By now you probably know that I am someone with a few axes to grind. I will admit that I am just a little to the right of Darth Vader when it comes to people and companies messing with me.
I thought about that recently when I realized that it is going on well over six years since I have done business with a certain retailer that specializes in electronics. I am a big fan of anagrams, so I could say that the letters in this company’s and could be rearranged to spell “Bust Bye”.
Here’s what happened. On January 20th, 2010, I walked into their local store and bought an all-in-one touch-screen computer. As I walked up to the counter to check out, the department manager was there and I clearly heard him tell the clerk to make sure she added the three-year service agreement to the purchase. I didn’t think too much of it, since with electronics it is probably not a bad idea to get a service contract, so I let it slide. The computer was a great machine and worked extremely well, at least until January 10th, 2013. That day, it went dead, as in nothing happened when I pushed the power button. So, I gathered up my paperwork and took it to the store to see what could be done. They looked it up in their system and said, “no problem we will take care of it”, or words to that effect. They had to send it off to a regional repair facility to get it working and when it came back they said that they had to replace the mother board. They had me start it up and log on to check that everything was working, and other than a little slowness that I figured would clear up when I got it home and plugged in to my network it seemed to be working fine.
I should also point out that I had briefly considered renewing the service contract, but decided that I had probably gotten best possible outcome from the deal, particularly if I got even a couple more years of use from that computer. As near as I can remember, no one from the store ever asked me if I wanted to renew the contract.
Well, you can probably guess what happened. About three and a half weeks later the computer started to flake out and lock up. I wasn’t thrilled about having to pack it up and go back to the store (which is located all the way across town, about a 15-mile drive, which is a long way to go even when in a good mood), so I tried to convince myself that it would straighten itself out in a day or two. Well, it soon became apparent that wasn’t going to happen so I called them to see what they could tell me about the problem. What they told me is that after 30 days, they don’t warrantee replacement parts. I guess they don’t buy the best components. (Are you picking up the subtle irony there?)
Well, a few days later, I got a gift from the corporate office in the form of an email asking for my evaluation of their service. So at least I got the satisfaction of telling them that the snow will fly in hell before I will make a purchase from them again. Over the years since I have not set foot in one of their stores, clicked on their website or even opened their newspaper ad. Did I mention you don’t mess with me? Based on a cursory examination of the computers, peripherals, software and DVD’s I had purchased there over the years, I would say a conservative estimate would be around $250 a year in purchases that I have taken elsewhere.
Now, I’m not saying that they deliberately installed a faulty part knowing that it would crap out about the time I was off their books. I’m just saying that their lack of willingness to stand behind a $100 component cost them around $1000 in lost sales. I apologize for the inconvenience.
