I have made my last trip to Best Buy (well one more, but read on). I went in to look at headphones today. They had a slightly better display than Fry’s and most of them actually worked or allowed you to plug your iDevice into it to test them.
I settled on two headsets. The Bose AE2 and the Marshal Monitor headsets. I really like the monitors, but they were just a bit much to buy two pairs. So I decided to buy one of each. I wanted a pair for home and one for work.
At checkout I attempted to get them to use their price matching policy but they refused. Apparently, online prices do not mean online. It means that they have to match very specific conditions. So I didn’t buy the monitors.
I got home and opened up the AE2’s and it appears that they were previously sold, opened, returned and resold. There was nothing on the box stating they had been previously return. The last thing I want to put on my ears is something I have no idea where it has been 😉
I get extremely frustrated that I can not walk into a store and just test out and buy something and know it’s not been returned. I am not one to use Brick&Mortar as a test bed and then go buy online, if I use their resources I generally try to give them the sale.
So I will be making my last and final trip back to the store. I will be letting them know I am done shopping there forever and I will be returning my zoner card (yes, zoner). I was one of their beta customers in San Diego when they started the program.
It’s really a shame how consumer electronics retail has turned into such a horrible experience.