‘Customers lie constantly’: Best Buy customer brings in return. But he bought the item at Target
A failed Best Buy tablet return sparks an internet conversation on the state of civility.
A Reddit shared the story in a post to r/BestBuy thread titled, “Ever wonder what a normal day at Best Buy (customer service) looks like?” The thread has generated more than 100 upvotes since Jan. 4.
User and Best Buy employee Ukiyo_danny (u/Ukiyo_danny) wrote that in one recent shift he’d had to deal with a customer upset because they couldn’t return a tablet they bought at Target.
Do the Best Buy complaints ever end?
Danny also had to handle: A couple that was irate because the store’s Geek Squad team doesn’t deliver on Sundays, a customer upset at waiting for help during peak business, and another customer getting angry because Danny didn’t already know what he’d used a gift card for.
Of course, we’ve also written previously about plenty of times when Best Buy employees managed to screw up even the most basic steps in customer service.
There’s the time when a store’s curbside pickup went so screwy that it gave a $1,500 computer to the wrong customer.
Or, there’s the Geek Squad member who swiped some compromising photos from a customer’s phone during a repair visit.
Other stores suffer, too
Of course, Best Buy is hardly the only retail spot that routinely tests its workers’ patience.
In a viral rant, a former supermarket manager in the United Kingdom dished on the five types of customers staff secretly dread. Topping the list? The infamous "yellow sticker vultures"—those bargain hunters who swarm discounted items like seagulls on chips.
Add to that the aisle hoggers, last-minute markdown interrogators, and the receipt hoarders, and you’ve got a lineup that could make any retail worker shudder.
And shoplifting has become so prevalent in some Walmart locations that the superstores have had to put low-dollar incident items like nail files (price tag: $1.50) behind lock and key.
Best Buy vets share horror stories
Respondents in the thread had no shortage of their own stories of Best Buy complaints from customers, or employees behaving badly.
One Best Buy employee shared a story about a customer who returned a TV they said came damaged out of the box.
“First thing I did (especially when impact mark looked like a remote control thrown at it) was plug the TV in and not only did the guy have all his streaming services on there, his Google account had his profile picture as his selfie. Suffice to say turned that return exchange down,” they wrote.
Or, a former Best Buy manager shares, “One guy threatened to kill me because I wouldn’t return his phone that he dropped and cracked the screen. I personally sold him that phone and offered him our protection plan and Verizon’s and he declined both.”
Another comment chalked the bad behavior to a general slide in societal norms.
“I genuinely don’t understand how people are so entitled. Is it a generational thing?” they wondered.
The Daily Dot reached out to Best Buy via email, and to Danny via Reddit chat.
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