Micro Center — Attraction in Doral

When I heard we were getting a Microcenter in Florida I was very excited as Microcenter is very highly viewed among many subreddits where I've learned about their spectacular deals and customer service. Unfortunately I have mixed feelings about the level of customer service I received.

I live 3 hours away from this location, but with the new launch of the Ryzen 7 9800x3d CPU, I thought no better time than to make my first visit to Microcenter and see what its all about. The ordering process was very easy and I was able to reserve the bundle which included the Asus motherboard ($679) 3 days ahead of time and picked up on Saturday 11/9/24. Awesome!

When I got home and put together my components, updated the BIOS, and installed windows. Everything was going smooth. Then the PC shut off and would no longer turn on. Through various troubleshooting methods I determined that the motherboard was defective. Not a problem. I hear Microcenters return process is simple.

I go to the website and chat with a customer service associate who informed me that the exchange would be able to be made within 15 days. I had questions if the other two components in the bundle were defective as well, but to get that checked out I would have to be charged $79.99 diagnostic fee according to the associate. This doesn't really seem right to me, as I just spent over $700 on my visit I feel I shouldn't need to pay more to make sure the parts are working after I received a defective item.

He also informed me I could just exchange my bundle within the 15 days and it would be fine. Okay I thought, I'll just place another order online and get down there the following Saturday. Wrong. I get a comfirmation email that my order was ready for pickup, but then 15 minutes later I recieve an email from an associate saying my order was canceled because there is a limit of 1 per customer due to CPU being so new. I tried to respond to this email explaining why I placed the order and asked for a phone call. I got nothing in return.

I watched the website for 2 days and the bundle never restocked when I checked, so I worried if I would end up going past my 15 day refund time and missing my window. As mentioned I live 3 hours away so driving there anytime isn't easy as I need to do it on my days off work.

I ended up going to a competitor and buying a motherboard to test my CPU and RAM to make sure they were both in working order, success. They both worked. So the motherboard was indeed defective.

I started another online chat this time explaining how frustrated I was and really at this point just wanted a refund as I would have to drive another 3 hours there and back totalling 12 hours of driving time total. They said they needed to escalate to a manger and that they would get back to me. That is fine I understand.

The manager emailed me and stated that the refund would be no problem, but since I return 1 item I no longer get the bundle cost for the other two... Okay... Thats fine I suppose and it makes sense. But kind of defeated the whole point of going to microcenter in the first place. I agree to this but still didnt like it. A few hours later I emailed back asking if I could just exchange the Asus motherboard for the MSI motherboard on the other bundle for $50 more. The manager agreed and we agreed that we would do it on Saturday 11/16/24.

When I get to the store and the associate processes my exchange, the total comes to $70+tax. What? Why is it $70? The difference is only $50 between both bundles. I even pull it on my phone to show them. They called another associate over to verify the bundle price is correct. Only to find out that between the 9th and the 16th both bundles increased $20. The associate returned my whole bundle (even though I only brought back the motherboard) and charged me the new bundle price on the other bundle resulting in a $70 difference.

While I understand it's not Microcenter fault that I live far away and its the manufactuers fault that the part was defective. I feel this could have been handled...

Repeat customer, I'd say I average 30-40 purchases per month of PC cases as I build PC's on the side while I go to college. Returned 2 total items in all of my purchases, once for a 7900XT that had an absolutely insane coil whine and the second return was today.

I've never had an issue with anyone in the store and am always in and out never really talking to anyone much, just doing pickups for the most part. I walked in to return a INLAND X1 Black PC Case because it was somehow missing the glass side panel, and I knew it was their in house brand so I thought it was weird and went to return to get a new one. A woman with short blond gelled hair then starts interrogating me and making sarcastic/snarky comments like "what's the problem today?", "Yeah I see you doing this alot" and "you always come in here with some sort of issue don't you". I can't remember the rest as I was genuinely incredibly upset that I'm getting accused of such a thing with absolutely no proof/evidence/recurring returns (I HAVE ONE RETURN IN THE ENTIRE STORE HISTORY BEFORE THIS POINT). I was originally talking to a nice guy who I've talked with at the register there a few times never had a problem, he says yep that's a weird issue and they go to get the other items. He somewhat has my back on the issue but I get this weird vibe all around from all of them and they all seem to scatter away after. I didn't want to leave a review as I never do this type of thing as I get everyone has bad days but I go to call support as to get confirmation that I can buy things and return items once every blue moon without getting genuinely disrespected in front of their customers and I am told by the manager a half apology and "I'm sorry you feel/felt that way" comments which always ring out hollow, and to top it all off a non resolution of "Yeah I can have a word with her" while basically giving a general consensus of "Yeah she's within' her right to do those things".

Great store and most of the employees are great, mistakes happen, but this interaction didn't feel like a mistake. Just felt this review was deserved after this absolutely ridiculous,...

As a big fan of all things tech, I was excited to visit the new Micro Center in Miami to build a new PC from scratch. My goal was to walk out with a working computer, and thanks to a helpful sales guy (he had a foot injury and was really great), I managed to do that. He was the best part of the experience.

The store looks nice and has all the tech you’d expect. Since it’s their first store in Florida, I brought my wife along to show her what a real tech store is like. However, the air conditioning wasn’t working in this brand-new store, which was a bad start. But the real problem was the terrible customer service and lack of staff availability.

I picked out all the parts I needed and left them at the service center to be put together. I was one of the last customers there when the store was about to close at 9 PM. As I was loading my old computer into my car, I heard parts rattling inside. It turned out that the techs had left parts loose inside my machine after swapping out some drives.

I went back inside, found the manager, and showed him the issue. I didn’t want the inexperienced techs messing with my computers again, so I took them home. When I got home, my new computer didn’t even turn on, so I had to fix it myself. Not everyone has the skills to do that, and after spending over $2,000 on a machine, I shouldn’t have had to deal with this.

This was a really disappointing experience. I was expecting much better service from Micro Center, but I won’t be going back. It’s a shame that such a great brand is running a store so poorly when it could be a place to inspire the next generation of tech lovers. Micro Center, you need to do better! Here is my service order number for reference SV2409090587.

Update Sept 12 : They did email me and I did respond but they never responded back. The computer they harvested doesnt work and they don't bother to even respond....