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Comment by tyu100 | Hacker News Reader

Amazon is a small miracle. They stock everything, it comes right to your door, the prices are competitive in general and with Subscribe and Save you are doing even better. E-books are also incredible and with Prime you get Instant Video thrown in for free.

I'm sure bad experiences happen but compared to driving to the big box suburban wasteland to browse through a limited selection, Amazon is a godesend.

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In my experience, Best Buy’s return policy and process has been awful. Granted it’s been years because it was so bad. Literally the worst of any store I’ve ever shopped at.

Last time I bought a router from them it was defective. I had to stand in line for over an hour. The clerk was surly and didn’t believe it was defective. Kept opening the box, pulling everything out, looking at all the pieces. Putting it all back. Over and over.

Then he didn’t said he couldn’t accept it because the receipt was ripped - which it was when the check-out person ripped it out of the register. He said they could take it back, but I wouldn’t be able to make any other returns.

I ended up asking for the manager who took another 15 minutes to arrive, argue and get it sorted.

The return took almost 2 hours. Absolutely crazy.

Counterdote: I recently purchased a monitor at Best Buy, decided after a couple weeks I didn't like it (for a variety of reasons), and returned it without hassle. Just walked up to the counter, handed them my receipt, told them I didn't like it, and they handed me money. Took less than five minutes.

Not to continue this too far but ditto. Completely fine return experience. I also don't have to worry about fakes nearly as much at brick & mortar stores. That said I still use Amazon extensively, for better or for worse.

I exchanged an item at Best Buy about 2 months ago. Took about 5 minutes. Forgot my receipt, but they were able to find it with my cc. They opened up the box to make sure the original items were inside, and brought me a replacement while I was at the counter.

Still not quite as good as Costco or REI, but at least with BB I know I'm getting the good I actually purchased and not some cheap Chinese knockoff.

Where are people getting all these chinese knock offs? I have never had this happen on Amazon I am curious what products people are getting

What have you done to verify you never received a knock-off?

I checked every one of my SD cards when I learned about Amazon's problem with fakes... Turns out I'd bought two fake SanDisk cards. They looked and worked like the real ones but the serial numbers were invalid. Maybe they'd continue working fine, or maybe one day I'd lose 64GB of photos in the middle of a vacation... who knows?

Needless to say, that destroyed my in Amazon. How can they guarantee they aren't selling malicious IOT devices, counterfeit healthcare products, cheap kitchenware made of toxic materials, or even the products of slave labor?

Was it shipped and sold by Amazon or by a 3rd party?

This has been the secret in my experience. Pay for Prime, and only buy Prime items. For me the convenience is worth it, even though I know I’m feeding directly into what Amazon wants; to not fix their massive counterfeit problem.

> This has been the secret in my experience. Pay for Prime, and only buy Prime items. For me the convenience is worth it, even though I know I’m feeding directly into what Amazon wants; to not fix their massive counterfeit problem.

That won't really help. There are prime-eligible counterfeits shipped from Amazon's warehouses due to the Fulfilled by Amazon program. Even buying from a known trustworthy seller is not enough, as Amazon commingles FBA/Prime-eligible inventory from multiple sellers of the same item:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/on-amazon-pooled-merchandise-op...

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

Fulfilled by Amazon, from one of their 3rd party sellers.

> Where are people getting all these chinese knock offs? I have never had this happen on Amazon I am curious what products people are getting

Here's a 1 TB microSD card [1]. No such product legitimately exists [2], so it must be a data-destroying counterfeit.

4.5 stars, $80.

That one was easy to spot, but it's my understanding that pretty much every MacBook charger on Amazon is a kock-off counterfeit [3]. They get the case perfect, but the electronics inside are a fire hazard [4].

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Wazzey-Micro-Memory-Adapter-1024GB/dp...

[2] https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/8/31/16232618/s...

[3] http://www.businessinsider.com/majority-apple-accessories-am...

[4] http://www.righto.com/2015/11/macbook-charger-teardown-surpr...

> This item is only available from third-party sellers.

I know that it’s not fair to expect customers to distinguish between legit and shady listings, but I consider this effectively a “do not buy this product” warning.

Lower-cost electronics, mostly, and toys. So: memory cards, USB and power cables, batteries, etc. That's all stuff I now buy at Best Buy. I've purchased my last 3 TVs from Best Buy; and generally any purchase that I need to play with before fulling the trigger, like cameras.

Also: anything food-related that's by a major brand (like Oxo or Rubbermaid) I buy from a local store, as a lot of the Chinese Alibrands don't comply with FDA requirements but are advertised as if they were.

I told this story before, but I got a charger with a fake Intertek (an UL competitor) mark. Intertek had an alert on their site that this company just put their mark on a product. I told amazon cs and they refunded my money... but continued to sell the fraudulent product.

This was 2+ years ago and the last thing I will ever buy on amazon that uses electricity.

By law a company can not refuse to return a defective item I believe. Whether they do it or refer you to the manufacturer, one way or another you are fully entitled to a refund if the item is defective. The whole "You can't make any returns if you make x amount" is more a scare tactic.

I just charge back.

They screwed me over on a price match and I ended up getting the whole thing charged back.

BestBuy want to play games? I can play too.

> In my experience, Best Buy’s return policy and process has been awful. Granted it’s been years because it was so bad. Literally the worst of any store I’ve ever shopped at.

Last few times I've had to return something to Best Buy, it's been pretty painless and quick. They know their competition is Amazon and one of its strengths is its return experience.

This. While Best Buy can be convenient in a pinch the company, in terms of after-purchase-support is a joke. Case in point I ordered a washer/dryer set from them a couple months ago. Overall it saved about $50 but I felt like I was helping a local company as Best Buy HQ is here. Never again. Not only did they not show up with my delivery 3 times they had the nerve to show up over 90 minutes late the delivery day and had excuse after excuse after excuse. The moved me between two different escalation support people (out of TX) because of the first misstep and never provided me an easy path to contact anyone directly in the process. On top of all that ordering on .com means anyone local is 100% useless. I emailed the Best Buy CEO spam inbox and ended up negotiating $250 back after they ended up wasting well over 16 hours of my personal time waiting on no-shows and on the phone. I won't spend another dime with them after the Geek Squad manager who came out on delivery day as a "premium convenience to make sure everything went smoothly" drove back and forth in front of my house for an hour because he clearly knew the delivery was, yet again, late and he didn't acknowledge or apologize for the failure to deliver as promised. When I called him out on it he flat out lied to me. Best Buy seems to be a lot of internally segmented groups, none of which are empowered to solve a customer problem.

Hmm I had a great experience last week in San Francisco.

Took 10 minutes. And even though I returned the opened XBox controller a few days after their return window, they gave me store credit.

I was a happy customer.

I have a 10 minute rule. If I’m in line or get hassled for a return, I get chargeback. With Americans express, you can do it online from your phone with no hassle at all.

Most retail purchases can be returned via the credit card no problem.

> Then he didn’t said he couldn’t accept it because the receipt was ripped. He said they could take it back, but I wouldn’t be able to make any other returns.

Looks like somebody being told by the manager not to accept returns or over return quota or something. Something shady definitely going on there... I never had such experience with local BB store, but I guess it depends a lot on local management.

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