Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Buy.com and the worst customer service in the world
While Keith Olbermann makes fun of people labeling them "The Worst Person(s) in The World," we here at PBS headquarters deal with the dirtiest elements of internet retailers. It is into these waters we swim daily. Today's honoree is Buy.com. Buy.com honors neither their stated price match policy, nor anything remotely like a reasonable return policy.

If you're giving a gift, go elsewhwere. Their 14 day return policy is a sham.

Office Depot makes Buy.com seem like Amazon.com(which does have a reasonable return policy)

The scenario is this, I bought two MP3 players from Buy.om in December. I gave one as a gift that was unopened until 01.01.09. The gifted player was DOA. I emailed Buy.com and explained in detail the situation. I was told that I would have to pay postage to get the player to the manufacturer and wait for a replacement.

So, I emailed the manufacturer with the email response from Buy.com forwarded as an attachment. The manunfacturer emailed me a RMA(Return Material Authorization) number and said nothing about who was to pay shipping. I emailed the manufacturer again, and here it is, five days hence and I have yet to get a response.

Buy.com, Sandisk Corp., and the refurbisher - xtremeupgrade.com are all more trouble than they're worth. I have yet to resolve this situation, and if the above parties do not respond to my reasonable requests for assistance, I'll make the links live and post the emails - complete with header information.

Caveat Emptor!