blogspot.boekhoff.org — An unbelievable saga about a product that did not have a feature that was advertised on the Circuit City site, and the customer who was forced to keep the product anyway or be charged a $142.50 restocking fee. Customer abuse at its best (or worst).
Dec 5, 2005 View in Crawl 4
theantidoteDec 5, 2005
The only good big electronics store left is CompUSA. I went in on Black Friday and bought a laser printer. They held it until the next day for me and even unboxed it and put it in my car for me because it wouldn't fit with the box. The rep I had even had me not buy a different laser that was cheaper because it was one of those AOL things that you had to sign up for service to get the low price. He told me it was a scam and this was a better printer. All of this on Black Friday, the busiest day of the year for them. I was really impressed I gotta say.
danielsonDec 5, 2005
The lady who wrote this blog sounds like an idiot (she didn't know what a parallel port looked like?). I wouldn't recommend anyone reading it, it's not worth the time. I wish I could get a full return on the time I invested into reading her blog.
vcudiggDec 5, 2005
As a former employee of 2 CC stores in the hometown of the company, I can tell you that computers are definitely one of the most confusing departments you can work in (even being very computer literate). You are expected (mostly by the customers) to know EVERYTHING about EVERY model and that gets hard to do when you work part-time without commission. You're stats/sales are also watched on monthly reports to see how you're selling. The fact is that the more you sell with warranties and accessories (definitely overpriced including USB cables and ink), the less you get bugged by the managers and store manager. This leads you to push all the accessories and the warranties during a sale and whenever you someone needs one thing you push extras. To comment on her posting I would say that the guy working there was probably one of the more sleazy people that work there who is confident enough to pretend he's right about everything and because of that he is probably "respected" by the rest of the staff and probably a "platinum" or "gold" level employee. He should have figured out about the parallel port by looking online (as all of the registers have internet access... duh...) and there really shouldn't have been a problem. That being said, because the customer did seem to express the need for a parallel port and she was told that there was definitely one on there, she should have been given a complete refund and the computer should have been marked defective and the problem should have been solved there. The big thing I don?t understand is how this seems to have happened during one day and that the whole situation wasn?t resolved with a refund. It seems that if this happened all in one day the situation would have been explained and the manager would have been quick to refund. Anyway, the other thing I would like to say is that the warranty for computers is 14 days with an open box fee if it?s opened, not like forever200 who said there was some 30 day warranty open/unopened (that?s a diff department (digital cameras and other electronics are 14 days?). Wow, that?s a lot of info but my conclusion is that I can?t really make a decision either way because it doesn?t seem as cut and dry as PriceRitePhoto (definite deceptive/shadiness on the companies part) so I don?t know if I can blame the woman or CC. Finally, if it had been me selling the computer I would feel really stupid and genuinely sorry about the situation and would stay with the customer and make sure everything went smoothly and they got their money back (although I could only stay around and not actually refund that much money)? Also I would have probably recommended the adaptor in the first place? Ugh!
trogdoorDec 5, 2005
What can you expect knowledge-wise though; if they knew what they were talking about they would be able to find a better job. The only store I have ever gotten strait knowledgeable answers and service from was an Apple Store but unfortunately their prices are atrocious.
glitchbitDec 5, 2005
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xstaticDec 5, 2005
Circuit City does have USB to Parallel devices.<a class="user" href="http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Kensington-Docking-Station-33055-/sem/rpsm/oid/75902/catOid/-13011/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do">http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Kensington-Docking-Station-33055-/sem/rpsm/oid/75902/catOid/-13011/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do</a><a class="user" href="http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Targus-Universal-Notebook-Docking-Station-with-Video-ACP50US-/sem/rpsm/oid/124835/catOid/-13011/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do">http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Targus-Universal-Notebook-Docking-Station-with-Video-ACP50US-/sem/rpsm/oid/124835/catOid/-13011/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do</a>Although I think I would have gone the parallel port network print server route:<a class="user" href="http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Hawking-Technology-10-100M-Parallel-Print-Server-HPS1P-/sem/rpsm/oid/128638/catOid/-13258/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do">http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Hawking-Technology-10-100M-Parallel-Print-Server-HPS1P-/sem/rpsm/oid/128638/catOid/-13258/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do</a>
mark_hDec 5, 2005
"What can you expect knowledge-wise though; if they knew what they were talking about they would be able to find a better job. The only store I have ever gotten strait knowledgeable answers and service from was an Apple Store but unfortunately their prices are atrocious."Haha, The Peter Principle at work.
zenchickDec 5, 2005Submitter
No, to sum it all up, the computer was not as advertised, they didn't have a suitable replacement, and they could have fixed it quite simply but chose not to. For all you folks who question the veracity of this story, or who complained about the length of it, the site has been updated with a summary and some responses to your comments.
muartyDec 5, 2005
Circuit City should really hire people that know what they are talking about and not some punk that thinks he knows what hes talking about.