Circuit city sucks

[madmacks]

ok, i bought a Clifford car alarm at Circuit city with their lifetime maintenance policy. so a few months later theres something wrong with my alarm cus the battery recently died. i go to see if i can get it resynced with the alarm and the guy tells me he cant do that because they dont carry Clifford anymore. heres where i say to myself, "What the flying f@ck!". These bastards cant get off that easily. so they give me a suggestion. how bout you go on the net and find the docs on it. i say to myself again, " wtf you idiot". its your job to fix this POS. dont tell me to do your work for you! so now im gonna talk to the manager. if anyone has this type of experience with this alarm feel free to let me know how you resolved it. i dont want to take any legal actions. this is how i see it. they sold it to me so they should know how to fix it regardless of whether or not they carry it. its been fixed before so i know they can do it. another thing is the policy is straight from circuit city so it wouldnt matter who, what, how old my alarm is. thirdly, they should offer to upgrade my sh@t if they dont want to deal with my alarm system.

sorry, just had to vent a little...

 

[Yo Ma Ma]

It never seems to fail, someone just has to get sort of ugly to get any satisfaction with those extended warranties, polite just never cuts it.

 

[Dameon]

no kidding...... I will not do business with Circuit City unless I they are literally the LAST place in 200 miles that has what I'm needing. They are way too pushy with their extended warranty crud. For one product, I was nagged to get the extended warranty a total of SIX times.

1) By original sales rep
2) At the pickup counter
3) 30 days after purchase - postcard.
4) 90 days after purchase, another postcard.
5) 1 yr after purchase by postcard.
6) 1 yr after purchase - PHONE CALL

Sorry, but when extended warranties are 85% profit... this is getting just too damn pushy.

 

[Dan]

Dameon: In your last line you nailed it. Extended warranties represent almost pure profit. More to the point, a aalesman typically makes more commission off the sale of the extended warranty than he does off the sale of the actual product. That's why they push so hard.

 

[Demosthenes]

I work at CC.. and Dan you hit it right on the head too. ESP commission is usually 3-4 times the normal commission of the actual product. And Jesus you want to talk about a hard time.. just watch the managers when an associate doesn't offer it on every item he sells..

 

[johnjohn320]

I refuse to shop at Circuit City. I've bought way too many damaged goods and waded through way too much crap to even get a refund. Plus, the one near me has a crappy selection.

 

[MissingLinc]

I worked in for Circuit City in the warehouse three different summers right before college and while home from college. Occasionally I helped on the Customer Service/Returns counter and one of the summers I worked home delivery. I learned a lot there. The sales of ESPs (Extended Service Plans) were closely tracked. Obviously the store and the sales staff were supposed to maintain a sales quota every month. The store and the sales staff were also supposed to maintain a quota of ESP sales (as a percentage of overall sales). There were various ways to encourage these numbers, the extreme being the store manager loses his/her job (not before his/her staff first lose their jobs, I am sure). There was a relatively high turnover of sales staff at Jerk'em Sh!tty. I would not recognize probably 2/3 of the sales people and managerial staff after one year of absence.

ESPs are considered a high profit item (I know this for a fact), and a certain percentage of the sales are needed to provide a nice profit after the actual amount needed to replace/repair items. And return rates of given brands and product types (and other variables?) are also considered when setting the ESP prices for any given product.

Consider it a way to spread the costs of repair/replacement over the masses just like auto insurance (which is often forced) or extended car warranties. Some people prefer to buy into the security and others think it is the stupidest idea. The idea is that the majority of the folks will never have to use it, obviously, and those that buy it often never do. I have seen resistance on the part of customer service folks from various places (Circuit City, auto insurance, auto extended warranty, etc) to pay up so just be persistent (but cool-headed).

Alternatives include mfr warranties (usually good for one to five years, check carefully) which sometimes means shipping charges on your part, unless there is a nearby authorized repair center. Another alternative is some credit cards include a warranty extension/boost policy.

 

[The Wildcard]

I never buy those ESP plans from anybody, including Circuit City.

 

[Jugernot]

That sucks! They should replace it with a comperable model in their current lineup.

btw: Just so you know, Clifford filed for bankruptcy about a 6months ago. They are out of business, so don't count of getting replacement parts for your current system.

 

[madmacks]

thanks jugernot, the reason im so pissed is because they KNEW how to fix my system because they've done it before and the warranty says they will take care of me as long as i buy it from them. it shouldnt matter if the company goes under. nothing changes! fixing it is the same as always. the manuals are there and all they have to do is open that thing up and do a little research. my goodness! if that was the case they could go selling a different alarm system every week and say, "oh sorry, cant fix it cus we dont carry it". all im getting at is if i buy something from them that says they will fix it when i need it to be fixed then i expect them to know how or find a person who does. i mean, alot of people have bought this system, they cant just deny all of us. i have 3 just in my immediate family. we cant be all SOL! thats nuts! all i freakin want is to have my alarm resynced. thats all! simple button programming. damn!!!

im venting some more... sorry, its halftime

 

[mztykal]

The only ESP I get is from CompUsa on things I know I'll break within a year. They're cheap warranties and there's "no questions asked" what more could I ask for.

 

[Deeko]

madmacks, while I agree that this is dumb, I wouldn't get mad at the guy you talked to. It's not his fault. Feel free to yell at managers, but from working at McDonald's, I know that regular crew members get yelled at by customers very often for things that they have no control over. And about him telling you to look on the internet, hey he's just tryin to help, there's nothing else he can do about it. It's not his policy, it's the stores.

 

[madmacks]

yeah, im gonna talk to the manager and give him hell! hehe, i wasnt too bad with him. mostly all the yelling went inside my noggin.

 

[rootaxs]

I've got my own experience to share... not with CC but with a BB here in Houston. Just take a look at it yourself and be the judge.

Unfortunately it never got resolved. They were so unfriendly and even accused me of breaking it myself (go figure!).

 

[LordMaul]

You mean "is suck", right?! If not, then we will have to string you up and throw a couple hundred of Killbat's computers at you!

 

[madmacks]

sorry man, and i thought i had it bad. these people suck!

 

[PUX]

ESP...I evaluate what it actually is that I'm buying and do a cost ratio analysis.

Sometimes I'll buy it...For instance I bought an open box Harman Kardon A/V Reciever for $399. I paid something like $60 for the ESP...("If we are unable to fix the product and the same product is no longer in production or we don't carry it, we will give you the new comparable product at no cost.) So, I took it home, hooked it up, and nothing came out of the speakers. Took it back, sent it off to service, kept my fingers crossed and a few days later got a message telling me to go pick out a new reciever!! I got online, did some checking (It was an AVR-65 that is no longer in production), and found out that the AVR-500 ($799) is the closest match. It took me 4 hours with lot's of arguing before the finally admitted they had to take the loss!!

(Basically, if you lost interest, I got an $800 home audio/video receiver for $400.)

Ya gotta work the system with Circuit and stand up for WHAT THEY OWE YOU.

I hate Best Buy...Sales staff is completely incompetent with little to no knowledge. I hate Circuit, but I owe it to them to at least be cordial.

 

[PUX]

Oh yah, this was about you, not me...

If your alarm isn't working, take it back and tell them to fix it. If they
can't, go pick out the comparable one and tell them to install it. You
shouldn't do anything. Be prepared to yell at the manager and if you can't
get anywhere, ask them the number to the corporate office along with the
number for the "Cool Line"...Just be prepared to be assertive and factual
regarding the ESP plan.

Good luck.

 

[Ornery]

Hey, good call PUX, but that got me thinking. Why not sever a run on a circuit board for the alarm and completely break it? They'll have to replace it with something else, since it is warranted, no?

Then again, maybe it says in fine print on your ESP, that they are off the hook if the manufacturer goes out of business. Look what happened to SUN Appliance. All the folks holding ESPs for their products are SOL!

 

[perry]

I buy the warranties on car amps because I like to blow them up. Blew up one from best buy 3 times before they finally stopped carrying the brand and I ended up with a better brand. (HiFonics to Clarion).. Got my moneys worth there..

Bought the warranty on an amp from CC and have never had to use it. I guess MTX makes stuff that can stand up to my abuse. 1 1/2 years and no troubles yet. In hindsight, I should not have bought it, but knowing myself, I figured I would need it.

I don't buy the warranties on anything else though. If the thing dies, it just gives me an excuse to upgrade to something newer and better.

I used to work at Staples (they don't pay on commission) and right as I was leaving they started to pay us about $5 per warranty we sold.. even stupid things like $20 calculators. I didn't work in the computer section so I really never had a chance to sell them, but I didn't try even on the couple items that I could sell em on, mainly because I didn't care at that point.

Oh, Clifford isn't out of business, AFAIK. They probably won't be anytime soon.. Their alarms are second to none, IMHO.

 

[bigbootydaddy]

jesus what houston bb was that?? i was about to get another install done there, but i havent done a custom one, which is what this one will be. (with front panels, that looked like a civic right?)

 

[AMD4ME2]

Thank You Mr. Obvious!

heh.. Circuit City blows! I don't think ive ever even bought anything there.. and I had forgot that there was one in town till I saw this post. They don't have jack there... its a waste of time for me to even go in.

 

[madmacks]

thanks all for your input, i was thinking of what pux was talking about earlier that they should upgrade my system if they no longer want to deal with my old one. its basically what it comes down to. they simply avoid dealing with me and use the company no longer carried clifford excuse. i know they have the manual sitting around somewhere but are too lazy to get it out and help me. oh well, gonna yell at the manager next weekend and hopefully get this resolved. i hope someone can relate to this experience and use it for their next encouter with a similar problem. theres got to be another anandtecher with a clifford system from circuit city so use this post to learn what to do. im your g-in-e-pig, haha, too lazy to spell.