Man Buys Computer From Best Buy, Opens Box To Find Wooden Blocks

[moshquerade]

bwahahahahaha

 

[ShadowBlade]

I only buy things from best buy if i can see through the package.

BTW, nwitimes.com sucks at writing.
Police said...Police said....Police said, etc.

 

[darkamulets]

Some BB do repackage used items and sell it as new.

 

[PingSpike]

Guy probably got screwed, thats why he went nuts instead of quietly fleeing the store with his tail between his legs. It was not the correct response to threaten to kill a store employee that probably has nothing to do with the "fvck the customer up the ass" policy of BB besides the fact she peddles it for $8, but I can sort of understand him going insane after purchasing $1300 worth of useless wood and being told to deal with it. Like some one else said, a con wouldn't have invested so much in their mark here that they'd go to jail for it. They'd still have the computer at home and wouldn't really be out much, so it wouldn't make them insane with rage...and they probably would have expected this as a possible outcome. No, this guy just bought a box full of wood.

Wasn't there some one on here last year that bought a LCD monitor and brought it home to find it was just a couple pieces of plywood in the box...and was told he was fvcked?

 

[JME Fidelity]

hah

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: ShadowBlade
I only buy things from best buy if i can see through the package.

BTW, nwitimes.com sucks at writing.
Police said...Police said....Police said, etc.

That's how you're supposed to write as a reporter and not look biased.

 

[EatSpam]

Originally posted by: cavemanmoron

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Wow...just...wow.

I'm never again leaving the parking lot of a Best Buy without verifying the boxed contents of a purchase.

Best Buy Manager Dave Hammond said he doesn't know for sure whether this is a case of a customer trying to trick the store, or an actual instance of a computer box containing only wood.

"Anything is possible, but we do offer a service of having it looked at when you buy it and he didn't take advantage of it," Hammond said. He referred any other questions to corporate public relations.

Yeah how much does Best/Worst Buy charge for this Service??

When, I worked there, it was free. It was looked at like "Since we have your computer plugged in, would you like to buy..."

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

I'm kinda late getting into this thread, but I have a very similar BestBuy story.

I once bought (what I thought was) a Radeon 9200 vid card from BestBuy. It was sealed in plastic and everything. However, when I got it home, the card inside was not the Radeon 9200. I'm not even sure which card it was, but it was definitely fried. It had a big burn right into the PCB.

So when I brought it back to BestBuy, they wouldn't take it back. I made a hell of a scene at the customer service desk. I got the manager's name, the store number, and the number of BestBuy's corporate office. After a struggle with BestBuy's corporate customer service, I eventually got them to send me out a gift card for the price of the video card.

Still, I went to CircuitCity and bought the card. I eventually used the gift card on little odds-and-ends, but that was the last time I bought anything significant from BestBuy. Their prices generally suck, anyway.

 

[MrCodeDude]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

"Anything is possible, but we do offer a service of having it looked at when you buy it and he didn't take advantage of it," Hammond said.

yeah, he should have to pay your $100 fee just to make sure that what he bought was what he got.

more like BB doesn't check returns out. much as i hate fry's nazi tactics, it's hard to return something without the pieces inside.

Seriously, Fry's may have a lenient return policy, but they know what they're doing. They check and cross-reference serials, etc. They are pretty stupid though.

One time, I returned a 2800+ proc bundle and the sn on the chip was like xx44xxxx and the sn on the receipt was xx444xxxx. All the x's matched up, just someone had accidently entered one more four, so a common typo. Took them 15 minutes to find another 2800+ and count how many #'s the chip was supposed to have. :roll:

 

[jabbathehutty]

I had a couple of friends who worked at best buy a long time ago. I would not be suprised one or many of there employees have done the switch in there inventory before. The majority of cases best buy would assume customers did the switch but in reality it was the employees.

Remember these employees are being paid between $7 to $9 dollars an hour, the majority of the time they are not permitted to work more than 35 hours per week. So lets figure what the chances of these employees trying to screw best buy, pretty damn high!

 

[Bassyhead]

sounds fishy

 

[bhanson]

Originally posted by: purbeast0
I know people who scammed K-Mart this way ALL THE TIME years ago, when psx was the hot thing.

When they would screw up a modding job, my friend would go to kmart, buy a psx, take it home and unseal the glue on the BOTTOM of the box (keeping the seal intact), and switch the busted psx with the brand new one in the box. Sometimes he would take the controller as well.

He would then glue the bottom back together and it would look as if it was brand new, with the factory seal on the top still intact. He would then return it the same day or the next day and have a brand new psx, with a busted psx going on the shelf back at kmart.

I believe this is the reason now a days consoles have holes in the boxes, and barcodes on the actual machine so that they can scan the actual machine when you purchase a console. I know thats how xbox was.

Go kick your friend in the balls. If someone I knew was doing this I'd make them right the situation.

 

[KrillBee]

Originally posted by: eelw
More likely some person bought the computer and returned a box full of wood. Why no one checked it before accepting the return and putting it back on the shelf, who knows???

exactly. this crap happens a lot

its probably what happened this time. what pisses me off is that this man had every right to have a computer. I suppose he went about this the wrong way, by not leaving the store, and arguing and threatening the manager

but thats rediculous though that he got charged for 3 things. fricking cops!! 4.5 years possibly behind bars? what the heck?
plus it was obvious that he was just pissed and not making a threat. a threat was all he had at that point since no one else was listening to him.

I guess the other thing he had would have been to try to sue best buy.

 

[Powermoloch]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Another reason why i do not shop at best buy.

 

[flexy]

Originally posted by: jjones
I wouldn't be surprised if his story was true and that it came from the manufacturer filled with wood.

its of course NOT done by the manufacturer - but instead by BB when they re-sealed and re-stocked a returned item, selling it as new.

The amazing thing is actually that some people actually believe BB's story - at the same time you can find PLENTY of similiar stories where people bought items (sealed !) and contained wood/bricks. BB just doesn't admit to their practices.

And, of course, the customer is the idiot (again).

 

[Mrfrog840]

Originally posted by: Modeps

Originally posted by: wasserkool
there is 110% no way that an major OEM will fill a computer box with wood blocks...

Definately not. This guy is trying to scam Best Buy...

I DISAGREE. This happened more than a few times at the best buy i used to work at. Im not even kidding. Some guy returned a DVD player with books in it. I swear to god. They didnt check the box when they returned it and just put it back on the shelf. Another instance was when someone bought a car amplifier and stripped out the inside and then returned it. Someone rebought it and got to the parking lot and took it out. Came back in PISSED, and my manager, being a dick didnt do anything about it said that the kid swapped out. Needless to say, that guy doesnt come to best buy anymore. Another instance, someone bought a Desktop machine, only to get home and find out the RAM and HDD had been removed from the computer, leaving him to buy a HDD and new RAM because again, my manager is a a-hole and didnt want to believe the guy. I know people that do this too. Its not right.

 

[vegetation]

Sounds like the real deal to me. Retail employees are paid crap, abused by their own management, and turn their frustrations to the customer. The customer then gets abused by two layers -- the employees and management. Awful, and that response by the BB employee in the news release reeks of anti-customer service. He obviously knows there's a scam going on internally in his own store but wont fess up, as he would be the one fired.

 

[Iron Woode]

It is not stated how it was purcheased by Brandon Papadatos, but if it was CC then a charge back would be in order.

If it were check or cash, I would consider hauling BB into small claims court. BB will more than likely want to settle; negative publicity and all.

I am sure the judge would love to hear how this crap goes on at BB all the time.

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob
I feel bad for this guy, but he made a LOT of mistakes:

1) He should have paid with a credit card, so he could have filed a dispute with the CC company.
2) When Best Buy refused to give him a refund, he should have SHUT UP AND LEFT, andt then called the local District Attorney's office. Those "consumer help" lines that the local TV stations do are also great.... Not only do you get your money back, but you also get to give Best Buy a ton of negative publicity for your trouble

Your saying a guy made mistakes when he was the victim???

 

[miri]

What they need to do, is do a investigation of the first person who returned that computer and go after him.

He probably opened the computer box up carefully and retaped it to look like it was never opened, probably from the bottom of the box.

 

[alkemyst]

I absolutely hate stores that accept returns and resell as new.

Also this could have been an inside job as well, when I was younger some geeks would make a deal that you return a cheaper product in the box and cut them a bit of cash. Same with car stuff audio and performance.

Blocks of wood I have not heard, but phone books and bricks I have.

 

[miri]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
I absolutely hate stores that accept returns and resell as new.

Also this could have been an inside job as well, when I was younger some geeks would make a deal that you return a cheaper product in the box and cut them a bit of cash. Same with car stuff audio and performance.

Blocks of wood I have not heard, but phone books and bricks I have.

Just about every store will resell a product as new if the product is unopened. The original scammer most likely carefully retaped the box to make it look like it was brand new.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: miri

Originally posted by: alkemyst
I absolutely hate stores that accept returns and resell as new.

Also this could have been an inside job as well, when I was younger some geeks would make a deal that you return a cheaper product in the box and cut them a bit of cash. Same with car stuff audio and performance.

Blocks of wood I have not heard, but phone books and bricks I have.

Just about every store will resell a product as new if the product is unopened. The original scammer most likely carefully retaped the box to make it look like it was brand new.

That was not what I was referring to. There are stores that reseal and take back obviously opened returns and sell as new.

 

[SVT Cobra]

it boviously someone who returned it like that

 

[imthebadguy]

lol, someone actually bought the box i retured