“Tim” went to Best Buy while recovering from surgery on his leg, not thinking he would have to do much lifting of a sound system he wanted to purchase.

Wrong! read more »

Kevin B. is really in a tough spot. I found his video on Youtube and asked him if I share his plea for help.

Kevin dropped some serious coin on a Pioneer AVIC-F700BT from Best Buy in May of 2009. From looking at this thing, it looks like a really nice stereo with a big screen that does GPS, Bluetooth calls, and music stuff. By the looks of it, this was not a small investment.

Trying to avoid future headaches and protect his investment, Kevin purchased the Geek Squad Black Tie Protection on the device. He also had it installed by the Geek Squad Auto Tech people.

In February of 2010, the unit’s Bluetooth Call Feature stops working. So, Kevin returns to the store with his car and talks to the “Lead Audio Installer” (we’ll call him Chuck) who apparently had dealt with problems with this unit before, and knew the unit was a “piece of junk”. Chuck even told Kevin that once the unit was removed, sent in, and it was reinstalled, that he would still have problems with it and that problems with these units were “typical”.

The unit was removed from Kevin’s car and returned, presumably, to the manufacturer for service. In the mean time, Kevin is driving around for three weeks without a car stereo. Three weeks is a long time to drive around in silence. Sometimes I do it for three or four minutes to clear my head, but three weeks would be pure torture.

As Chuck guessed, the unit arrives back at the store, is “fixed”, and is ready for installation. So, it’s installed and sure enough, it still doesn’t work.

The kicker is that Best Buy doesn’t carry units like this one in its stores any more, so there is no comparable unit that Kevin can have installed in his car that has the same functions as this unit. Ouch.

All Kevin wants is a refund for the unit and his old car stereo reinstalled so he can get back to listening to music. Not his ideal dream of navigating to his destination, chatting on the phone, and rockin’ out to some tunes all through his mega-super stereo system, but at least it would play music.

Is that so much to ask for? I guess that’s left up for Best Buy to decide, but so far, Kevin still has a stereo that won’t even stay on.

Customers who spend as much money as Kevin did with Best Buy shouldn’t be given the customer service run-around, they should be given what they want (within reason). Kevin scratched Best Buy’s back, it’s time that they returned the favor.

Best of luck Kevin, and keep us posted on your wrestling match with the Big Blue Giant.