Hey, sorry if I’m posting this under the wrong thread. I sought out a site just like this one to post my experience with Future Shop. I’ll skip the standard shots and plays on the Future Shop name. Here’s my chronology:18 Sept 2005 – bought an LG Electronics WM1814CW front-loading washer and LG DLE2514W dryer. Total 2219.94 before taxes. Warranty portion of 269.99 (which they charged both GST and PST on). Not sure if they can legally charge PST — this alone is worth researching for a class action law suit to hit them where it hurts — in illegal profits.
About 2 months later. Problems with water overflow and suds coming out the back of the washer. Called in-home service at 1-800 number. Waited two weeks for service. Fixed, but not sure how.
About 9 weeks ago. Here’s where the fun began. The machine broke. Water wouldn’t drain and it stopped spinning properly. Metallic scraping sound. Called in home warranty.
One week later. First visit. Repair guy said he needed to order a part.
One week later. I call the 3rd party repair guy directly (after much ado). They say they are awaiting authorization from the warranty company for the part. I ask them to call to check. They refuse.
Next day. I call the warranty company myself. They are unaware of the request for the part. Instead, they tell me they authorized a guy to head out to my place.
Same day. I call the 3rd party guys and get them to check.
One week later. 3rd party shows up and installs the part. Doesn’t work. Tells me I need another part.
One week later. 3rd party guy shows up and installs 2nd part. Doesn’t work. They say they will have to order another part.
I call the warranty line and fight for a half hour to clear up their information. They call the 3rd party to confirm. They leave me a voice message saying they will authorize a replacement. Good, right? Keep reading.
I show up at Future Shop Coquitlam and wait literally 1.5 hours for the one sales guy they have in appliances while he’s trying to sell a warranty to a Chinese woman who I’m not sure understands it all. The sales guy points me to a lower model machine. I point out that the feature set doesn’t compare and escalate peacefully.
I get to the manager who is telling off an older man that he can’t have a replacement laptop. They guy responds, “…so my only option is to buy a new laptop???!!” The manager stands firm and the customer storms off in huff.
My turn. He points out that the machine I want is an upgrade. Technically, it probably is, but it is the lowest model that has the 2 key features I bought the machine for in the first place — delayed wash and hand wash cycle. He tells me I have to pay $300!!! What kind of warranty is that? He tries this double-talk reversal on me that goes something like this (I think they are trained to do this):
So what new features does the upgraded machine give you? I think I’m supposed to list them out so that he can respond by pricing each feature and justifying the dollar value he’s trying to milk out of me. So I tell him to get me a replacement machine of the exact model that they sold me the warranty for and I will be happy — and if he can’t do that, the lowest model that will cover all the features.
He tries to debate this, saying he doesn’t know the machines well enough to give me $300 of extra value. Luckily, my girlfriend had the foresight to print out online comparisons of five machines on a grid with a feature-by-feature break-down. So he buckles and says, get this, that he can make an exception this time because I’m “begging and pleading” with him. I couldn’t believe he actually said that to a customer. If they want to sell warranties, they should honor them, and apologetically offer up the right replacement product voluntarily, not give me a hard time over it.
So it’s off to the customer service counter, dealing with three people who don’t know the procedure. I literally stand there as they fumble with forms and the computer for another half hour. At the end of it, they ask me if I want to buy another warranty!!!
Fast forward another week. The delivery guys arrive with the replacement machine in silver (I specified white, like the old machine). Now I have an unmatched stacker set. They look at the machine and say they can’t uninstall the existing one. WTF? They can only install the new one. They leave the new machine in my hallway.
I call Future Shop back the next day and complain. They say I would have to get the uninstall done myself, but they could recommend a contractor — sure, I’ll bet they would ask for $300 to do this. I refuse and demand that they do the job, so they agree after a long debate and schedule it.
Two days later. The crew arrives, say they can’t uninstall and leave.
Valentine’s Day. I escalate to customer service. After two hours of debate over my cell phone, they agree to send a 3rd party contractor to do the uninstall.
The next day. The 3rd party guys shows up and uninstalls the existing broken machine. He spends an hour on the phone with Future Shop who is telling him not to do the install, but to wait for another crew to do the install. The 3rd party guy leaves. The new machine is still in my hall.
Saturday. The crew (apparently) shows up, leaving 2 messages on my cell number. I call them back and determine they didn’t press the door buzzer. They spend 15 minutes justifying this, saying that it’s really hard to figure out the apartment buzzer number. I explain that mine has my NAME on it — the same name on the invoice — and ask them if they knock on the door when they deliver to a house. Anyhow, they claimed to have called at 1231. I called them back at 1234, and they refused to turn to truck back, citing many deliveries. At this point, I should be a priority but I’m not — oh yeah, I’m a warranty, not big bucks for a new delivery. I find it hard to believe they can turn around a 28 foot trailer in my neighborhood (one lane) in less than 3 minutes. I’ve watched a school bus take over 5 minutes while waiting to pull out of my parking spot.
After another three calls to the store, the delivery company and the warranty company, they agree to send a 3rd party to install. I get the number to call the 3rd party personally and confirm. It gets done, but the old machine is left in my hallway.
They finally picked up the old machine today, but left a voice message on my phone saying they want to schedule for a later date. These guys are not only intent on ripping off their customers; they are also incompetent and ill-coordinated.
I’m looking into a class action lawsuit to force them to disclose on their warranty at time of sale that a customer will be dealing with 4, possibly 5 parties (if you include the manufacturer) who may not communicate with each other nor hold accountable to each other in order to make good on the warranty. Tobacco discloses risks on cigarette packs; Future Shop should disclose risks on its warranties pure and simple. If it does not, it should be forced out of this business by a court of law. They are in denial about this. I last asked them to record a 15 minute diatribe of mine on their customer service line and play it to the executive.
I have a voicemail from an operations manager on my phone. I will update as this goes.
*Moved to front page by Admin*
I am a past future shop employee, since then I have moved on to a better job, but I think I should share some information with potential Future Shop Home Theatre customers before they make their move. It would be immoral if I didn’t share this information with people who are spending their hard earned money.
First off I would like to state that I made a lot of easy money at Future Shop, but at the same time, I came to realize that what I was doing was not ’sales’, it was manipulating people into spending their money in a way which would make them think they received good customer service, while at the same time making me higher commissions and customer returns.
Yes this is business, but essentially, that is an unwholesome way to lead your life, and personally I’m glad I don’t have to do it anymore.
Anyways things aside I would like to share to you potential TV buyers some potential reasons as to why you may not want to buy your home theatre at Future Shop.
So lets begin:
Future Shop has a cost in which they get their products for. This price is actually not the real cost, it has all of their overheads factored in, they actually get things for cheaper than their stated cost. So when I state cost, keep in mind that Future Shop gets their merchandise for even cheaper than that.
Future Shop is not there to save you money. They are a large company which must make profit to support its large infrastructure of employees, stores, etc. In order to do this, and make additional profit after that, large mark-ups are the only way this can be done.
Almost all the TV’s are marked up at least a couple hundred dollars.
Future Shop generally sells speakers (polk audio, energy, etc, which btw, are low quality speakers, something a FS Home Theatre Employee would not know since its all they have been around) for usually 3x as much as they get them for.
The Energy RC-70 speakers, are bought by Future Shop for $444 cost each. They are sold for $2500, and if you are lucky, they sometimes go on sale for $1799.
Are you beginning to get the picture?
On top of that you will be recommended cabling. Recently a local TV station bought the Ultra Monster HDMI from future shop ($251.99) and also bought the Dynex ($30), guess what, same picture quality. With HDMI there is no signal loss, especially at short distances, its a digital signal my friends.
A future Shop employee may or may not lie to you, hopefully they don’t lie, they will just phrase it in a way which may potentially benefit you.
They will tell you that monster cables have better sheilding and superior quality etc, etc. What they will not tell you is that the better quality HDMI it won’t make a difference, and that you can get a cable with almost the exact same quality for MUCH cheaper.
Ultra 800 top of the line HDMI cable, cost= $69, selling price = $251.99, commision, probably around $25ish.
Dynex Cable: cost = probaly around $9, selling price = $30, commision = $1.93
Even though each of these cables give you the same picture quality, do you see why a Future Shop employee will emphasize the Superior Quality of the Monster Cable over the Dynex
In Canada we do get dirty electricity and the monster power cleaners will help you with this.
Unfortunately I remember one Future Shop sales associate telling me that he achieved the same result of a monster power cleaner by hooking up two power bars to eachother
Are you beginning to see why things are worded the way they are by future shop associates?
Now some may argue, you get good service at Future Shop. Depending on the sales associate you will, but you won’t save the most money.
This is because of the mark-ups.
The solution to this is to find out what you want, talk to someone who knows about electronics, then get it wholesale.
My family recently wanted to get a home theatre system with the 58″ Panasonic Plasma.
From Future Shop the Monster power cleaner we wanted was $800, and the tv was $5000. Plus all the cabling would have been $300ish or more.
) we also found for MUCH cheaper on the internet.
We got the exact same TV with almost no markup from a whole sale dealer for $3400, and the monster stuff (which we know is overpriced but we like it cause its cool
The warranty from Future Shop on the TV would of costed around $900. We were interested in it until we saw the statistic for failures on flat screen plasmas…a whooping 2%. It wasn’t much higher for LCD’s either.
Instead of spending our hard earned $7100 on our set-up from Future Shop, we got the exact same products through wholesale and without a warranty covering pointless odds for around $4000.
Keep in mind none of this includes GST or PST.
All in all, we almost saved $3000.
Personally I think electronics stores like Future Shop and BEst Buy will go dead someday if customers start getting smarter. They must charge disgusting mark-ups and whatnot in order to keep their infrastructure afloat. Factory direct and whole sale is the way to go. Unfortunately many customers do not have the electronics knowledge to know what they want and need, and that’s where the greedy middle man (the electronics vendor) comes in. Sometimes the case is the customer simply doesn’t know that they can get the product much cheaper somewhere else.
Anyways just thought I’d give you future customers a heads up, hope you save some some money like I did. Remember, if you know the TV you want, get it from a whole sale or volume dealer (I believe that’s what they’re called
).
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And DO NOT trust commissions sales people, they often do not lie, but they when they reveal information to you they leave out key parts, or rephrase things so they sound different, the best example to experience this is with monster cables and PSP (their warranty), honestly just go ask a sales person about either of the two and listen to their polished speeches
And remember, their daily job is to change your opinion and to get you to sell things to yourself, many commissions sales people are master manipulators, so watch out!
I find we often trust people too much, and I’m glad I don’t make my living off of people’s trust anymore!
Hope this helps and you save some money.
Left by morginie on March 23rd, 2008