Wayne and Erika Pfeiler

I'm displeased with Best Buy. I used to like their PSP cellphone replacement plans, since they were so simple to use.

The way they used to work is this:
1) Your phone dies, etc.
2) You go to a Best Buy store and show it to them.
3) They give you a credit (purchase price of broken phone) toward buying a brand new (and usually better) phone.
4) You buy a new phone and activate it.

That sure was great. So last time I bought a phone there, I bought a replacement plan for it. To my suprise and disappointment, about 9 monthas ago they changed the way it works/sucks:

Here's how it works now:
1) Your phone breaks.
2) You call 1-888-best-buy.
3) You talk to a well-mannered but slow person in India, and explain the nature of your phone's trouble. They try to weasle out of replacing it by asking if you dropped it, or if there's damage to the outside, or the lcd is broken, etc (not in my case).
4) They agree to replace your phone with an identical refurbished phone, no upgrades allowed.
5) They Fed-Ex you the replacement phone, and you get it in 3 days.
6) You get the new phone, activate it.
7) You mail the old broken phone back to them in a pre-paid mailer.

The no-upgrade, refurb phone part made me mad. I also had trouble around step 6 above. Activating a phone should be simple, right? Hah!

So I call Sprint, and speak with a nice American guy who tries to activate my phone, but can't. He says the ESN # is the trouble. It hasn't been marked stolen or anything, and it's a good phone, but it's been labeled to a private Best Buy account, and I must get them to do something to activate the phone. Well crap, 25 minutes on the phone wasted.

So I call 1-888-best-buy. I tell them my PSP #, ESN #, and all my troubles, and that I'm very irritated about it. The well-mannered but unhelpful Indian man on the phone keeps me on hold 15 minutes while he talks to Sprint about the problem. Then he puts me back on the line. Apparently, the Best Buy warehouse people didn't mark that ESN as assignable, and NOBODY can activate it. I must now return the new phone and wait for another replacement phone with a hopefully good ESN. I tell him how irrritated I am at this, and how I feel they should give me something in return for all my trouble and waiting again for a new phone because of their mistake. He says no dice, the best they can do is replace my phone again as he said. Another 25 minutes on the phone gone forever, and 3 more days until a new phone.

This waiting for the new phone bothers me. I was told by the first Indian man that I would need to buy a new PSP for the replacement phone before the old PSP expires. If I don't, the new PSP would cost much more. My current PSP is about to expire, so I'm probably screwed. I'm not sure if I'd even want a new PSP at this point, with as much trouble as I've had, but still!

So yes, I'm upset at Best Buy. I cc'd a close copy of this entry to their customer support people to see what they might do for me. I'll let you know.