Best Buy has canceled a bunch of orders that customers placed over the last two months just days before Christmas, and now it's getting slammed for it, reports FOX 9 Minneapolis.
Here's the statement it emailed to FOX 9:
“Due to overwhelming demand of hot product offerings on BestBuy.com during the November and December time period, we have encountered a situation that has affected redemption of some of our customers’ online orders. We are very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused and we have notified the affected customers.”
There's a little apology in there, but customers are livid. They've gone to the Best Buy forums to bash the company for ruining Christmas, and the atmosphere there is so hostile it's probably tough for a Best Buy PR person to read. Words like "thieves," "boycott" and "scam" and being used pretty commonplace.
Elsewhere on the web, commenters are lighting up Best Buy for its failure too (check out the throngs of Yahoo! commenters roasting the company here).
So what's next for Best Buy?
There's been no word about compensation for the affected customers. Something has to be done -- people won't just brush this one off.
And it's not being transparent about what's going on either. Best Buy hasn't said which products have been affected, nor how many.
Did you have an order canceled or delayed by Best Buy? Let us know what happened in the comments.
UPDATE: This was posted by one of our commenters who was affected by the cancellations. It's a pretty telling story about how Best Buy is handling this debacle (emphasis ours):
I am one of those customers who had their order cancelled and will do my best to avoid BestBuy at all in the future -- not so much because they didn't have the item I wanted (a 42" Samsung plasma TV), but because they tried to get me to accept a less product at the same price as a replacement.
I had consciously avoided ordering an older model of that TV that had a lower rating, but did order one when the newer higher rated TV was offered. When they cancelled about a week ago on an order I placed Nov. 30, they tried to get me to take the older TV or offered to sell me a comparable TV to the one I ordered, but for at least $50 more -- one top of the fact that it wouldn't arrived until well after Christmas.
Even the staff members from BestBuy that I spoke to when I was looking for a comparable replacement expressed their frustration that management was not allowing them to allow equal replacements for equal prices. I suspect that they were trying to get rid of the older product and thought we'd take it off their hands for the same price. I've never seen a company make a mistake and offer absolutely nothing as a concession to customers to help make up for it.
So to me the story is even more about the poor customer service as a follow-up than just the cancellation itself. For me, it reflects poorly not only on their on-line service but on the attitude of the company as a whole -- which is why I will do my best to avoid giving them any business at all in the future.
The service manager on my call did tell me that she entered my complaint into their system. I have yet to hear a word from anyone representing the company.
Thanks for reporting on this.
Best wishes,
Tom Nenon
Memphis TN
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