Damn it hurts a little when many of you seem ready to kill the employees when most of them are just doing their job so they dont get fired. I just started working at BB about... well... a week ago. All the people I work with are awesome. They joke around with eachother, we have nights where after we close we get to have tournaments on the big projection systems, and I have not yet talked to an employee that was not in, or already graduated from, college (Except for some of the cashiers, they are our 16+ croud).
Someone said they have 16 y/o's selling products they know nothing about. This could be true if BB allowed anyone under 18 to work the floor, but facts are not important right? Also, you are interviewed and asked questions about the section you will be working in. I had to know quite a bit of advanced stuff (for a sales job at least) to get into Computer sales. I still don't know why I had to answer some of them, any customer that knows a proc uses L1 and L2 cache, and what IRQ's are assigned to what devices, probably knows enough that they dont have to talk to me when making their computer choice, but whatever.
As for the price match, I have not yet had a better experience with any other company when compared to them. I am not saying I have had better with BB, just saying that I dont see Circuit City as being any better. For example: I tried to PM a UPS recently, I got the same answer from BB, CC, Comp USA (although a much worse answer, they said they called Office Max and OM said the price in the AD I brought them was not corrent, I went back to OM and they said nobody called, I went back to C USA and talked to a manager and he said they called and talked to the manager at OM I had just got done confirming the price with, and said he (even though it was really a she) said that the price was wrong.), and Office Depot.
Also, you talked about a TV saying that you did not believe that a $300 dollar TV was near cost, well believe it. Did any of you know that when Best Buy sells a Computer, Printer, Video Card, etc, they are selling them AT COST with maybe a 1-7 dollar markup? We do not make our money on stuff like that, we make it on printer ink, USB cables (the markup is huge), service plans, the BB card, and a bunch of other stuff.
I bought a XM Roady setup from them, and went back 2 weeks later and got it PM'd without a single problem, they smiled and put the difference back on my credit card. I have had this experience several times.
My point is, there are a lot of BB's that have bad, no talent employees. There are some in my district, and even the people at my store (the top ranked store in our district) make fun of them. That does not mean BB is out to screw you. Either they are following rules that are made very clear to us, or they are stupid. But stupidity and ignorance is far from limited to BB.
Oh and a bit of info:
1. We DO NOT have to call another store to confirm a PM. We have other customers to deal with and do not feel like arguing with you when someone who is ready to buy something from us is waiting.
2. We DO NOT have easy access to the internet to confirm ads, we have the system setup with the BB intranet, and it is possible to get online, but we are told to keep from doing it if possible.
3. DO NOT explode at whoever you are talking to. Explain the problem and ask why they are not PM'ing. If they say its because you made up the ad, go back to the other store, grab 10 of them and go back, get the manager at the other store to sign the ad and give her phone number. If they still give you that excuse, then find a new BB or shop somewhere else, I really dont care because I know that my BB would not do that, our managers are awesome.
4. I agree, not PM'ing because it is below cost is kind of bogus, but I also have not heard anyone give a story saying that BB would not PM, but CC would. (I did not read all of the posts here, after the 10th "Yeah BB sucks" I thought I got the message.)
5. BB has no restocking fee except on open computer packages, and a couple other big items. Someone made that the only line in their post, and it made me laugh.
6. The Reward Zone is friggin' awesome, and the coupons they send you, like for the customer appreciation 10% off everything in the store weekend was badass, if you have a problem with that you need help.
OK I am done, like I said I am not doing this because of love BB over any other company, I have just seen a lot of BS in this topic and wanted to give some fairly public info that many of you have not taken the time to find out for yourself.