500GB seagate drive at bestbuy (I'm blowing off some steam here......)

[Webster]

1. Well, this afternoon on the way home from work I stopped at a Best Buy store near my home. I saw they have a sale for the Seagate 500GB for $99.99 so I bought 2 each. I made sure I picked the one with shrinkwrap still on them. That way I don't have to worry about getting one of the "returned" one. Thinking I'll have 1 TBytes of storage for $214.00 after tax. What a great deal!!

2. Went home, clean up. Have dinner with the kids. sat down watch some TV to unwinded. look at the clock, it's 9:00PM. Since it a Friday night, I don't have to wake up early tomorrow for work, so might as well format the dirves. Open one of the box (found a screwd river to break the shrinkwrap) take out the plastic bag containing the installation disk and SATA cable thinking, great, I don't have to buy the cable like OEM drive.

3. Notice the shinning metallic reflection of the drive from the corner of my eye (at this point, the light bulb in my head did not registered). Proceed to remove the drive from the box thinking there is something not quite right but couldn't figure out what it is.

4. Light bulb in head flash.... There is no freaking antistatic bag WTF how could Seagate do something this stupid

5. Finally notice the name on the drive ...it is a SAMSUNG drive When the heck did Seagate bought out Samsung

6. Looked at the drive more closely. It only have 250GB WTF

7. Look at the clock, it already 9:25PM. Quickly pack the drive back to the box. Get the car key, jumped into the car and drove to Best Buy. Time 9:45PM.

8. Stand in line at customer service for 10 minutes. Talk to the customer service associate. "Sir, you have to wait here, I'll need to talk to the manager".....10 minutes later, the manager came to the counter. "I'm sorry sir, but we cannot take back the drive. you have to contact Best Buy corporate or Seagate, they may be able to help you."

9. Ask the manager, "do you rewrap return items and resale them?" "Sir, Everything we sale came directly from the manufactures sealed. We do not rewrap return items. When I we receive a return hard drive, we put it in the bin here."..... " here is the number for Best Buy corporate. Also here is the number for Seagate. Have a nice day sir." time =10:00PM.

10. So pissed off, decided to return the other drive.... Walk out of Best Buy fumming.... I definately have over paid for the freaking 250GB drive......

11. Got home, connect the drive to an external USB enclosure. The freaking thing isn't even new. It a freaking used drive with Windows Vista register to some dude name Shawn Darling...

12. Called corporate number, talk to some rep. He called the store. Store already close. He will contact the store again...... to be continue.......

13. Now can someone tell me if Best Buy do not rewraped return merchandises, how to you explain a USED SAMSUNG DRIVE is INSIDE A SHRINKWRAP BOX OF SEAGATE??????????

Sorry for the long post, I just need to blow out some steam........
Moral of the story, do not trust the shrinkwrapped OPEN THE BOX IN THE STORE BEFORE YOU LEAVE, that way you can return it without problem, and you get what you pay for....

[chesterfield]

THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME!!!!! I bought the same hard drive. Mine was properly shrink wrapped and had a sealed anti static sealed bag. Never thought to look at the hard drive itself but i did notice before installing that it did say seagate. Now, where the trouble starts. I install it as additional storage and it only has 149 gigs available. I take it out, and guess what?? Well, you probably already know, it is a 160 Seagate SATA I Hard Drive. I went back, told them up front that I didn't expect to be accommodated as I have heard of stories like this before. During the time they were inspecting the drive, I took a pic with my cell phone of the Shrink Wrap Machine that was right on the counter . I was lucky, they gave me another drive without incident.....BUYER BEWARE OF BEST BUY!!!!!

[Super Warrior]

Bestbuy is a neat store but i rarely buy anything from there, its usually too expensive. I get all my stuff from the net where i'm free to pick & choose best prices.

A lot of such stores seem to think people still live in the stupid ages, and overprice stuff banking on naive customers who don't know any better, that they can just do a google search and find the same thing for half the price or less.

I prefer newegg.com and e-bay.

[budz]

Whoas! And here I was gonna go buy one of those $99.99 hard drives today but I had a emergency with my pet bird. The next time I buy a hard drive from Best Buy I'm going to open up the sucker before I leave the store. That way I'll know for sure I got a real mcoy! Thanks for the heads up on Best Buy!!!!

[stiltman]

The BB stores here were all sold out (good thing I guess) I took the BB ad to CC and they gave me the price match plus 10% (that's their policy) $90
The guy at the CC customer service counter told me that a few people were doing the price match. I bought the last 3 they had on their shelves

Now BB doesn't have the drive on sale but CC does for $119 LOL
I wonder how their sale is going since I had the last 3 from the day before

[Lucifers_Ghost]

Ironically, this happened to a friend of mine .. albeit, with a car audio amp.

It was a fairly high end amp. Something like 2000 watts or something. He took it out of the sealed box and in a joking kind of way, smelled it as if to say "smell that power." Except all he smelled was smoke.

So he opened it up and the mainboard had coal marks one one side of it where something must have blown.

Best Buy is my ass.

EDIT: Yes, I realize that opening up the amp wasnt too smart but hey, it wasnt my money :P

[chesterfield]

i have a pic of best buy's shrink wrap machine, which is right at the return/customer service , should i post it online???

[lordsmurf]

Did you pay with credit card? If so, file a chargeback with the card.

[Webster]

Did you pay with credit card? If so, file a chargeback with the card.

After back and forth with the store/corporate. They wouldn't take the drive back. However, they do offer to send me a giftcard in the amount of $100.00 and I keep the drive to do whatever I want with it. If I don't receive the giftcard in 10 days, I'm going to file a complain with the BBB. And also contact Seagate and inform them of Best Buy practice concerning their drives being repackage and sold as new. The credit card chargeback will be request once I filed the complain.

[Heywould3]

ive never heard of this at best buy or any other store. you bought an item opened it up and it was wrong item an d they wont fix the issue? hmmm.. even on their most strict items ive been able to exchange for a new item of the same brand. if out of stock they are obligated to provide same size in other brand or refund.

if i were you i would repack and take back and tell them its dont work properly its intermittent so they cant check it.. and tell them i want a new one of the same type and size. if they are out then get irate if you have to if they wont give you a refund. no matter their policy the consumer protection act allows for this type of issue and their managers should be aware.

hell send it to me ill get you a damn refund or at least a new drive

[chesterfield]

again, y'all want a copy of the shrink wrap machine that is at thier service counter???

[Webster]

ive never heard of this at best buy or any other store. you bought an item opened it up and it was wrong item an d they wont fix the issue? hmmm.. even on their most strict items ive been able to exchange for a new item of the same brand. if out of stock they are obligated to provide same size in other brand or refund.

if i were you i would repack and take back and tell them its dont work properly its intermittent so they cant check it.. and tell them i want a new one of the same type and size. if they are out then get irate if you have to if they wont give you a refund. no matter their policy the consumer protection act allows for this type of issue and their managers should be aware.

hell send it to me ill get you a damn refund or at least a new drive

I bought a brand new shrinkwraped box of seagate 500GB.
I got a used 250GB samsung drive in the Seagate box (which was in shrinkwrap). Now if this is a seagate drive, I might have been able to have them change the drive. But since the drive inside is a Samsung drive, it is pretty darn hard for me to prove that I didn't switch the drive myself.....
The manager is the one who told me that they would not take it back and directed me to contact corporate or Seagate for resolution.
Their unspoken view is that I'm the one who switched the drive (although they didn't say this out right. But it is implied in their attitude)
Thank for mentioned the consumer protection. It did not occured to me to contact some type of local consumer protection agency as another way having this resolve.

@chesterfield, it wouldn't do me any good, since they do not have the shrinkwrap machine at this Best Buy counter. I think they keep it in the backroom of the store.

[chesterfield]

well, but that shrink wrap machine is in my cell phone from six different locations, and are tagged with each store number....

[Heywould3]

regardless of what they say. all of them have shrinkwrapers. you can walk around the store and find opend boxes with the yellow stickers with markdowns that are re wrapped. its common. i think the store was saying that they dont shrink wrap and then sell as new.. but they all shrink wrap.

@webster. regardless of what the manager told you they will have a record of a return of that product. i see what you are saying about the drive being the wrong brand but if its in the store then someone got away with being about to return it. im saying that if you present it right you can too. call information and ask for a listing for Shawn Darling and go from there.. to me its not so much the money at this point its the principal.

or go to kinkos or fedex or some other place with a shrink wraper and re seal and ake to a different store and say you got the wrong one or some crap.

i would be so irate that i would ask for the managers boss and through off some steam to him.. this is not the responsibility of hte drive manufacutre. and BBB wont do crap

P.S. i understand that you are getting a 100 gift card. you are being accused of being a thief and a scamer. if you are then you deserve if but if you are just a regular consumer then you have a right to be upset at this accusation. if you raise enough hell you would be supprised at what they can do to shut you up in hte store.

if i know im in the right. im not at all shy about making a scene. let them call the cops if you have a recipt and all the packageing that you were given then the cops cant do anything either. i would threaten then manager like this.

ok look mr so and so. i bought this item actually two of them with the impression i was getting what was marked on the box.. one of your people obviously allowed the return with out checking the box and then re wrapped it. now its on the shelf for sale and looks new to the average consumer. i take it home and its not only a used item but the wrong brand. NOW mr so and so first off i can prove that its used by the drive contents it has vista on it and its registered to mr so and so. i dont even know who that is.. second its false advertising on your part 250 instead of 500 and used instead of new shall i go on.. and not to mention that you are accusing me of being a thief and a scamer. mr so and so is this how you treat costumers? NOW you have two options. you can either return this item and give me what i thought i paid for or give me a full refund and you wont be bothered by my presents in your store again. if you are not willing to do either of those then you will find that i can be quite a bother because i will be filing multiple formal complaints as well as various articles in local and regional papers etc you name will be used in each and every article and complaint. haven't you ever heard the coustomers always right? if you can prove or have any evidence that i swapped the drive then lets see it. your policy is to replace any defective product. well this is defective from what it marked on the box. i will not let this drop.. i DO NOT like being called a thief and will do everything legal to make the person and company regret ever implying it.

btw if that doesnt work for me i almost never follow through with my threats other than a few calls. but he dont need to know that.

i can convince a dr to take a kid back if i had to

[Lucifers_Ghost]

i can convince a dr to take a kid back if i had to

lol Priceless!!!!

[Webster]

i can convince a dr to take a kid back if i had to

Wish I could do that...... On second thought, I'll keep the kids. If it the wife, it would be much better. Can anyone tell me how to get rid of the wife without going to the poor house ???

[Lucifers_Ghost]

Wish I could do that...... On second thought, I'll keep the kids. If it the wife, it would be much better. Can anyone tell me how to get rid of the wife without going to the poor house ???

Make nice with the local mobsters?

[Webster]

Wish I could do that...... On second thought, I'll keep the kids. If it the wife, it would be much better. Can anyone tell me how to get rid of the wife without going to the poor house ???

Make nice with the local mobsters?

Nah.... too many people tried that. Usually the so call mobster is an undercovered cop and he ended
up in the slammer with bubba for a room mate...
Now if I only can find a hypnotist who can convince my wife that we were never married, then I'll be really, really happy

[Lucifers_Ghost]

That might work


Or you could kidnap your kids and move to Brazil. I believe there is a non-extradition treaty there :P



Of course, I kid

[budz]

Best Buy has the SEAGATE 500GB hard drives on sale again this week for $99.99. If anyone is buying one make sure you open up the box before you leave the store.

[stiltman]

Best Buy has the SEAGATE 500GB hard drives on sale again this week for $99.99. If anyone is buying one make sure you open up the box before you leave the store.

Or have another store do a price match