STAY AWAY FROM BUSLINK and yes I AM SHOUTING!!!

[liteonrules]

I bought a buslink dvd burner at COMPUSA in MARCH w/ two rebates and i have not gotten them back. I made two phone calls and they told me to leave a message and they will get back to me but it's been two weeks and no phone call back and at the same time i e-mailed them and again no response. i have a feeling that i will not get by rebates. i will never buy BUSLINK and i should of listen to all of the forums but didn't.
COMPUSA is no help either, they told that they can't do anything for me and that's not the first time COMPUSA did not help with rebate problems

STAPLES gave me cash back at the store when i did not get my rebate.

i will now stay away from BUSLINK and COMPUSA and i will make sure that i can make them LOSE atleast 50 customers, one customer per dollar they owe me

[hoxlund]

see certain staples stores really take care of our customers

[burninfool]

Yeah BUSLink sucks...they still owe me $20 from 3/03 for a rebadged Lite-On.
I'll never buy a BUSLink product again.
BTW...I bought the drive at Circuit City.

[Justin42]

Last time I had a Buslink problem (Which was the last time I will EVER buy Buslink), I filed 2 reports with the BBB and actually got my rebate-- as a handwritten money order from a local check cashing place!!! It was too funny. I think I scanned it somewhere. But I DID get the money after about a year.

So either go to the store and complain, or file reports with the BBB...

[CowboySlim]

Very interesting article about those of us that "cherry pick" and only show up to buy those items on sale at heavily discounted prices and rebates. It seems as though BestBuy is sick of us and wants to get rid of us as customers. See the business section of today's LATimes.

Slim

[Ian]

Here's the article Slim mentioned. It makes me want to cut up my Reward Zone card.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... DT0564.DTL

I try not to shop at CompUSA in general, especially if there is a rebate (or two) involved.

[pchilson]

Very interesting article about those of us that "cherry pick" and only show up to buy those items on sale at heavily discounted prices and rebates. It seems as though BestBuy is sick of us and wants to get rid of us as customers. See the business section of today's LATimes.

Slim

Hey, nobody is pouring hot cider up their....wait wrong quote...
Hey, nobody is forcing them to run the sales, they could just ask "retail" and then lose the business that way...

[dolphinius_rex]

I know all too well how the people of bestbuy feel on this one.... I'm not saying how they are dealing with it is right though!

My preferred way of dealing with it is more along the lines of:

"Oh look, here's a list of our 3 largest competitors... now how did that get stuck to your invoice??"

[hoxlund]

ok not to be putting down anyone here, but in our store its the Indian (indonesian), arabian people that start to irritate me

it seems its always them who try to rape the store

again no offense to anyone here, just happens to be that way in my area

[wicked1]

I got ripped off by Buslink too. I bought my liteon 52246S for $79 with $50 of rebates. I got the $20 circuit city rebate but never received the $30 rebate from Buslink.

[burninfool]

So either go to the store and complain, or file reports with the BBB...

I e-mailed BUTTLink twice...no response,then I e-mailed Circuit City...no response,I finally reported both of them to the BBB...no response.

[kevincott]

I never recieved rebats from a Buslink cd-rw and have not considered them since.

I have noticed BBuy not wanting to honor the warranty they pushed on my girlfriend while buying her cell phone.

I still like the store but am a bit upset with the policy of pushing 'warranties' until they are actually used.

[UALOneKPlus]

Some people never learn...

We knew Buslink had horrible rebate processor for some time now... maybe over a year now?

Do a search on Buslink...

[Shredder]

BUTTLink

The best name I've heard for CompUSA is CompUSSR, and WorstBuy for BestBuy.

[pranav81]

The best name I've heard for CompUSA is CompUSSR, and WorstBuy for BestBuy.

LOL.


::Pranav::

[digitaldoc]

While I sympathize with the experiences presented, I will say that I did receive my rebate check from Buslink when I bought a cdrw. The drive ended up costing me $25 after rebates for a LiteOn 52246S. However, that was from Staples, and I think CompUSA may be worse.

I'm sure the stores wish they could just stop the whole rebate game, but unfortunately for all of us, it's here to stay. BestBuy should realize that we shop within needs and budgets, and that not every customer is going to spend a ton of money because some salesman with a "geek zone" t-shirt spends 5 minutes on a product recommendation.

[LoneWolf]

I don't buy based on rebates. Ever. They are often not processed by the company whose product you are buying, placing you at the mercy of some fulfillment company. The longer the extra money you spent (before rebate, seeing as online prices are usually cheaper before rebate) lines some bank account , the more interest generated. Companies profit just off this money they temporarily borrow from you. If they want my money, they can offer it cheaper, or they can offer me the best product at a reasonable (note: reasonable, not rock-bottom) price and back it up with a reasonable level of service.

I break a buying experience into three main categories: Brand, Service, Price. Brand is always important, Service is important most of the time (see below) and Price is always a factor, but it varies in importance. And all three of these come down to one factor: research

Any customer willing to do research will not need Service quite as much as a customer who flies blind and relies on store help for all information. Blind customers are likely to suffer no matter what, they could be saddled with a poor product at a poor price. Even a situation where service seems great could end up badly if you have a nice salesperson with poor information or knowledge. It's easy enough to do an internet search on lots of products and companies to find out what their track record is.

Customers who do research can benefit on Price, not only finding who has the best price, but finding out which brands are best, so they don't need as much service (less service, i.e. Internet retailer, = lower price). Even so, service is still a factor: I'll pay five bucks more for an item from a company who has given me better service, or who has a reputation for keeping customers happy, as opposed to a cheaper company I know nothing about, or who has a reputation for poor service.

I sympathize with Best Buy on the customers who buy something, rebate it, and then return the product. I think you shouldn't be allowed to return an item for cash if the UPC is cut out of the box, and that at that point, it becomes an exchange-only product. I worked in retail long enough to see a lot of scams.

[dodecahedron]

I sympathize with Best Buy on the customers who buy something, rebate it, and then return the product. I think you shouldn't be allowed to return an item for cash if the UPC is cut out of the box, and that at that point, it becomes an exchange-only product.

are you allowed to do that?
i'm quite surprised.
i'd thought that doing this would be considered fraud!

[LoneWolf]

I sympathize with Best Buy on the customers who buy something, rebate it, and then return the product. I think you shouldn't be allowed to return an item for cash if the UPC is cut out of the box, and that at that point, it becomes an exchange-only product.

are you allowed to do that?
i'm quite surprised.
i'd thought that doing this would be considered fraud!

It would be. However, if a customer makes a big enough stink in some retail situations, the store will sweep it under the rug. Bad publicity (a customer shouting at a cashier, especially using the words "bad service" and "never shop here again") equals bad business. I worked at Best Products (now defunct, but once a national chain) and Office Depot (sorry Hox, though we did jokingly call it Office Despots) long enough to see all the tricks in the book. I had one old guy at Office Depot yell at me that if he didn't get to dicker on the price, he was going to leave. I saw someone return a bag of sand inside a radar detector box at Best Products, having carefully weighed it out to make sure it wouldn't arouse suspicion (glad I didn't take that return). I saw a senior couple yell over exchanging year-old teflon pans that had been scraped up with metal utensils. People that bought a Super Nintendo for a weekend and return it because they didn't want to pay money to rent one over the thanksgiving weekend when the nieces/nephews came over, or a portable gas grill used for a whole summer, with slimy scorched lava rocks. There are some great customers out there, and some real jerks. And if you give the jerks what they truly deserve, some store managers will come down on you for not making the customer happy. These same managers will screw over nice customers because the nice ones don't make a big stink and bad publicity when they get the shaft in returning a product. There's so many Catch-22 situations for a retail employee it's not funny, and it explains why so many decent people go into employment in retail sales, and leave feeling jaded.

My advice to all customers? Be as nice as possible about all transactions. If the store is trying to shaft you, be nice until you know being nice won't help, and then get a manager and get firm with them. If getting firm fails, scream your bloody head off.

[burninfool]

I hear you lonewolf,I worked in retail for 15 years and saw the same things you did.My favorite scam was customers would buy an expensive clothes iron and return it with a brick in it and they carefully hot glued the box so it looked unopened.Also big TV's returned after Superbowl,lawnmowers at the end of summer,soiled clothes,etc.
I would refuse to give a refund but the customer would make a stink so the GM buckled and gave the refund.

I can't blame CompUSA for having such a strict return policy.

[kevincott]

That is what happened for my Buslink rebate. I returned it due to compatibility problems to BBuy.

BBuy would not refund the rebate amount to me since the UPC was missing. I had no problem with that since I expected the rebate.

The rebate never came so I have been out the money with no product to show for it.

[LoneWolf]

Hey Burninfool,

I was in retail for around five years, hope I don't have to do it again. It also taught me that if you treat the average low to medium-wage retail employee with dignity and respect, they'll bend over backwards for you.

Case in point: My wife bought me a copy of Doom 3 the day it came out from Best Buy, and two days later, Circuit City came out with it for $10 cheaper. She missed the deadline to bring in the receipt and the ad for price matching, as the CC sale expired at the end of the week. Not knowing this, I brought the receipt in Monday night, and because of how I treated the gal at the returns counter, she credited the ten bucks back anyway. Being polite and expressing appreciation goes a long way.

[fil]

Buslink is crapy.
For more than a year now, they never honored 40 bucks they own me. Even after several emails, I never get any response and/or payment.
I advice to all people: don't buy Buslink counting to get your rebate.

In opposite, the following companies did a good job and honored their rebates:
-Circuity City(fast)
-LiteOn
-KHypermedia(Got several rebates from them, and they always sent the check,but take more than 60 days)
-Disney (VHS tapes and DVDs, same as KHypermedia)

[dejo]

I once sent my wife to CompUSA on a Sunday that I was working, later on she called me crying (which is unheard of with her). It seems that they were ungodly rude to her, when I got of work I went and spoke to the manager which aparently wasnt who I needed to speak to so I got the name and phone# for the district manager in Dallas who got to the bottom of it and was very helpful for me.

[seaegg]

Well I never worked in Retail but was in Customer Service for more years than i like to remember. Now I don't like to as the Americans say pull the race card but seriously in Winnipeg I go into stores with the intention of spending $2500 on a TV I'm there for 45 minutes trying to get a salesperson to notice me to no avail. Now it's pretty hard to not notice the only black shopper in a store not to mention one that's my size. I have this problem in every store in this city with one exception Visions. You may wonder why. Well when Head Office read the letter I sent them along with all the implications together with the fact I have some serious media connections I was contacted by the their Regional Manager the next morning. I now get excellent service I'm no longer ignored and treated nicely. A customer should not have to go to these lengths. the big mistake salespeople make is to judge a customer by their appearance. I'm sure many of them look at me and say ah he ain't got no money at least I hope that's the reason. When I go shopping in Summer I don't exactly dress for a fancy dress affair.