I’m not sure if anyone cares about an update, but I wanna just vent a bit.
I got the email (as shown in the screenshot) on June 25 very late at night.
Welp, I filed a Chargeback immedialy upon reading that. Guess that’s one store I can’t go to anymore… 🤷♂️
Still have yet to hear back from the bank on their process, but they say they’ll “temporarily credit the balance” while they “investigate”.
If my Bank decides to screw with me, the next update is probably gonna be in “c/ActuallyInfuriating” (I hope everything goes through fine, fingers crossed)
I did some online searching, and found like a few different posts from Reddit with others saying they got the same “completed investigation… unable to provide refund or replacement” bullshit.
They didn’t even give me a chance to send the video evidence. The rep on the phone said they would “contact me there are any updates or request further information”, but didn’t tell me where to send the video to. Nor did anyone contacted me to request it.
What I think happened with the so-called “investigation” is that, BestBuy just deferred it to Doordash, and they must’ve looked at the picture taken by the driver and just sided with their driver to protect their bottom line, and BestBuy just accepted that as an explanation.
Pictures are stationary lmfao. That proves nothing. Only that the package was at the door (which was actually a neighbor’s door btw), not that the driver didn’t just snatched it immediately after.
Tbh, I doubt things would change much even if they got the video, they don’t take this seriously at all. They would’ve just said the video was blurry and deny refund.
Btw: I ended up ordering a different laptop from Amazon and they shipped with UPS and it arrived safely, with all security seals intact. I don’t like how Amazon is taking over everything and have become monopolistic, but at least their stuff actually arrives…
For every person like you that won’t take the shit, there are many more that will just give up. Just like unemployment and insurance claims - denial is the first step in protecting the bottom line.
If nobody accepted such bollocks, it would be more economical to actually investigate, provide service & improve processes - rather than trying to bin complaints at the first hurdle.
Prime (lol) example over here is with Amazon not making it easy to return shit after 30 days, by hiding all the easy return options at that point. You can still do it by contacting customer service and they will generally acquiesce, but just having the extra steps there is enough to save a ton of money by keeping the uninformed in the dark.
Fuck em. Make it difficult for them. Be the goddamn squeakiest wheel you can possibly be.
For every person like you that won’t take the shit, there are many more that will just give up. Just like unemployment and insurance claims - denial is the first step in protecting the bottom line.
This is the crucial part. Same reason many brands have shifted from giving discounts to “rebates”. You have to jump through a few hoops yourself to get it, it’s not automatic. And that immediately results in a decent % of customers simply not even bothering, which is exactly what manufacturers are banking on.
I worked retail almost 20 years ago and that was the last time I saw a rebate. I haven’t had to mail in or apply for a rebate in ages.
Yes &
For every person like you
There’s at least 1/10 of a person doing their best to commit fraud. Maybe they’ll pretend they found a hair in their food, maybe worse:
Source of that is a terrible rap song, Punchmade Dev - Wire Fraud Tutorial
These are the kind of criminals support agents deal with all day long. Then you and I come along and nobody trusts us.
Well whatever is after Veo 3 should make all our lives easier. Hey we can always face-to-face barter whatever we whittle!
I had a similar thing happen with Best Buy. I ordered a laptop which showed as “delivered” but never arrived. In fact I was at home the whole day they claimed it was delivered and nobody even came. Best Buy had no proof it was delivered other than a tracking number, and wouldn’t send me a new one or refund me. The employee on the phone told me to just call the police and report it as stolen. I escalated it to a supervisor and asked them to listen to the original conversation, and explained that it’s not my responsibility to get the laptop - it’s their responsibility to ship it to me. I also at the same time disputed it with my credit card. The end result was someone at Best Buy calling me back and apologizing for the employee’s mistake, and my credit card company saying they refunded my money, as well as telling me I could keep the laptop if it ever arrived later. So it ended up working out. I just had to escalate it and be the squeaky wheel.
Yeah this is what back charges are for, and the absolute beauty of credit.
Won’t hear me say that much.
But you don’t have to go through the nonsense if you use credit.
You tell them “hey I bought this and didn’t get it I am disputing the charge.”
And their legal team calls their legal team and says “we want receipts and proof or we will litigate and also we are a financial institution and you’re best buy so be smart here.”
Instant (well not really, but effortless) resolve almost every time you’re in the right.
Yes, the system works, but it kinds sucks that it’s based on getting the biggest gorilla on your side, rather than which side is actually in the right.
That’s kinda the way of the world in general unfortunately.
I use my credit card for everything, and pay it off fully every month.
I had to do a chargeback once. Convert tickets bought in December 2019, concert obviously cancelled. Ticket site wouldn’t refund, they just kept saying “oh just wait until it’s rescheduled” when I E-mailed for a refund. I asked four times. I told them “even if it is rescheduled, I’m not going to a concert in a pandemic.”
I went to my credit card’s web site, clicked a button, wrote a sentence, and the charge was gone. Never heard about it again. It’s truly the way to go.
Best Buy is the worst about this stuff! I’m still bitter bc a few years back they delivered a brand new washing machine that didn’t work. I asked them to come back and pick it up to exchange it for something else and their pick up crew didn’t record that they took the machine back. Luckily they left me a slip showing they picked it up. But it still took me 9 months of fighting with the store to get a refund and I was accused by the manager of creating a “loss issue.” After they finally refunded me they still charged me a pro-rated amount for having the warranty for 9 months bc they didn’t cancel it the same week they picked up the machine.
What worked for me was to go to a different Best Buy store (bc the manager was a dick) and show them the evidence in person and ask for help to resolve or escalate the issue.
But it still took me 9 months of fighting with the store to get a refund and I was accused by the manager of creating a “loss issue.”
9 months?
I mean, does your country have strong customer protections? I know some countries don’t and you’d have to deal with the merchant. But if your country does have consumer protections, you probably should’ve filed a dispute, because they have to be filed within 60 days in the banks I’ve used, so I would not have waited that long because that’s kinda just gambling on the store playing nice.
I immediately reported it to my bank and disputed the charges. After 60 days they recharged me because they sided with Best Buy stating that I had actually received the machine, and it was now up to the company to provide a refund based on their policy (thanks Chase!)
Chase
Oh my fucking god. That’s my bank right now.
😖 (Am I fucked?)
Chase is an awful bank so be ready to fight them too. I am still upset about the money they siphoned from my account after taking over a regional bank here. I would change banks when you are able to. I wish you good fortunes.
I just got done reading the original post.
I don’t know if this is the right advice, or if this advice will help anyone, but if you have the delivery driver on camera mis-delivering the product, then stealing the product, I would have first contacted the delivery service/Best Buy with a photo of the front of your house with the house numbers clearly visible to say that the product was not delivered to your home. Full stop. The package was not delivered correctly. If BB/DD insist on that the package was delivered to me, I’d file a police report. Police report in hand, I’d respond to BB/DD with the police report and video of the incident and request to either be refunded or to receive the product you paid for.
Basically, give them as little wiggle room as possible before you invoke professionals into the mix who can advocate for you.
The police do not care about porch pirates.
But the bank would care about the police report for the charge back. A civil court would care about it if having to sue for restitution if the charge back is denied.
Feels like slam dunk small claims. They might not even bother sending a representative.
This is the correct answer. The incorrect answer is to order more DD from BB and hope for the same guy while you hold a baseball bat behind the door.
100%
The administrative state may not give a shirt about you or the crimes that have been committed against you, but they care about your capacity to make life challenging for them. Police won’t investigate, but they will take a report. A report is a legal document. It implies the threat of real consequences if they don’t get their ship together.
I hope you did report the matter to the police regardless?
I had a bad experience with the police with a, in my view, an unjustified arrest a few years ago. Not to mention, cops didn’t do anything when someone strong-arm robbed my mother. Nor when someone stole her identity, even when she has a possible address and phone number of the perp. Nor when that time someone was banging on my door in the middle of the night, either harassing us, or potentially trying to break in (my parents run a small bussiness, so perhaps it’s someone with a grudge that found our address), I called the police and those people banging on my door left right before the police came, possibly because they saw the cops coming, I had a video of them sitting on my doorsteps for half an hour, trying to peek in the house, through the mail slot and the windows, and just aggressively banging on the door every few minutes. Its not soliciting either, they didn’t have a clipboard or anything like that. So anyways, they left before the police came. I told the officers what happened, I said I had a video. My whole family was home and they also explained the same thing. The cops just said something along the lines of kparaphrased): “So they didn’t break in right?” and wouldn’t even take the videos we have to just store in it their database for future references. Like I wasn’t even asking them to investigate, just to record it into the police records. They wouldn’t care. They said we shouldn’t have called because “no crime have occured”. I mean, like: two complete strangers stood outside my house in the middle of the night and banged on the door for half an hour that’s fucking harassment. I have a video, and they won’t even take it.
So I ended up just saying “Sorry to bother y’all, have a good rest of the night” so I don’t get shot, but deep inside, I just felt like shit for even bothering to call. Like good thing they didn’t actually try to break in, but what if they had?
And can I mention how they took like 30 minutes to respond to a possible home invasion? (well I know they didn’t end up breaking in, but they could have)
So after all this, seeing someone in police uniform gives me PTSD (not literally ptsd, but you know what I’m saying). In my city, there are no “online reports” yet, I have to go to a police station or call for them to send an officer to take the report. Nah fam, that’s just gonna be “it’s a civil matter, please don’t bother us again”. Besides, I never even obtained possession of the item, it arrived on a neighbor’s doorsteps very briefly, and never really left the posession of the driver. So it’s really the driver stealing from Doordash, Doordash failing to fullfill their agreement with BestBuy, and BestBuy failing to fullfill their agreement with me.
I would probably have to actually try talk to the police if the Bank fucks with me. But until then, I’m trying to minimize police contact as much as possible given the um… recent unstable political situation here in the US.
If I got robbed in ths street, that’s a different story. The police would probably at least file the report. But not getting a package? The cops would laught in my face and tell me to contact the merchant and/or the financial institutions first.
File a police report. Your bank isn’t going to help you without it.
I might have to, ugh. But at least I tried dealing with BestBuy first so now the cops can’t just say “civil matter” and tell me to get out.
Its a last resort for me, I wouldn’t go to the police as a first option. I try to exhaust other options first.
Fuck the police. Adding them to any situation is guaranteed to make everything worse.
But, sadly, if the bank requires the report it is the only option.
You know they’re just going to drown you in “civil matter” shit as soon as you try.
The cops won’t actually do anything, but you will have a case #. Theft is a crime, and crime should be reported.
The 100% won’t do a damn thing.
I hope you reported bestbuy to the police - or at least your bank.
Did you report doordash to the police?
Have you thought about sending this story with the video to local news? I’m sure they will love it and negative publicity will force BB to resolve it.
If your bank fucks you, small claims court time and new bank time.
That means BestBuy effectively gets a $700+ dollars interest free loan from me for a few months, since courts take months.
If you exhaust all other options, what else can you do? The suggestion of filing complaints with your state AG and any applicable groups would also be a good move - good suggestion from Fugly!
Actually, now that I think about it, you could try contacting higher ups at Best Buy to see if they would make it right, make noise on social media, and consider contacting local news if you’re up for it. Putting pressure on them like that might speed up the resolution.
This is actually where Twitter was good. I would always get a better response with a public @ mention to the company on Twitter.
I had a similar experience with Reddit and ENGWE after their faulty front fender broke my fucking arm. They didn’t seem to give a shit until I started making noise. After that they reimbursed me for my helmet, but I still need physical therapy and a new fender. We’ll see how that goes.
good luck with getting the PT covered!
Maybe reach out to your state AG before going the small claims court. Report them for anti-consumer behavior. Frequently, the notice saying they’ve received a complaint and asking for what’s up is enough to get them to change tune immediately.
Did you choose to pay with installments for the laptop, is that why they’ll get more money from you? For the privilege of not having the product…
One time single payment. If I were in such a financial position that I need to pay in installments, I’d either just (a) get a cheaper laptop, or (b) just postpone it for a few months, since phones are essentially replacing most of the functions of a computer, and its more of a “want” than a “need” (for watching tv shows and movies and maybe some light gaming), phone screen is too small, but if money is an issue, I’d skip it and begrudgingly watch on my tiny phone screen lol.
Ah I understand now, I was a little slow to get that the “loan” is the $700 and it won’t be repaid for a while… Damn. Well I hope the next update is a positive one! YMMV but I’ve learned that harassing customer service often works, by chasing it up with another email every few days to however often you can handle it
Is this the thing where they sent it by doordash?? Wtf!?
I have an order arriving today from Best Buy! It’s being handled by DoorDash… 🤞 Sorry to hear about your ordeal. Not fun. I think I’m going to avoid BB purchases if this is how they handle deliveries now.
have an order arriving today from Best Buy! It’s being handled by DoorDash… 🤞
OMG you need to give us an update on if it arrives. I hope you have better luck, if not, you could alway make another post on this comm 😉
Amazon is a great place to shop for things to buy on ebay.
On the flip side, I ordered something on eBay specifically to avoid Amazon and I still got a package from Amazon. Some people are basically just using an automated eBay account as a front for Amazon and pocketing the tiny margins.
That’s all perfectly cromulent, but just keep in mind fleaBay has its issues as well. One must be ever diligent whilst shopping online. And it’s getting worse.
Ebay can be really really bad too, Google around and start with the ebay executive team that sent a bloody pigs head to a journalist who said some bad things about ebay
Nobody should ever EVER buy anything or do anything from best buy. They will fuck you over and they pry on non tech people into making them buy overpriced garbage.
Not sure if this works anymore, but worth a try. Get on the phone with the 1-800 during business hours and escalate, ask for consumer relations. Make sure you tell each person that you talk to that you’ll never be shopping at best buy again if this isn’t resolved, so they know you’re serious and will properly escalate you. 15 years ago, that would solve any problem. People who absolutely scammed Best Buy would still get replacements plus a gift card for their trouble, at least once.
Sorry this happened to you. Don’t just assume the chargeback is going to solve things without any more effort, the machines involved might fuck you over if you don’t take steps. Credit card might side with vendor if you don’t submit evidence better than theirs. Your case seems cut and dry since it wasn’t even the right address, but you might still need to get that police report filled. Like the other poster said, you’re just getting the case#, as frustrating as it is, expecting anything else would just be silly. All of these things show you are serious and not a scammer. Scammers wouldn’t try this shit because it would put them in jail the second or third time they did it without any evidence. You have evidence, but the machine is tuned to ignore it until escalation. Fucking lame, I know.
Will they refund you if you do in fact go to the police? This is a pretty incredible claim to take at face value.
The “libertarian paradise” idea is that as far as Best Buy is concerned, the item was delivered. If the DoorDash delivery driver happened to turn right around and steal the package, that’s a separate crime and a matter for the police to deal with, same as if anyone else had stolen it. And it’s OP’s fault for not picking the box up sooner, during the 3 seconds it was sitting on the porch. The porch that wasn’t even theirs. So anyway, the libertarian solution is for OP to contact police to track down the thief and either recover the stolen item or sue the thief for monetary compensation. Best Buy is innocent and no refund is coming. DoorDash is innocent too because they contracted with an independent contractor to deliver the item, and what the contractor does after the item has been delivered is not their responsibility.
And the Police won’t investigate because of whatever mental gymnastics of the day they come up with to avoid the paperwork.
“You never actually recieved it, so it was never your property to be stolen.” Or something.
Yes! It’s an olympics game of mental gymnastics where everyone - BestBuy, DoorDash, OP, the police - try to offload responsibility onto someone else. However, a crime WAS committed. Someone is the victim. The victim is the one who was deprived of property/money and will not have access to it until/unless the thief is caught and property recovered. BestBuy thinks OP is the victim, since the item was stolen off (not)their porch. OP thinks BestBuy should be the victim, since OP had no involvement in organizing the delivery. DoorDash could also take up responsibility of being the victim, since it was their (not)employee that stole from them.
If OP goes to the police now, they would be losing the mental gymnastics by accepting the status of the victim. BestBuy would never refund them in this case. It is in OP’s best interest to pursue the chargeback first. If OP succeeds in the refund or the chargeback, then BestBuy will have no package and no money, so BestBuy would be the victim. Then it will be BestBuy’s responsibility to report the crime.
This is the weirdest collection of words I’ve read in a while.
At the moment, all the evidence shows the laptop being delivered, including the photo showing final delivery. If OP files a police report, and presents evidence showing the laptop was indeed stolen, then it’s on the delivery company, as it’s their employee.
The bank would likely also want proof this happened.
The person who delivered/stole the item is not a Doordash employee, as @TauZero@mander.xyz points out. They’re also right about if OP goes to the police, OP is subtly conceding that the independent contractor driver is the perpetrator, which can be argued to be letting BestBuy and Doordash off the hook - which is what they want.
I agree that doing the chargeback is the best course of action at this point. Yes, the bank will want to see the video proof - the bank is probably the only organization involved who would care about that.
This is why I don’t actually blame them for wanting a police report, the laptop will have gone through their system, been scanned and processed, all the way through to final delivery. Looking at the information they have, I don’t blame them one bit for being sceptical.
This is an extraordinary event.
I agree that OP is in the best position to report the crime to the police - they are closest to the police station, they have video evidence, they literally know who the thief is - but it should not be their responsibility! OP has done nothing wrong and there are no measures they could have taken to prevent this crime (other than not shopping online at all). If OP gets a police report, OP is taking up the task of being the victim, and then BestBuy has no legal obligation to refund them at all, other than out of the kindness of their heart. Rather, BestBuy is the victim in this crime, same as if the item was stolen off the shelf at their warehouse and scanner records forged. It is their responsibility to file a police report, if they want the numbers in their system to add up. Only then could they ask OP to kindly provide the video evidence to help them out, and they’d be lucky if OP would give it to them, having no obligation to do so.
Take it up with local law enforcement??? lol
Call the cops on Best Buy.
