As a previous future shop associate I have a few tips when trying to get a deal out of the sales associates at future shop.

Tip 1:
Ask for a package deal and try to negotiate as low as you can go including the warranty with the deal itself (including the items). Then return the warranty after the deal has been processed saying that it wasn’t for you or some other explanation like my credit card extends the warranty coverage.

Tip 2:
When an employee is checking for a price for a package deal he will go into a item lookup or inventory lookup screen called rss. This screen does not only show the items price, upc and sku but also it will show the cost price of the item. This cost price will look like a bunch of numbers in the middle right of the screen.

Example:
50inch plasma tv
reg price 1199
sale price 1049

………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 74598

2 in stock

As you can see the number in the middle right is how much you know future shop got the item for and you can negotiate on that price. keep in mind make it somewhat reasonable so that the there is still margin in the item itself. If you give them exact cost price they will know you know cost of item. This can draw different conclusions and could possibly make them think you were an ex employee. Were not trying to show them we know cost on item we want to get a deal out of them.

example tv is 1049
cost 745.98
go 829.99 on tv with 4 year psp then return psp after sale

Tip 3
Open box items can be good sometimes but point out the flaws in repackaging along with not showing emotion when purchasing the item will help you get a better deal. Sales is all in the mind and they want you to get excited about their product they are selling.

tip 4
Look online for better deals as long as the store is canadian future shops policy is to beat there price by 10 percent of the difference. Online canadian website with a good deal means you can get a better one at the store. Bring in the proof. Print the online price and website. Note: now if the item has the option of psp it would be a good time to ask for an additional amount off in order for the psp to be more appealing. Then return the psp at customer service.

Don`t argue with the associate it will not get you anywere instead negotiate. If the price is not to your liking including psp and from what you know from this post then walk. Your in control.

Thank you for reading

News | 12 Comments »

I went to future shop to buy ipad2 .. WOW.. WORST service ever.. I asked if they have iPad 2 in stock..and they said it was sold-out .. I told them when are they going to come.. They kept saying I have no idea..zoo I was gonna go to best buy.. And the employer stopped me and said they have open box..I told them I don’t want open box item and the employers face expression changes and told me to go other stores in really bs way.. And when I went there I saw Asian family who needed help.. They asked what is the price of this computer and the workers pretends not to understand their pronunciation.. I thought it was perfectly fine..everyone around me understanded it..after that worker helped that family he went to other employees and said Fu..ing Asians.. Wow.. Seriously that’s really racist. NEVER go to Future Shop

News | 4 Comments »

About 4 months ago me and my brother looked through the FS catalog  and saw this amazing deal, it was “Trade in 5 games and get a iPod Touch Free!” I thought it was to good to be true and it was. So me and my brother have our games and we go to Future Shop and we tell them we want to do the offer in the catalog the person said ok wait here we waited for about 5 minutes and another person came and said ok let trade in your games so i was thinking in my head “YES!” so he first did my brothers games then he said “ok so the games add up to this amount then we said oh no we want to do the offer in the catalog then he said “oh it’s only for games from this year” then i said “but it said nothing about that in the catalog!”  then he said “read the fine print” so i read it and it had nothing to do with the games having to be this year so i complained, then he said “please wait here” so we waited for about 10 minutes then the store manager came and he said “what’s the problem here?” and we told him the story and he told us to wait right here we wait another 10 minutes then he comes back with an angry face saying “Please leave the store!” i said “why?” and he said “Your causing to much trouble for us” so we headed for the exit but before i shouted to the manager “YOU CAN SUCK MY C**K I AM NEVER SHOPPING HERE AGAIN!” and i never stepped foot into the store ever since.

News | 5 Comments »

In August 2002 I bought a Palm Pilot that was open box. It was working well until around X-Mas when the memory card port wouldn’t want to keep a memory card in there always ejecting it. Good thing I got the PSP right?

I wait until the Boxing Week sales finish and go in to submit my PDA for repair. They tell me if I don’t hear anything , to come back on the 30th day or later and they will give me a replacement. 30 days go by and nothing so I go in to find out that I had to wait 31 days… No big deal to wait another day but when I asked to speak to a manager to explain the concept of 30 days to me he got really annoyed and called my a retard in front of my face… Nice that a manager will insult paying customers in front of their faces.

I go back the next day and everything is fine. I got the replacement model and the guy working at the PDA department hooked me up so I got something better then before without paying anything extra which was great.

May 2003 comes by and yet again my PDA breaks on me but this time I go to the same Futureshop and bring the PDA in to get fixed… To my surprise they never transferred over the PSP I paid for with my original purchase even when they said they were going to when I was working on getting my replacement.

To this day I resent going there but sometimes there are deals that you just cant ignore so you bullet and just go there. I no longer buy PSP and each time I get asked to and try to talk me into it I will just say no or buy the PSP (if they give me a deal) and just return it minutes after paying for it at the Customer service.

News | 2 Comments »

By now most ppl. know FS sucks big salty bawls.  Because of their sh**ty service and crooked sales policies, FS has become the big box store everyone loves to hate.  They’ve been ransacking Canadians’ wallets for more than two decades.  Americans ran ‘em outta town several years back when they’d try to set up shop down there, so Canucks shouldn’t tolerate these a-holes either.  Dude, choose another shop – any shop but Future Shop.

The ppl. working there make the place what it is.  These guys work commission monkeys who’ll hawk anything to unwary consumers; BS upselling and cross selling are the norm.  Managers look like hungover college dropouts.  FS also has the distinction (along with the WalMarts) of having staff who are totally averse to customers.  I mean those goofs would rather talk about gettin’ sh**faced and who’d they like to screw rather than serving a customer, or more accurately a former customer.

During my naive college years, I got taken on a POS Compaq Presario desktop for a wad of $ – I even went for the complete money-waster extended warranty.  Don’t fall for this store cash cow.  (The only warranty you’ll want to have comes from the prod. manufacturer – and it’s fully paid up when the item is scanned at the cash reg.) After-sales service was a joke.  On more than one occasion I was standing in front of a crater-faced moron whom I was explaining my technical probs to in futility.  In short the PC was shit and I was glad to finally sell the thing at a loss since this meant I’d learned a hard lesson that wouldn’t leave me for life.

FS should be avoided for any item priced more than $50 bucks or so.  Anything more expensive tends to require technical service, i.e, electronic hardware and this is where all FS “service plans” fail big time.  Remember too that more expensive items will get the harder push since they yield bigger commissions.  You’ll soon wish you’d paid the extra $20 (But not for an extend. warranty!) at a competing store for better, make that existent, in-store and after sales serv without paying an extra dime.  The smart approach is to take a FS flyer to a store offering competitor pricing where they’ll match or beat the FS price; you just may never have to walk into another FS.  And as the corp. felon said, that’s a good thing.

News | 10 Comments »

My sister called me from a Futureshop asking for advice on buying a laptop. She mentioned that the sales associate said that she had to pay $80 for them to install the Operating System, and that that she would have to pay ~$200 for a copy of the OS and install it herself if she didn’t pay that $80. Too bad the OS was already installed by Toshiba (also, how can any company continue to allow Futureshop to sell their products knowing that they constantly make them look bad? “oh, your brand new LG tv will fail in a year, they are horrible quality! buy our warranty” “oh, Toshiba doesn’t set up the OS properly, you need us to set it up for you for $80″).
My immediate response was to tell her that the jackass was lying and to tell her not to buy anything from Futureshop.
My long term response is to never do business with Futureshop again. The amusing thing is that in my line of work I make purchases at Futureshop which total in excess of $150K per year, and that’s just a trifle compared to all my clients who I refer to Futureshop when they ask where they can get accessories for said purchases. I’ve always gotten good service personally, but now I realize that it’s because they know how big of a client I am, after talking to my sister and reading this website I hate to think of how many of MY customers they have screwed over and how bad Futureshop has made ME and MY company look.

I urge all business owners who use Futureshop as a supplier or who supply Futureshop to cease doing business with them.

News | 3 Comments »

From my blog (betterthanjenn.blogspot.com)

The death of Customer Service or Future Shop Sucks!
So, I am a huge fan of video games, obviously, and more so I’m a huge fan of video game deals. Just under two weeks ago, Future Shop had a couple of really good deals, including some 19.99 games on sale for 9.99. Now 19.99 is a reasonable price for most video games, but there are some games that just aren’t worth it, or, in some cases one copy of the game isn’t enough to make it fun.

Such is the case with Crackdown 2, a 4 player co-op title for the Xbox 360. This happened to be one of the titles on sale for $9.99 and so I eagerly placed an order for 4 copies! One for myself, one for my wife, one for my good friend Mike and one for his girlfriend. I could have easily visited a Future Shop location, but I thought that I would try my hand at ordering online, something I haven’t done with Future Shop very often.

That was mistake #1.

After going through the ordering process, I eagerly waited until I received an order confirmation email. Following that was a shipping email. “That was quick!” I cheerfully said to myself. I then went about my business, trusting that a company as large as Future Shop would easily be able to handle shipping out my games to me, and that all that would be expected of me is to wait for the package!

That was mistake #2.

Behind the scenes, Future Shop sent the games via Purolator, allegedly because of the Canada Post strike. Purolator alleges that they even attempted the delivery, though no one ever rang our door bell, nor was a notice of delivery ever left anywhere on our premises. While I was blissfully enjoying my week, patiently awaiting my package, it was allegedly brought back to the Purolator depot, eagerly awaiting for me to come to it, like a lonely child at an orphanage hoping their parents come for them soon.

Now, at this point I’m sure you’re assuming that someone from Purolator contacted me, seeing as i had provided Future Shop with not only my direct work line, but also my home line. No! These modern day wizards assume that everyone operates on the same telepathic wavelength that they do, and that no form of notification is required! So my package festered for 7 days. Upon the 7th day, unlike our good lord, I took action! I logged onto Futureshop.ca to locate my wayward delivery. What did I discover? That it was routed to go back out! “Well” I said to myself “they must be actually bringing it to me this time!” pie eyed optimism!

That was mistake #3.

In actuality, Purolator had decided that between pretending to attempt delivery once and then letting my package languish for a week without notifying me that they had fulfilled their obligation to Futureshop, and so my package was returned. I discovered this today, Tuesday, and thought to myself “Well, this seems like an honest mistake. I’m sure a company as big as Future Shop runs into this all the time. Surely they’ll recognize my value as a customer and rectify this immediately!”

You know where this is going.. Mistake #4

Upon calling Future Shop’s customer service, I was informed of the following:

“Purolator attempted delivery once. They’re not familiar with our policy, since we usually use Canada Post. At this point your order will be refunded within 7-10 business days. If you want you can re-order at that point”

Well surely good sir, you recognize that this was by no means my fault. One attempted delivery and no notice of attempt. Can you just reship the package? I’d be happy to pay for the shipping.

“No, you’ll have to wait for a refund, and then re-order”

Well, not that reasonable, but of course I purchased these items on sale. Will I be able to maintain that order price?

“That will be up to whoever you talk to, once you’ve re placed the order. You’ll have to wait for the refund, re order, and then see what they say”

So, just to re-iterate. I placed an order on sale, it was never brought to me, I was never notified that it was even in my city, then it was taken away from me. Now I have to re-order the order that was never delivered to me, in 2 week, and maybe, I’ll be able to pay the price I already paid once? Great.

I brusquely informed the CSR that I would no longer be shopping at Future Shop, but because I’m a hopeful person, I thought a brief email would be in order. Maybe I’d reach someone with a bit more sense.

Mist.. blah blah blah

Email 1:

I would like to say that I am completely disappointed and disgusted with the lack of service I have received with my online order. This was the first purchase I have made with futureshop.ca, and outside of the pending orders I have already placed, it will be my last.

On June 3 I ordered 4 copies of Crackdown 2 for the Xbox 360, taking advantage of a sale. The games were allegedly shipped on June 4th, and I was billed the cost of the games. As of June 14th I still had not received either my delivery, or a notice of delivery, so I attempted to call Purolator to track my delivery. I was placed on hold for over 15 minutes, so I called Future Shop’s customer service line directly.

I was informed that Purolator attempted delivery once, and then returned my games to Futureshop. My wife works from home, and was home throughout the week. At no point was delivery attempted, nor was a notice of delivery left anywhere at my home. Rather than re-shipping my games that I had paid for, I was informed that I would be refunded my purchase and could re-order if I wanted to.

When I informed the CSR that I had purchased the games at a sales price which was no longer in effect, he informed me that I could wait 7-10 business days for the order to be cancelled and refunded, and then re-order and “see if I could get the discount reapplied”.

His solution to my problem was to wait an additional two weeks, replace the order at twice the cost, and then cross my fingers and hope that someone will respect my original price. This is not a solution at all. From start to finish this experience has been terrible. As stated at the beginning of this email, I will NEVER order any products from futureshop.ca again.

Now, my frustration is clear in this email, of course, but I was concise, and to the point. I assumed I would either get some degree of satisfaction (ie My order!), or I would be summarily ignored. Well, neither happened. Instead I got this:

“Thank you for contacting Future Shop regarding this matter. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you. Unfortunately, Purolator dispatchers are not aware of Future Shop policies and procedures, but should have attempted shipment up to 3 times before returning the item to sender.
As it is not Future Shop policy, we cannot arrange to have the item re-shipped to you, we can only issue a full refund.

Again, we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and if you have any further questions please call 1-800-663-2275 and we will do our best to assist you further.
Sincerely,
Tanya
51859
Future Shop”

Which I read as this:

Dear Customer,

We did not do our due diligence in building a relationship with a reliable shipping company. As a result, you did not receive your package. That totally sucks! Oh well!

So.. No real resolution, no addressing my issue, and most importantly, no options for customer satisfaction.

In the future, Future Shop, here are some options you may want to consider:

In-Store Pickup (A service you already offer)
An offer of a re-delivery (Even asking me to pay would be a reasonable solution)
Accept responsibility (This should have been the very first thing)
A token gift card for my troubles (Even $20 would have shown that you cared)

But instead you do nothing.

At this point, I’m emotionally invested, and upset, so I fire back this:

Tanya,
I appreciate the response. The frustration on my part is that I am not a customer of Purolator, I am a customer of Future Shop. Involving me in the service breakdown that you have received as a customer of Purolator seems like a poor decision on Future Shop’s part. I understand that costs were incurred on your behalf by having the items shipped from and subsequently back to your warehouse, but that shouldn’t prevent you from fulfilling your obligations to me, the customer. As I stated in my original email, my wife works from home, so any attempt at delivery she would have been in attendance for. Furthermore, if an attempt had been made and for some reason she was not able to attend, there was never a notification left, nor was a telephone call or email made to me to inform me of a failure to deliver.

It is unfortunate that you are unable to provide me with any more assistance. I have been a loyal customer of Future Shop for many years, and have generally had neutral to good experiences in store. This experience has soured me on the brand however, and I will definitely not be making Future Shop my first, second or even third consideration in making future purchases. All I was looking for was for Future Shop to honor my original purchase, and I would have even been willing to pay for a second attempt at shipping, but to provide me with absolutely no options to receive my purchase shows that your company policies were not written with your customers in mind.

Regards, [etc.]

Let me meet you halfway Future Shop. Let me do your job for you and provide you with some options on how we can solve this. I’m a reasonable guy. Keep my items boxed up, and send them C.O.D. Win/Win! You get to save a customer, and not incur any more costs, AND you get to keep my money!

Or you can respond like this:

Thank you for contacting Future Shop in regards to your order number 121400017.
You are certainly welcome to re-place your order.
Because the return to sender was not the fault of Future Shop, we are unable to honor the price.
We do understand the inconvenience and frustration that this causes.
This is Future Shop policy, and it would be unfair to adjust this policy just for you, and not our other customers.

Sincerely,

Kylie
59243

Future Shop

Basically Kylie re-iterated what Tanya told me, in a much ruder tone. “…the return to sender was not the fault of Future Shop..” No, it was the fault of the incompetent courier service you chose. I would have gone with Fed-Ex, had I been given the choice. Purolator failed you as a customer, and instead of taking the issue up with them, you have decided to take it up with me. For those of you keeping score at home, Future Shop has now paid for delivery from BC to Edmonton, then a return Delivery from Edmonton back to BC. That’s out of their pocket since delivery is free. On top of that, they are now refunding my sale. They’ve shelled out money to deliver a product that they now have UNSOLD to me. WHAT KIND OF POLICY IS THIS??

Future Shop, for the record, I don’t expect special treatment. What I expect is to be treated like a customer. When I buy something, I just want to have it. That’s how retail is supposed to work. I pay you money for goods or services, you provide me with said goods or services. Paying someone else to hold on to my goods, then taking them back and giving me my money back is not how business works. You’re doing it wrong!

News | 4 Comments »

To whom it may concern,

Let me start of by saying i have been a future shop customer for many years and have spent tens of thousands of dollars at your stores.

This might all change because of the many problems i have come across as of late.

I bought a Samsung 50” TV from store #013 in Fed of 2010, the salesman told me that this TV is top of the line and with all the advancements in technology i would never have any problems. I was still concerned so he convinced me to buy a 4 yr. PSP and that should ease any concern’s, because this plan would cover anything that might go wrong.

I started noticing some issues with my TV, so i contacted Future shop customer service and they sent someone to my home to take a look at my TV. This gentlemen came for not more than 5 min and said there is nothing that he can do, it is burning and that is not covered by your PSP. I tried to talk to him and ask him how that could happen when i only watch TV in 16:9 format and commercials are the only pictures that come on in 4:3. He didn’t have an answer and told me to talk to someone at the store and preceded to leave. I tried calling store #013 at this point and talk to someone, I was told to have a second opinion on my TV, i sent up an appointment with Audio Video. Someone came to my house to talk to me and explain to me what is happening to my TV and told me the best thing to do was talk to someone from future shop regarding your salesman. He was a lot more informative then your technician was, i will start telling people to shop at Audio Video where they treat there customers with some respect and dignity.

I took his advice and went down to store #003, because it is a lot closer to me than store #013. I tried to get into contact with someone that could help me out in customer service, I was told that Maggie is the Op Manager and she would be the person to talk too. I asked a woman named Crystal if i could talk to her and explained why, she told me that she was her manager and she could help me out. I explained to her that the salesman i was dealing with LIED to me to make a sale of almost $2600.00 and i wanted someone to fix this. She told me that “OUR” sales people don’t lie to make sales. So for almost 2 weeks i was dealing with her to solve my issues, when i come to find out that she LIED to me and she is not a manager and would have never been able to help me!

I finally called and called and called and got on the phone with Maggie, we set up a meeting to talk in person to see if she would be able to help me out. On the day of the meeting i went to the store and asked to speak to her and she was NOT IN.

I asked to speak to any manager, finally someone came to talk to me. This manager told me i should go down to store #013 and talk to them, so he called to see if a manager was in to talk.

I drove 45 min and waited in the store 3 hours to talk to ERIC and then RAJ and even SIRANG about my issues and wanted something to be done. I told them after watching my TV for one year this issue is happening and i want them to return it and there answer was. WE CAN’T DO THAT. He said he might be able to exchange it for a discontinued model. Which is not except able.

I told them i either want my money back or exchange it for a comparable TV. They said they would try and fix it.

That is not something that i am interested in because i was using the TV for regular use and this happened. If it gets fix, next year the same thing is going to happen.

Store #013 has had my TV for 1 month now to see if they can fix it. I have called them twice to find out what they are doing? I have to wait at least a week for them to call me back and tell me they are waiting for something.

Is it store policy to try and give anyone that has any problems the run around and hope that they just give up and accept it?

I am beyond angry and dissatisfied at this point, I know i am just 1 little customer and if i stop shopping at your store, it probably won’t make a difference to your multi-billion dollar company, but i will not stand by and let this poor customer service and the disrespect i think you are giving your customers.

This email is the last option i have left, because there is no one to ever talk to at your stores and if there is, they never want to talk to you.

If i can’t resolve this issue with this email, I will be taking the next step to try and get the attention of Future shop.

Dissatisfied Customer

News | 3 Comments »

I try to avoid FS as much as i can. Over the last 2 years, the store in st jerome, advertises items, has them on showcase and when you try to buy it, ooppps not in inventory. They just don’t care.

Today i went to FS laval.ready to buy an imac. I first went to apple store because i know poor service at FS.Apple was $ 100 more and i was ready to pay for it. But FS had bigger discount on the software so, i decided to go there.
Same thing. It was displayed , when it came to pay for it, not in inventory. They show case it but do t say out of order. They try to up sale.sale clerk did not care.

Went to apple, paid 275 more but what a pleasurable shopping experience.i know there is road rage, i felt like FS storerage.i coy ted to 10.

Btw, Best buy wad next to FS. Same experience there. No inventory.

I am filing a formal complain t to consumer protection office.

News | 7 Comments »

Alright so today something happened to me at futureshop that really got me angry. Right now I am in bed and it is about 1:30 AM. I can’t sleep and I cannot stop thinking about what happened today.

Basically I was downtown with my friend who was looking to buy a PS3. So we went into Futureshop and talked to one of the game associates. Anyway we walked out with the intent on checking out the other stores for deals, and then to come back later.

So we went though the mall and ended up in Wallmart. Long story short I bought Uncharted 2 from Wallmart but we decided to go back to Futureshop and buy their PS3 bundle deal.

Thing was I had my game already bought. It was in a bag still in its wrapper with the Wallmart receipt in it. There was even a Wallmart sticker on the game case.

When we got to futureshop and walked in. Me holding my Wallmart bag in plain view and no one looked or said anything. Why should I worry about anything seeing as its in a bag with a store receipt as proof. So we went to the PS3 section with the hopes of buying a PS3. But when we got there no one talked to us, they just stood at a distance talking with each other. So I just stood there with my friend while he was looking at games with the game in the bag hanging from my hand in plain sight for all to see. Why should I hide it?

All the while I look around and wonder why no one is coming to sell my friend a PS3.

Eventually a lady walks up to me and asks me to come to the front counter to look at my bag. I plainly tell her no and ask her why she wants to look in my Wallmart bag. She doesn’t answer me and rudely demands again. Clearly the answer would be to accuse me of stealing but she doesn’t say that. She repeats herself for me to show the bag. All the while she does not even look at my face.

So I tell her that it is my property and I had a receipt proving it was from wallmart. As if the wallmart bag was not obvious enough. She then takes the receipt and looks at it and then demands to take and look at the game. After almost a minute she hands it back to me and says “thank you.” No I’m sorry for the mix up,no sorry at all.

After this she looks into my face for the first time (I swear she was looking at my legs the entire time) and then immediately walks away and says something to the sales associates who continue to stand and do nothing. They looked a little upset, possibly because they were in shit for making her do that to someone who had obviously not stolen anything.

After this we were left standing there. The sales associates still standing around. I guess we didn’t steal anything I say to my friend. It’s always great to feel like a criminal when you just want to go buy a PS3. /sarcasum

Now during this entire time I never moved from that PS3 game isle, nor did I yell or swear even though I was extremely angry. We did not buy a PS3 at Futureshop, we went to Best Buy which kindly puts a sticker on your bag when you walk in.

I should also point out that I was very much worried that I would be blamed for a theft even with the obvious receipt, and bag. I think it was the Wallmart sticker on the game that saved me. To be clear the game was the only thing in the bag. Even after she did this I saw the sales associates looking at me as I was leaving as if I actually did steal something.

Now some people might say “you should have put the game in your car or waited outside.” My reply is that I didn’t do anything illegal, I am not a thief. Why should I not be able to shop at a mall in different stores without making multiple trips back to my car? Why can’t I come in the store with my friend? Best buy and Wallmart both have people at the door to put stickers on your bags to avoid this. I guess Futureshop can’t afford to hire a doorman like that who can’t earn commission off bag stickers and welcome comments. Furthermore it is illegal to accuse someone of stealing when they have not committed any crime.

I felt sick to my stomach when she did this to me and she just walked away like nothing had happened. They knew they did something wrong yet couldn’t offer me a simple apology.

This all happened Thursday afternoon at the Futureshop in Sudbury Ontario and I will never enter that store again. I feel sick to my stomach thinking about what happened and those people disgust me. They are nothing but cowards.

News | 9 Comments »