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Ex-Employee Beware of Futureshop and the extended warrenty

Posted by chris_head360 on January 12th, 2012

Hi, i will be completely honest, when i first joined futureshop i was quite the excited person to be working around my passion of electronics. 6 months later i have quit and i am in school trying studying as hard as i can so i never end up back there. This company starts off every morning by having a staff meeting in which they are told to sell PSP (warranty) and push it on the consumer in a way they can’t say no. This warranty is a scam, the warranty prices and lengths are carefully selected so 95% of the products actually fail after your warranty expires. I understand that every place needs to make money as a business but cables and accessories make the stores a lot of money. Monster cables (scam) are only 20ish dollars for employees (75-250 for customers) and actually work just as good as a cable from ebay.ca, people say that monster cables transfer data faster but you won’t be able to tell the difference with your eyes. (and the store i worked actually uses these cheaper cables on their demos, and compare picture, WHAT A JOKE!) So i was a merchandiser (did all the physical work) and i was able to witness all the crap they try to push. If you bad mouthed the PSP (product service plan) you were immediately fired. If you questioned it than you would made a fool of and told how uneducated you were not to buy it. When truthfully this is how the store makes money, they sell you this warranty when truthfully 1 in 20 items about end up coming back for repair (trust me i worked in the back i loaded up all the defective electronics that had psp). About 5-10 items were returned with psp in a month out of a store that sold 100’s or 1000’s of products a day. Don’t be a sucker, the salesmen make hundreds off you and will make you feel like you need it but honestly they all get the psp for 50% off and most don’t even buy it themselves!! I’ve witnessed it. Not to mention the horror stories you hear about people trying to take it back. This store is a rip off. A HDMI cable should not cost $50 dollars when factory price is 3.50, and computer cables should not be 30-200 dollars when the 200 dollar cable is really 15 dollars. Price on ebay, tigerdirect, newegg. For the most part those places will always be cheaper and easier on your wallet.

WATCH OUT FOR THE PRICE AT THE TILL AND SLIMEY SALESPEOPLE

Posted by Zilla on December 28th, 2011

Went to my local FS in BC for a couple of items on sale, they also had a deal on paper shredders $30 off, so I pick one out myself without talking to a sales person, and line up with 3 people ahead of me. After waiting in the line up I am now next to be served by a cashier. A salesperson – not a cashier – approaches me in the line up says they will help me and takes me to a till, their password will not allow them to log on so they try another till same no log on, I have now lost my lineup place, and someone else is being served by a cashier. The salesp. put me back in line but stays with me. After a seemingly interminable wait the cashier is ready. The salesp bags my items but curses when they see the items are on sale and they do not not make commission. Then I notice the price they are trying to charge me is FULL PRICE no discount. Salesp and cashier do not seem to believe me, so with transaction open, I take Sales P 20 paces to display Salesp comes back to tell cashier but the cashier has cancelled the transaction, and is now serving the next person! There is a problem with this next person’s transaction, so I have had enough of being dicked about – I loudly announce the pricing error telling others near me to watch out and so that the lineup can hear it, and loudly admonish the cashier for not waiting the 30 seconds it took to verify their pricing error (read scam).

I walk over to customer service and suggest they correct the computer pricing error, and only when I persist does the customer service person take note of the item details to supposedly to do the price correction.

So slug-like salesperson was only looking for the commission, the cashier was inconsiderate, and worst the PRICE AT THE CHECKOUT WAS NOT AS ADVERTISED! Beware Beware Beware!

Warranty Scamming 101

Posted by Icesis on December 28th, 2011

My mom purchased a PC from Future Shop in Bayers Lake Nova Scotia about 3 months ago. Recently, it wouldn’t load past the Windows splash screen. Thinking she had it covered, because she bought a $200 two year protection plan, she took it into the the store. I had already tried the recovery discs, and I’m no beginner to computers so I tried booting up in Safe Mode and even doing a System Restore. Nothing loaded, nothing worked. However, their technicians told us it was a software issue which isn’t covered under the protection plan, so it would cost us $220 to fix – Or we could fix it ourselves! “Press F11 (System Restore) and it’ll work – and if your discs aren’t working bring them back we’ll replace them!” Well, after telling you they didn’t work, and having already done system restore – we’re pretty angry to say the least. Take the computer home, and attempt this futile fight once more. Finally broke down and took it to a local computer repair company, who confirmed it was a hard drive issue (not software!), contacted HP, who will be sending her a new computer. What a wasted warranty! Having to pay an outside force to do it because your company is too sh**ty to actually stick by its warranty.

Long story: More than a year of torture

Posted by mel on December 7th, 2011

Every moment dealing with this company has been a ridiculous nightmare. From start to not knowing when it will end.

(This part’s not so crazy, but still annoying)

In Sept 2010 I went into Future Shop #67 at Yonge and Dundas to look at lap tops. I was thinking about buying a MacBook because the lap top I had was failing me and FS was running a promo where if you bought a Mac you got a free printer with it. A sales person helped me out for a while and showed me the different MacBook’s, but I was just browsing at the time and I don’t think I had money or ID to buy it that day.

I came back the next day ready to buy, and the man that helped me the day before spotted me and offered his help again. I thought he was going to help me out right away, but then he made me wait while he finished up a sale with a couple. I thought it would only be a few minutes, so I was okay with it at first. I waited for at least a half hour for him. In the meantime I had 3 other salespeople ask me if I needed help. I told them I was waiting for someone to get me a MacBook, and I could even see a ladder set up against the wall where my lap top was stored, so all they had to do was climb up there. They all asked who was helping me, and I pointed him out, but even though he was still helping the other people and they were doing nothing, they wouldn’t get the computer for me. They were all clearly too scared of pissing him off by stealing his sale, so I just got to stand there and start at the ladder next to my computer. I at least was able to convince one of the guys to get the free printer ready for me. Finally when the first asshole was ready to sell me my item, he offered me the FS credit card. I went for it because I thought it would be easier to pay it over the year instead of all at once. Worst idea ever. I should mention that I never got an actual card to begin with – the credit card number just got printed on my receipt and statements. I also got some sort of balance protection for my card because the final cashier told me that it was only about a dollar per month. She was wrong – I started getting billed $28 a month for my balance protection, only to find out it’s a not a dollar per month, but a dollar per every X amount of dollars you owe on your card. Either this girl was stupid and not trained properly, or was trained perfectly well to lie to customers.

(This is when sh*t really starts to hit the fan…)

Anyway, so August 2011 rolls around and I realize it’s almost time to pay off my computer. I forgot that the only payments I made were on the balance protection and not the actual computer, so I was gung-ho about paying it off all at once.

I was a little bit worried about paying it online because I wasn’t sure if I set up the account properly, so I decided to pay in store thinking this was more secure. WRONG!

When I went in, because I didn’t have an actual FS card, I had to answer a bunch of security questions with the sales associate to get my balance. Even after answering questions with her, she didn’t have enough authority to check my balance, so she had to call the credit card office. I got on their store phone and answered security questions with 2 more people (for about 45 minutes because I could barely hear anything on their phone). I finally got my balance. The sales associate pointed me to another cash line since I was paying debit.

My balance was $1470. I tried to pay it off on my debit card all at once, but it wasn’t approved. I had all the money in there, but I realized my account had a limit on it of how much I could spend at once. I asked her to try just $1000 and I would pay the rest off another day. The transaction seemed to go through, but it wouldn’t print out a receipt that said it was approved. She said something about voiding the first transaction of the full amount, and that it wouldn’t let her print a new receipt – all she could give me was a debit receipt that said $1470 Not Approved. I thought this was really sketchy, but she said not to worry. She said if it went through, it will show up on my bank account. When I checked my debit account online, sure enough, it was there – Future shop #67, $1000, as well as on my statement later on. And eventually before my year was up, I paid the balance of $470 online (which I thought was a bit of a risk).

So here I was thinking that I’ve paid off my account in advance. Good for me. I had a lot on my plate coming up, I was moving and about to travel. What happens when I come back in November to pick up my mail from my old place? A statement from FS saying that they received my $470 BUT NOT MY $1000 and I now owe them that with INTEREST.

I called them on Nov 21 to explain that I’ve already paid this. I gave them the details about making the payment in store and I gave them the date that it was taken out of my account from my statement. The girl on the phone told me that they would launch an investigation and I can follow up in 7 to 10 business days.

One week later (on the 29th or 30th) I received a call from FS/Chase reminding me that I still owe them money. I explained to them that I have already called them and that they told me they would investigate my missing payment. He looked it up in his file and said, “oh yea, there is a note from Nov 23 saying that we’ve sent you a letter and you have to fill out a form in order for us to launch an investigation.” I asked  him about this letter, because the woman I spoke to the week before never mentioned it. He told me that I needed to fill it out and include a copy of my receipt from the store. I told him I don’t have anything because she never printed anything that said approved and I couldn’t find the other one that said “not approved”. So I asked if I should go to the store where I made my payment to help with the investigation – he told me I shouldn’t. From what he explained about the letter anyway, it sounded like it got sent out on Nov 23, so I immediately started checking my old address for the letter. Nothing.

This past weekend I’ve called my bank to inquire about the missing payment and they told me a copy of a bank statement should be enough proof for them. She was able to give me the exact date and time of the transaction and the location, and advised me to go to the store to get them to print me a duplicate receipt.

After talking to the bank, I went back to the store and the manager said too much time has passed to print a duplicate receipt, but that he would email their banking department and inquire about the payment, and expect to hear in a couple of business days.

After going to FS, I called their credit card line to ask about the letter again since I still haven’t gotten it. They told me it only got sent out on the 29th – which is exactly the day or around the day that I first heard about it, so I’ve been chasing my mail at my old address for nothing.

So now I’m left waiting on this mysterious letter to arrive and wait for the store to update me with whatever info they get from their banking department. I’m so fucking sick of trying to prove that I’ve already paid them what I owe. I’ve wasted so much time calling them, dealing with them in-store, and I’m spending money going back and forth to travel between their store and my old place checking my mail. I’m so scared that they are going to say it’s been too long and they can’t find my payment and this is going to fuck up my credit record. Even if they do resolve this, I am filing a complaint to the Better Business Bureau for their poor business practices and wasting my time.

NEVER SHOP AT THIS STORE!!! If you want an Apple product, go to Apple. Don’t be fooled by a free printer promo – it’s not worth it. Don’t go with their credit card, because they can’t accept your payments anyway. Just don’t buy anything at all, because apparently all of their cashiers are brainless idiots or are trained to scam you every way they can.

I ordered camera when I clicked submit order button but the order was fax paper instead. I called FS customer service and they said they couldn’t cancel the order because the product shipped. After I got the damned fax paper and returned to the store, the store staff said they couldn’t return the shipping charge. I called customer service again and asked agent to pass the call to his manager, they still wouldn’t refund me the shipping charge. I had told them it was futureshop.com web site system error to make the wrong order for that fax paper. I saw the camera on computer screen when I clicked the submit order button. Also I had told them the steps to replicate that the web site error. Before this happened, I made shopping on FS web site many times. Now I’m really afraid to shop there again that it really has system issue that is not safe. Any advise that I can get the shipping charge back from FS?

They will say anything to get you out the door with their products

Posted by themaster45 on November 16th, 2011

2 days ago I bought an HP Pavillion G6 laptop. I met a friendly associate, told her my budget of about 450 before taxes, told her what I was looking for and she suggested the particular computer I ended up purchasing which had i3 processor. She said she understood my budget but had just gotten in this new computer the HP pavillion G6 and had already sold five of them today because they were new and a great value at 600 dollars. I told her that was more than I wanted to spend. She then said that since it was the last one because they had been selling so well, this particular one had already had its box thrown out and that she could give it to me for 598 including taxes as a result. I told her I was concerned it was a return and she pointed out a sticker on the product that had that days date on it. I believed her. I went home and started to use my new computer. For a couple seconds upon using it the screen had a few weird lines and I was concerned, but then just assumed perhaps there had been some interference because of my speakers or the construction work going on outside. I then transfered all my itunes to this computer, downloaded more music and was ready to have a good experience with my computer. Today the screen became nothing but a bunch of lines. I brought it back to the store and she was there. She showed it to some tech who told her to give me a new computer. She then told me that she had a great one, it was better than what I already had and that it was normally over 800 dollars, but they would just trade it to me as a result of my inconvenience. I believe this was probably another floor model as it had the same sticker with the date (the date returned and wiped of any potential customer data – I confirmed that is what the stickers meant with the manager I ended up speaking to). As she went to get the price confirmed, I decided I probably wanted a version new in box. She came back and I found the same computer, only this time with an AMD processor. I asked if I could have a brand new one of those. She told me that the AMD was really not good and that I didn’t want it. She told me the one I was getting was a much better computer and it was a great deal. The associate sent me off with this new computer. I live about ten minutes away. Upon getting home and starting up the laptop its first message was that there was a hard disk failure. I went back to the store, found my associate again and she apologized and handed me off to a male associate. I told them enough was enough, I did not want another floor model and that I wanted something new from the box. I had had two hp computer and both were floor models that had problems. Speaking to the manager he confirmed that they were not just floor models, they were returns. By the way, the hp pavillion g6 that I bought and had the screen problem with, it was back out for sale, waiting for the next person to be scammed. There was a scuff mark that I noticed when I took it home, and I checked the model on display and it had the very same mark. The male associate I was handed off to was trying to recommend a new computer, but they had no new computer that were hp with the i3 processor. He then took me to the AMD versions and I told him that the previous associate had told me they were not good and I did not want them. He then agreed and said that the i3 was better and that I probably wanted one of those instead of an AMD processor version. To make a long story short, he suggested that the closest thing they had was an hp with an 5 processor but that his manager said he could not give it to me as it was 600 or so. The defective $800 dollar laptop was ok for them to give me, but not the $600 dollar new one. To make a long story short, I am writing on the AMD version as they could not give me anything else. Hugely disappointing and I feel I was lied to several times.

Do not buy your Apple products at Future Shop

Posted by rmuradia on November 16th, 2011

Why put up with the sales pressure, poor customer service, no warranty support at Future Shop when you can get the product at the same price, shipped for free (in most cases) directly from the Apple Store online. My IPAD2 stopped working a month after purchase. FT Manager refused to repair, exchange or return the product. If I have to deal with Apple, then why would I buy any Apple product at FT. Never again.
The experience has turned me off from FT for good.

Future shop customer service is useless

Posted by mckenz55 on October 27th, 2011

I recently purchased a 2 for 1 headphone deal off of the future shop web site only to receive 1 set. I called cust. service and was told that I had to order two sets to get the deal. I told them that I did not see anything on the page saying that I had to place two orders, but all they could say was sorry there is nothing we can do. There was another 2 for 1 sale a few weeks later on a different kind of headphones and I followed through the whole ordering process until all I had to do is hit the submit button and again there was no indication to order 2 sets. Three times I contacted them, twice asked to speak to a supervisor only to be persuaded to try something else first and I should here something back in a few days. Well as usual, nothing!!! I am done with Futureshop/Bestbuy.  I would rather pay extra and deal with a company that has some integrety.

I purchased a couple of lenses and had them delivered to my house. My wife would be at home to receive the delivery. The day it was to be delivered, it was not. I checked the tracking and the package was delivered and it was signed for by some other person. It was probably delivered to the wrong address and that person kept the stuff.

i called future shop and told them that my order was received by somebody else and I did not have it. I asked them for a refund but they declined and said that because the delivery was signed for there is nothing they can do…

Is there any other way I can get FS to refund me the money I paid? what do I need to do?

I pay for the PEP and it is taken off of my credit card each month so it is always paid. I was experiencing a problem where the sound in speakers were crackling which was clearly a hardware defect. When I bring the phone to FS and tell them about the problem etc and request a new phone they refused and said I was lying and they couldn’t hear any crackling….. Since they wouldnt exchange the phone for this defect even though I am entitled to one since I am paying ever month, is there a way that I can create a defect that would warrant an exchange fir a new phone?




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