Best Buy Finally Called and Asked Me To Return The GN

[leshy]

Best Buy employee here too (well former, as of two months ago)

Worst case scenario: Best Buy is fined by Verizon for breaking the street date and loses competition in the market. Wanna know why you'll never see a Motorola Droid 2/3/4 or Pro at Best Buy any more? (They used to have them) Not same, but similar situation. Best Buy and Verizon got into disagreements and Verizon revoked their rights to sell them. As for the employee, he/she gets fired. (Maybe he had a past history of mistakes and this broke the camel's back)

Most likely scenario: Best Buy gets fined, employee get reprimanded. Which could be as little as a "Careful next time" to losing a few hours in the next couple weeks.

Granted, these are hypothetical.

Frankly, the damage is done. The phone was sold, the employee messed up, the company pays for it. In his defense, as a company, Best Buy is horrible with distributing information to their frontline employees. If it weren't for my own desire of phones, this mistake could have happened in my store, and probably has happened before, just not on a phone this important. We had a case where we got phones in to be sold a week before hand at 10am and weren't told until 1pm to not sell them. Before that, there was not information given on the street date unless you go through the hassle of searching inventory system. Either way, the employee did mess up because, he should have known better working in a phone department. Sorry, tis the truth.

tl;dr: Returning won't do anything but save face for the employee/store where it happened. Not like his job rests on you returning it or not. It's yours, and if it were me, I would keep it.

 

[st0ic_1]

While I would agree if this were a person to person sale, the fact that it is Best Buy who is on the losing end of this makes me unsympathetic. The company that sells $200 HDMI cables to grandmother's who don't know any better.

Exactly. There is no moral standard to be held between a consumer and a company that does this IMO.

 

[Gekko]

this is what happens when Verizon decides to play games with release dates. chaos and mass confusion. Verizon brought this upon themselves. all is fair in love and war. and this is war. Verizon made it us against them.

 

[Premium1]

Best Buy employee here too (well former, as of two months ago)

Worst case scenario: Best Buy is fined by Verizon for breaking the street date and loses competition in the market. Wanna know why you'll never see a Motorola Droid 2/3/4 or Pro at Best Buy any more? (They used to have them) Not same, but similar situation. Best Buy and Verizon got into disagreements and Verizon revoked their rights to sell them. As for the employee, he/she gets fired. (Maybe he had a past history of mistakes and this broke the camel's back)

Most likely scenario: Best Buy gets fined, employee get reprimanded. Which could be as little as a "Careful next time" to losing a few hours in the next couple weeks.

Granted, these are hypothetical.

Frankly, the damage is done. The phone was sold, the employee messed up, the company pays for it. In his defense, as a company, Best Buy is horrible with distributing information to their frontline employees. If it weren't for my own desire of phones, this mistake could have happened in my store, and probably has happened before, just not on a phone this important. We had a case where we got phones in to be sold a week before hand at 10am and weren't told until 1pm to not sell them. Before that, there was not information given on the street date unless you go through the hassle of searching inventory system. Either way, the employee did mess up because, he should have known better working in a phone department. Sorry, tis the truth.

I remember an article about verizon taking those moto off bb shelves because they sold some early.

 

[Gekko]

Exactly. There is no moral standard to be held between a consumer and a company that does this IMO.

agreed. they don't care about you, why should you care about them?

 

[MoseBuster]

Honestly, Best Buy obviously made the mistake of selling you the phone in the first place. It's not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong. They did. Whatever.

You might end up returning the phone. You might not. Honestly, it's your decision.

However, you could come out of this entire situation with the best Android phone the day it's launched... for free. Call them and see what they'll do for you if you return it. Since you don't have another phone to use in the meantime, they do. At the least, I would guess they could give you a demo phone to use until the Nexus' launch day. Then, when the device launches, you just bring back whatever phone they let you use and they simply zero out the cost of the Nexus and send you on your way.

Demanding something asinine like a $1000 gift card is only something a ****head would do. You know the kind of people I'm talking about. The dude that's going to sue McDonald's because the coffee was too hot. Or, the guy that sued an RV company because it didn't tell him that cruise control wouldn't actually steer the RV for him in the manual.

This situation isn't necessarily about one phone being sold too early. You have to think about this from a company-wide business standpoint. Obviously, Best Buy has a contract with Verizon to sell their products. This situation deteriorates that business-to-business relationship. (Once, again, obviously not your fault). You could also consider that Google made a deal with Verizon to make this device exclusive to that carrier -- at least at initial launch. This is the exact type of thing that causes company's to re-consider exclusivity for future device launches.

Obviously, I don't know what's going to go on behind the scenes with the company's involved, but I wouldn't be too shocked to see Google go another direction with the next big device launch. PR is a big deal to these companies when they're trying to sell as many units as possible.

I don't think I read in the OP's original post that Best Buy was "demanding" that he return the phone. They're asking. I don't know, maybe I've misread.

But really. Is it worth keeping the phone "just because" if you can 1) get the money back you spent to buy the Nexus in the first place, 2) Have a phone to use until the Nexus officially launches, and then 3) get the Nexus for free on launch day?

 

[izzyncade]

In my best legal advice, and I would definitely take my advice seriously. What you should do is....squirrel!

 

[edoublediz]

next time they call to follow up, make the static noise like you have a bad connection.

 

[BiNGE]

I remember an article about verizon taking those moto off bb shelves because they sold some early.

This and breaking MSRP, while it is enforced, are really the acting forces behind devices being pulled from stores. Consider this and really VZW already has their target for any/all recourse. No service issues will be pushed to the customer.

 

[Laramie]

As an employee for one of the two companies in question I am furious at points, laughing, and all around this is more of a rollercoaster than a day's work. What do the majority here eat for breakfast?
The fantasy as I've seen it,

• Verizon will deactivate or blacklist service of a device without the consent of the owner of the account.
• Best Buy hasn't already gotten into trouble for this. (they have)
• The OP is being pestered to make decisions that are not his own.

People, Verizon will NEVER blacklist a phone without the consent of the original consumer owner. If Best Buy can prove it was never sold then they can get it black listed. This is only possible in court. The question would be why would BB go that far? What are they facing if they don't get this device back? It's simple. They are facing the same action that was taken last holiday season with the Droid Pro. They refused to follow MSRP on printed material for the phone and it was removed from their shelves. The same action will be enforced with the Nexus. They really can't afford this and will most likely pay Verizon a sum of money to keep it on the shelves. A problem with court is that it takes time and money. They need it because VZW will not blacklist a phone owned by a store or company without proof of it being stolen.

I feel the OP made a great topic but how much credibility or dignity can he retain from sounding like a dirtbag to BB? He wanted to share his experience and plenty of people "wish" they could be in his position. At the end of the day BB should compensate the buyer for their time since this goes beyond the scope of a mistake. This does not mean they will do anything. The company I work for rarely gives freebies for making mistakes. You pay them for a product or service and the only person at fault here is the wireless consultant. The consultant will most likely get written up if they have a good track record, but who's fault is this really? Indirect channel of Verizon is supposed to notify every store in their area of changes to release dates and follow up in store with a visit. If your rep is not doing this I would suggest reaching out and seeing if you can't get their boss' number.

Keep your phone if it works and return it under your terms if you can't stand the bugs. BB already made their mistake and paid for it. VZW will not do a thing to you. A store in my region just recieved phones and the problem with these devices is not resolved. Any update will be OTA or on the backend of Verizon's network.

Are you allowed to expound a little on the "problem"?

 

[dwboston]

He is one. He posts inane useless crap in every thread and passes it off as fact.

Isn't Mr. Morality the same guy who demanded (and allegedly got) free stuff from Moto, including a pre-release RAZR, because his Xoom wasn't upgraded with the LTE module quickly enough for his liking? Seems like a bit of a double standard for him.

 

[Merc25]

Are common courtesy and common decency really that dead in this me, me, me world?

Has nothing to do with common courtesy or decency...Verizon caught Best Buy opening up the cookie jar and handing out cookies...and Best Buy got its hand slapped for it...Now Best Buy is trying to put the half eaten cookies back into the cookie jar so it can act like it was a good boy.

 

[jmartinbsu]

Never have I seen a carrier and its sales partners go to such lengths to prevent a phone from getting into consumer hands.. . .Penalties for breaking street dates aside, which happens all the time, what the heck is going on with this thing?

OK, Ex-Best Buy employee here. Having dealt with the cell phone side of things I can probably illuminate this a tiny bit.

The store was more than likely contacted down the chain from corporate and the GM got a nasty-gram from a corporate/district person reminding them that their contract with Verizon to sell phones in the store has some extremely stiff penalties should they break a street date. How stiff? We were told in the past that Carriers could not only pull a model of phone from being sold anywhere in the company to a carrier pulling out of BBY all together. More than likely it's the former which when you consider it is still millions of dollars to them. I've seen stores individually not be allowed to carry specific phones at all and it's cost them a ton of $$, so what if the company doesn't get the phone at all? Even a 6 month delay would hurt them big time...

This is more than likely why you've been contacted. My guess is Verizon is acting on this threat at this time. Assuming this, I think you ask for a lot. $1000 GC + a RAZr?? Why not. What are they going to do? Tell you no? If it's important to them (and I believe it is for the reason given above), they just may say YES. If they don't, then ask them what they're willing to give you. I wouldn't be afraid to let them know that it's financially important for them to fix their mistake and how seriously they should be in wanting you to give it back. I wouldn't tell them more than that but let them know if they want the phone that they sold you and you legally own at this point, then they need to show that they mean it. If you don't get anything over $500 and a free phone I'd walk. I seriously think you hold ALL the trump cards here and should know it going in... Ask for a 5 Star deal here and settle on a 3 or 4 star one.

 

[ihyln]

Are you allowed to expound a little on the "problem"?

They can't find the dartboard to set a new date?

 

[CynicX]

Best Buy has been calling, but this is what happens when Verizon calls.

Law Abiding Citizen: Judge's Phone Call W/ Fps Doug - YouTube

 

[Merc25]

Isn't Mr. Morality the same guy who demanded (and allegedly got) free stuff from Moto, including a pre-release RAZR, because his Xoom wasn't upgraded with the LTE module quickly enough for his liking? Seems like a bit of a double standard for him.

So he is attempting to qualify for the troll olympics?

 

[llasch]

I love how we're getting some sympathy posts for BB. Why?? They will continue to make millions upon millions of dollars long after however this thing turns out. Now yes if someone was going to get canned then I understand not asking for AS much, but you better try and get SOMETHING. You might as well stick it to the man while you can.

 

[Mac58]

Negotiate. Make deal. Return if satisfied with deal. Keep if not. Simple.

 

[Gekko]

i like how Hunter S. Thompson handles electronics retailers mess ups - (warning - profanity) -

Hunter S. Thompson, another satisfied customer - YouTube

 

[greydarrah]

The only problem with giving the phone back is that BB sold more than one phone to one person. So if they don't get every one back, they're in the same amount of trouble from Verizon.