy drifting up and down the aisles slowly reading all the titles and selecting (I'll be honest) eight or nine at a time. However. Best Buy sucks. Therefore I am no longer going to do any purchasing of anything there ever again, no matter how convenient. Here's why:

I bought a digital camera (really). You may recall the nightmare of phone calls and double-crosses I had to get through to purchase my digital camera: (jog your memory). You may also recall I was compelled to buy retail at Best Buy, which was really just a continuation of that nightmare: (come again). But Now, now I see the final chapter, the culmination of what undoubtedly took years of hard work to devise and implement. Best Buy corporate must have a chapter in their business statement called "how to screw the consumer you've already screwed over at least once." Probably right after the chapter on hiring customer service representatives who could not complete the GED requirements.

I used my Best Buy credit card at the time of purchase. I accepted their offer of zero interest for six months, and planned to pay the balance within a few weeks time. I discovered very soon after making my purchase that the balance can be paid over the phone through an automated 800 number. Excellent, I appreciate automated billing, it makes things easy. Call up, punch in some numbers, the pound sign (aside: the tic-tac-toe board-looking symbol on the bottom right key of your keypad is sometimes called an octothorpe). So, I called the number.

I was informed, via automated voice girl, that I would need the invoice number, printed on my billing statement, to access the system. To that point I had not received a statement. Very well, I shall wait, after all I've got six months.

Yesterday I received my first statement. First statement. Much to my surprise I saw not only the charge for my digital camera which I covered with their stupid Best Buy credit card, but, but, also an eleven dollar late fee. WTF, my dear readers, wtf. They've charged me a late fee before sending me the first bill. Strange? Yes. Disputable? Yes. Only the begining? Yes.

Because now that I have an invoice number I can call the automated system, pay the balance (dispute the late fee) and be done with the whole affair. Well GUESS WHAT. The lovely, quick, automated system CHARGES A FEE TO PROCESS YOUR PAYMENT w. t. f. [should be read as a menacing whisper] w.t.f.

So my options are these:
1. hang up, write out a check, buy a stamp, send the check, get charged one or possibly two more unfounded late fees, call customer service (repeatedly) to dispute said late fees, and drag this on for months.

2. stay on the line, pay the balance (not the late fee, possible not the processing fee) save the fight with customer service for another day

3. pay the whole damn thing. bastards.

I chose option two. Because come on. There's no way I'm paying the late fee, because you never told me when my first payment was due. I think it's really an ingenious little scheme. Don't tell the consumer he's late until it's too late, and then charge him. Bastards.

Now the processing fee is just a whole 'nother mind game. Another ingenious scheme: Offer the consumer an easy, fast, pain-free way to pay off his enormous credit card balance, and then charge him for it. Bastards. Oh, and then confuse him.

Confuse me? Yes. Because after agreeing to the processing fee, and agreeing to leave it on my balance (to be disputed at a future date), as I exited out of the automated system the pleasant female voice kindly reminded me that there was a fee for using the system. wtf? Is that the processing fee I've already agreed to or are you naming another hidden fee, just to call up your stupid bill-pay hotline missy? Cuz that ain't happenin'. If you're saying I now have to dispute three bogus charges I may skip the phone call altogether, fly down to Best Buy HQ in Carolina to formally denounce the corporation and formally announce a boycott. Which I'm doing anyway. But if I have to fly down there I'm going to kick it into high gear. I'm talking rallies, pickets, rioting, the works. Charge me a late fee? I'll kick your ass.

-Tom
recommended download:
Barenaked Ladies , Life, In A Nutshell
and
Weezer, Don't Let Go