Best Buy — Local services in Live Oak

Bought an open box monitor for $1200 on Jan 16th 2025. I was hesitant to buy an open box but was assured everything was good and as long as I was a BestBuy member I could return it for 30 days if there was a problem. Well, 17 days later the monitor died and would not power on. I called the BestBuy customer service line for the Geek Squad. We walked thru some trouble shooting test and he said the monitor was bad. He looked up my reciept and said no problem exchanging it at the store. He said I only needed to take the monitor, not all the other pieces as it was an even exchange. I packed it up and took it to the store (45 LG monitor). When I got there I spoke with Anthony the manager on duty. He looked up my reciept and immediately denied my echange. He said it was outside the 14 day return policy. I told him the salesperson had told me 30 days, he said he was mistaken. I told him Arnell at geekSquad Cust. Service told me no problem it was still within the exchange time, he said he was wrong also. He did tell me they would assist me on utilizing the manufacturer warranty but they couldn't do anything a the store level. I explained i just needed to exchange it and couldn't wait for the 2 - 3 weeks min. it would take to warranty it from LG. I could understand if it was a couple of months old or something, but to not exchange it for 3 days out of the return time? which is a ridiculous 14 days. I don't blame the original salesperson, obviously he wasn't trained correctly, I do blame the customer service rep, that's his whole job and it is in his department. Mostly I blame the store management team for allowing a culture to be in place of policy over people. I understand the no return, I don't agree with it, but I do understand it, but to not exchange a $1200 monitor 17 days after a customer bought it after multiple people said "no prob", wow what a disappointment. I left the monitor at the store with Anthony and let them know I would be disputing the credit card charge on the basis of defective product and refusal of return / exchange. At this point they have forever lost a customer. I have been buying from this store for more than 20 years. You woulkd think with all the online options, BestBuy would start taking care of customers not running them off.

EDIT: Response to your response, Not sure exactly you want to document, everything that happened is listed here in my review.

But I did notice as I read thru your response to other dissatified customers, you have the same non comittal responses, saying thiings like please contact us tso we can review/ document/ explain/ etc... The reason we are posting these negative reviews are because we went thru the normal avenues to try to get some help / reesolve. It just didn't work, why do we have to jump thru hoops to get someones attention to help us? It looks like me your problem escalation team needs to be more involved and have the power to resolve issues not based on policy, but based on what is the right thing to do. In almost every case I have read here it seems to me no one is asking to take money out of your pocket. We just want to our problems resolved. I think everyone knows in my case, you could have easily sent the monitor back defective and received full credit. I worked for Office Max / Office Depot as a store manager. I never had issues getting vendor credit when returning products. I am just very sad to have lost you as an option. I really liked going into the store and knowing I was supporting my community (jobs) and making purchases in person. Now I see why Jeff Bezos is so rich, I called Amazon about a product that was out of the return window, so I could get the manufacturer's phone number, And they said, no we will just take care of it for you. WOW! I guess I just expected too...

Subject: Deceptive Sales Tactics, Worthless Credit Inquiry, and Total Lack of Accountability at Best Buy

To Whom It May Concern,

I’m writing to share one of the most frustrating, misleading, and frankly infuriating customer service experiences I’ve ever had—courtesy of Best Buy.

I visited one of your stores with the intention of purchasing an NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPU. A sales associate named James, from the computers department, confidently told me the item was in stock and that if I applied for a Best Buy credit card, I could purchase it immediately. Trusting that information, I applied on the spot—and was instantly approved.

The moment my approval came through, James suddenly changed his story. He now claimed that he couldn’t sell or order the item after all, but that another store had it in stock and I could go pick it up there instead. Stunned, I asked him—while my jaw was basically on the floor—if he could at least contact the other store to confirm they actually had it. He refused. No explanation. He didn’t even look me in the eye. Instead, he fiddled with his phone, completely checked out of the interaction.

His manager was standing right next to him the entire time and said nothing. No assistance. No correction. No apology. Just complete indifference.

I went to the other store anyway, only to find out—of course—they didn’t have the GPU either. So now I’m stuck with a new Best Buy credit card I had no reason to open, based entirely on false information and empty promises.

To make matters worse, I attempted to contact Best Buy Customer Service multiple times by phone, only to discover that Best Buy apparently doesn’t actually take calls anymore—something I learned after being endlessly routed to offshore call centers that offered zero support or solutions. It’s a complete waste of time designed to frustrate customers into giving up.

Eventually, I was contacted by a shift manager named Anthony, but he offered no resolution—no apology, no compensation, nothing. Just another dead end in a series of disappointments.

This experience felt like a bait-and-switch scam, enabled by both frontline employees and their supervisors. It resulted in a pointless hard credit inquiry, a useless credit card, hours of wasted time, and a shattered sense of trust in a brand I used to rely on.

And no, I will not be contacting you on any of your social media platforms to “document or discuss” this issue. That sleazy tactic is nothing more than a ploy to boost your algorithm performance by baiting frustrated customers into boosting your engagement stats. It’s despicable.

You need to do better. This is not just bad service—it’s systemic failure. UPDATE: 04/25/2025 Update: I went in to discuss the situation and see if anything could be addressed, mainly because I still had a couple of gift cards I needed to use. A manager assisted me and listened as I explained what had happened. He was very understanding and empathetic. Whether his sincerity was authentic or not, I can't say for certain, but it came across as genuine.

He handled the situation very tactfully, making excellent use of his customer service skills — almost like it was an art form. I was able to find a similar or comparable product, and he made sure I was taken care of as best as possible. I really appreciated his effort and direct involvement in helping me purchase and order my GPU.

Overall, I was pretty satisfied with how things turned out. Only time will tell how well this all blows over, but for now,...

Feb 6,2024 Edit: Today I had the worst experience I've ever had at this bestbuy. Today for one is my birthday, so my wife had got me a really nice TV, surround sound system, wall mount and sound bar mount as gifts. Well turns out everything she got was way too big to fit in the space she wanted it to go in. So we went to return it today and get something else that fit the space. While returning the lady at the register asked if anything was wrong with the items and we just said it didn't fit the space we needed it for and we wanted to return it. She proceeds to do the return. Mind you it's a purchase done with a gift card so no cash was being refunded. Going back in the gift card only. As she's about to complete the return she gets a call on her headset and then says "oh yeah, I was just about to do that." Then proceeds to come back around the counter and take all my stuff to the geek squad area to be "checked out". Which made me feel very profiled as I'm a person of color. I'm then forced to stand there while they verify that I'm not a thief or crook and returning tampered items. Mind you none of this was relayed to me at any point of what exactly they're doing with my stuff. Then after they finally returned with only my surround sound system I asked if that lady over there (the door supervisor and another lady) asked you to make sure you checked my stuff right? She looks down and says "yes sir they did". So I said ok and nothing was wrong with my stuff right? She says, no sir. So I asked for whoever racially profiled me to now come and apologize to me please. A lady then came and made excuses about how it's their policy to check all electronics and do a functionality test on all returning electronics, which was funny because she couldn't show me that policy and then changed her story saying she never said it was their policy only their practice. But as she's saying this my surround sound system is currently on the counter fully taped up still after this supposed "functionality test" was performed. Funny how she's literally telling me they do it on all electronic items that are returned, but they only checked the expensive TV. So as she's literally lying to my face she then tells me she's not even the one that profiled me, after I specifically asked for the lady that profiled me to apologize. I then apologized to that lady as she didn't deserve my frustration, and said whatever and headed for the exit. As I did the lady that actually profiled me wouldn't even look at me or acknowledge she made a mistake in how they handled the situation. I normally never complain, but this entire situation was handled very poorly. Not once was I told what was going on, no policy or "practice" was explained to me to justify their actions and inform me of their procedure. They did this in total secrecy and made it feel like I was being judged because of the color of my skin. That is absolutely uncalled for and unprofessional. I've shopped at this store specifically for all my electronics, games, kitchen appliances etc etc for almost 20 years and after today will no longer be spending any of my hard earned money at this store ever again. ...............................................................................

Original 5 🌟 comment: I love bestbuy, and literally buy 90% of my electronics from them. I also have their total tech membership and it is great. Definitely recommend if you're a gadget guy like me. Got a Bluetooth speaker and my wife...