Circuit City: HORRIBLE!

[adster]

Hey guys. I wanted to post my horrible experience at Circuit City. I wrote this up as a generic story, so most of you know what's going on but it doesn't change the contents.

 

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Gather round friends! I'm going to tell you the tale of a boy, his search for a laptop computer, and the hassle one corporation gave him to sell it as it's advertised price.

 

Little Background: The Friday after Thanksgiving is known to the retail market as Black Friday. It's supposed to be the busiest shopping day of the year and signaling the start of the official holiday season. It's also the day where major retail chains sell products at well-below cost to get you to shop at their stores first. This season, the hottest items were Laptop computers for under $400. Wal*Mart advertised one model for $378 while Best Buy advertised $379, all out the door prices. Circuit City advertised a slightly better laptop for $199 - with a catch. The catch is that you have to sign up for a year of AOL at either their $23.90 a month plan or the $14.95 no-dialup plan. If you do this, the Laptop will be $199 out the door. To actually take part in these deals, one must line up in front of the store hours and hours before the store even opens.

 

Cut to Adam driving to Orlando from Gainesville.

 

I had planned to camp out in front of Circuit City with a few friends to purchase the laptop. I was driving in from out of town and had planned to show up around 11pm. With the laptops in short supply (each store getting at least 15, possibly a little more) I had to line up early. After a call came in that said there were about 50 people already in line, I decided to skip home and head right to another Circuit City.

 

At around 10PM I get in line at a different CC. I start asking around, and realize I'm number 19 in line for the laptop. It worried me because I didn't know exactly how many they had, all I knew was they had 15.

 

Fast forward a few hours to 4:30AM.

 

The manager of the store arrives and lets everyone know that they 27 laptops available. Score! So I grab a voucher for the laptop (19 of 27) and that guarantees me my computer.

 

5AM: The doors open.

 

There is your usual mad rush, but the people that are purchasing the laptops have a separate register they need to use - so we can sign up for AOL. Immediately after the store opens, the AOL system crashes. An associate lets us know what the deal is and they were on the phone with AOL to fix them problem. Fair enough.

 

Fast forward to 3 hours later - about 8AM. The line is still there and not a single person has been checked out. The AOL system was starting to work intermittently, and they decided to try it. After 2 or 3 people, the AOL system stops accepting the $14.95 plan. People start to get rowdy. The managers (there were 2) never once came to talk to the crowd about the situation. He sent an associate to tells us that we can only sign up for the $23.90 plan, something that no one was going to do, so the small crowd of about 30 or so starts to get loud.

 

2 more hours go by and no one is checked out yet. The manager hasn't said a word to anyone, but the associate is trying to keep us calm (and doing a good job of it). A local news station got wind of what was going down inside and came to investigate. After they setup their camera inside, the associate comes to us and says that we are going to get the laptop for $199 and ignore AOL.

 

The crowd cheers.

 

5 minutes later, he comes back and tells us that we'd still get it for $199 but we need to sign up with AOL (which, if you read what I said above is exactly the same deal we expected at 5AM, just worded differently) By this time, the crowd was growing very tired. Most have been in line for 12-14 hours already (including me), been awake for more then 24 hours and haven't eaten anything all day. We weren't allowed to leave the store, or the laptop would be sold to someone else. We just wanted to get it over with, so the associate checks us out 1 at a time - keeping in mind that AOL takes roughly 15 minutes a person to sign up for. While all of this was going on, neither manager still had yet to address the crowd, or at the very least apologize for wasting our time, let alone compensate us for the now-6 hour checkout process. 4 or 5 people have now skipped work to be there and the manager didn't care.

 

Here is where my story gets interesting. I finally get checked out around 1PM (after being in the store for 8 hours, plus the 7 hours standing outside) I paid for my laptop, accessories and go and pick it up. The pickup counter says that I still need to pay $99 to pick up the laptop.

 

What the ****?

 

The manager (who is very much not on anybodys good side right now) proceeds to tell me that the remaining laptops all have Antivirus / Spyware pre-installed for $99 extra. I told him there was not a single piece of paper in the store that said that, and that it was an option. He told me it's either $99 more or they can refund the entire price of my purchase, my choice. I told him what he was pulling was a "bait and switch" - which is a highly illegal business practice, especially after I've paid for all my merchandise. He still doesn't budge and keeps telling me that this is all he has. I asked to speak to his supervisor, then he said there is no one above him because he is the store director. I said that is bullshit, because everyone has a supervisor and I wanted to talk to his immediately. He gave me the number to the corporate office so I called them. Luckily they had gotten wind of this situation earlier (because people had already called AND the news story aired on the 12 o'clock afternoon news) and they asked to speak to the store manager.

 

He then hung up, and told me that the extra software installed will be no charge and to consider it a gift from Circuit City. I chucked at the word "gift" and walked out of the store, but not before running into the last 4 people behind me in line. Apparently I had purchased the last laptop and there were none left for the other 4 people. They were more livid then I was but I just wanted out of there so I never got to see how Circuit City resolved that situation. One of the ladies was the 2nd person in line from the night before and she left without her laptop.

 

Bottom Line: I understand computer glitches happen. Hell, I work with them every day but what got most people upset was the way the Circuit City management took care of the situation. Not once did any manager address the angry crowd. Not once did he apologize for the inconvenience. When I told him he should get us donuts, coffee, anything because we were here for 14 hours, he looked at me and said "I don't think so." Not once were we offered a chair, refreshments, or any answers. When asked about how we were going to be compensated for spending 7 hours just to pay for our merchandise, he said our compensation is "getting a great deal on a good laptop". The management at Circuit City does NOT care about customer service at all, and it's because of that reason that I urge every one of you to think twice about shopping at this retail chain. Any deal you get there isn't worth the hassle you'll be faced with.

 

Any questions? I'd love to answer them. Leave a comment.

[ManxLdy]

Why did you leave G'ville to go to Orlando? I always get what I need at the G'ville CC and they are good. Plus they never have that many people there.

[Guest general41391]

long story, but interesting.

 

was it really worth 15 hours in line?

 

I really do not understand why people dont go out on BF. I think every person should. it is ONE DAY. you get 350+ a year

[andreadawn45]

All I can say is- wow!

[jamieva]

Reading multiple threads on here I remember why I never shop CC anymore. Their service stinks out loud.

[89MustangGX]

Sorry to hear about your experience.

[alimfp]

That is terrible. I cannot believe that crap about the $99 installation of that stuff (which isn't worth even close to that much, including labor to install it IMO). I'd write a letter and call corp again, but then again, I am not one to just be okay after a situ like that!

[buickgn]

this sounds like the cc i was at today. By any chance was it the cc in orlando by fashion square? We waited about the same time from 2am too 1pm. What a mess that was:mad:

[Rayny]

It sounds like that CC needs a new head manager. If I were you, I'd be writing a letter to their home office. The way you were treated was pure and utter BS! That manager has absolutely no customer service skills and IMO, he needs to go.

[Cru]

WoW! Hey adster I did the CC thing as well and I have to agree with the slllloooooowwwwwwwwwww customer service. Although I didn't have to endure the nightmare you went through, I did have to wait forever to get signed up for AOL and to get my merchandise rang up. I was 3rd in line and it took me over 3 1/2 hours before I was finally able to walk out of the store. Way too long............

 

Yeah I think if I do BF next year it will definitely be at a different store. I read alot of positives about other stores but not one single positive about CC.

[grapico]

We weren't allowed to leave the store, or the laptop would be sold to someone else.

thats weird, they let us all leave with our vouchers about 5:30 and said we could come back, so we pretty much all left and went to another store shopping, they held our wireless routers in a lock cage, , i came back at 10:30 and checked out with my 2 desktops and kodak camera. i still agree though they did a very poor job of crowd control at my store, besides that the aol thing was nation wide.

[Mursilis]

Amazing - you have much more patience than me. I would never have hung around that long.

[Reisch]

After reading all the previous posts I seem to have been lucky and got one of the laptops at Circuit City and a very decent shopping experience.

 

I arrived at my local CC at 11:15 PM and see a line up already camped out. I asked how many were there for the laptop and almost all put their hands up. I quite some quick addition and guessed I would luck in and get one of the laptops at 5:00 AM. I set up my chair and got ready to camp out. As the night/morning pressed on the core group of us talked quite a bit and got to know each other. By 2:30 the line now include over 100 people and some of the later customers looked like they might try something underhanded. A group of us near the front of the line made sure nobody acted untoward and enforced a "no idiot" policy. At 4:00AM the CC Asst Mgr came out and explained the voucher & AOL policy.

 

I got voucher # 11 of 15 for the laptop (including bundled printer & router). At 5:00AM the doors opened and we all streamed inside making sure nobody behind us pushed ahead. It was pleasant seeing the "no idiot" policy being enforced throughout the morning.

 

Once inside it got a bit harried but that was to be expected seeing as the line outside was almost a 1/4 mile long. I picked up a few other items on my list but missed the 512MB SD card by milliseconds! Oh well I had my laptop . I did the AOL for Broadband sign-up for $14.95 and waited in line to pay for my items. I waited about 35 minutes in line and was out by 6:15AM.

 

Overall a pretty good experience for my first BF camp-out. The initial group in line were very decent people and the staff at CC did their utmost to ensure BF went well.

 

I stopped by that CC after lunch and thanked the Mgr & Asst Mgr on a job well done.

 

Time to mail in the rebates. :)

[Josher5513]

CC apparently doesn't know how to handle the crowds when they decide to have a good sale. Here, to sign up for the AOL, we had to go to the car installation room where we would have "Dedicated service reps who would get us going ASAP"... Turns out, there was no one there. Woops they forgot about us. And as we waited 3 hours in 3 different lines, after waiting in the cold all night, the managers refused to speak to us. They hid in the back room the entire time.

[adster]

Why did you leave G'ville to go to Orlando? I always get what I need at the G'ville CC and they are good. Plus they never have that many people there.

Well I had Thanksgiving dinner with my family up there but I live in Orlando.

 

this sounds like the cc i was at today. By any chance was it the cc in orlando by fashion square? We waited about the same time from 2am too 1pm. What a mess that was:mad:

Thats the exact location I was talking about!

[Nautical]

You both need to call corporate and get his ass O-U-T!

[ebony0421]

I am sure that after this, there will be many a training meeting and hopefully they'll get it together before bf2006.:)

[bassfishinmomma]

That's interesting that all the CC's were slow like that. I have had wonderful experiences with CC. I believe the problem lied with AOL! Of course they SHOULD have opened more than one line for the computers. They had one for laptops and one for Desktops. I got the desktop for free after rebates.

I got there at 4:15 got 7 out of 35 for free desktop. We left the store at about 8:15. The registers weren't ringing up the free routers the right way and I got them to make sure it did! Instant credit of $40 then mail in rebate for $20. AOL would not authorize the $14.95 plan. We signed me up three different ways sooo they gave me the $250 instant credit instead of the mail in rebate from AOL!!! They were very nice and were just doing their jobs. I might have gotten it like that because we weren't being rude or demanding or they just didn't want to have to keep us any longer! LOL But, in aboiut 3-4 weeks my computer and router will be FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[queenofshopping]

from all the threads i've read on the subject it sounds like Circuit City is conning people on a national level - they should be investigated by the BBB