WorstBuy

A co-worker of mine bought an iPod from BestBuy a couple of months ago and purchased the extended warranty to go with it. He's kept it in a case and taken very good care of it since the purchase. Last week he noticed a black spot on the screen. The black spot grew larger and now the iPod won't work. Naturally, he took it back to BestBuy to get it fixed under the warranty. As it turns out, the warranty is useless. BestBuy simply declared that the defect was due to damage by the user. So the company is either (a) calling him a liar or (b) choosing to not honor their warranty. Either way, it's not good. When he asked me about it, I told him that at the very leas, he needed to ask for a refund of the warranty since he received nothing in return for what he paid for.In my part of the world, we call that stealing. After going to the store, they ended up refunding the "unused" portion of his warranty ( figure out the logic on that one and call me when you think you have a grasp on it).

Since learning of his debacle with BestBuy, I decided to see if this was an isolated incident or part of a much larger pattern of behavior. As it turns out, this company is a pariah. You can read more about BestBuy's practices here, and here, and here, and here. Bottom line, NEVER buy from these people.