Company: Best Buy
Item/Department: Premier Silver Members RewardZone
Do they want my business? No
We have bough enough “Stuff” from Best Buy that we now qualify for their silver level of the Rewardzone. It is supposed to give you exclusive opportunities to save, priavte shopping events and other cool things. It soulds like a great program to reward those regular customers who frequent the store and provide them with cash in exchange for electronic goods.
A coupon just came in the mail and we were excited. It said that we could get a $50 gift card with a purchase of $500. We already planned on a purchase of over $300. This was perfect.
I need to point out a few things about the coupon. It is printed in a grey scale ink that makes it hard to read even in the brightest of lights. The front also says you can get the offers into your smart phone by texting them a “code.” It also notes standard text rates apply. Why print it if no one can read it. While I am at it, why the whole texting thing? Why not use a Microsoft Tag on the coupon so that folks could just use their smartphones and the offer would come right up? Best Buy may not realize this, but a store that offers the latest and greatest computers, smartphones, interactive TV’s and more – they should catch up and start using Tags. Shoot the Microsoft program is even free.
Ok, back to my shopping adventure. We get to the store, pick up the PS3, and start adding things to hit the $500. A new set of phones for the house, some PS3 accessories (the new movement controllers), and more. Head up to the register, ring it all in – over $600 (and a free gift card right?)! The employee rings it in, and we find out there is no gift card. We ask why and the front end supervisor gives us all kinds of excuses. We decided to just but the PS3, and leave the other $300 of merchandise in the store.
On the way out, we decided to stop by the manager and let him know what happened. When we look at the coupon’s back (again printed in gray that is hard to read) we find out just about everything in the store is excluded. Shoot – they might have made it easier to say buy $500 of CD’s and DVD’s to get the offer.
What is the purpose of the offer to “Silver Level” Rewardzone members if it really cannot be used for much? As they say on Saturday Night Live’s sketch…. “Really?!”
From the back of the coupon…. offer excludes the following items:
Bose Audio, Polk Audio, Sony Blue-ray players, insignia, Dynex and Sony TV’s, laptops and desktop computers, netbooks, apple iPads, iMacs and Macbooks, monitors, internal hard drives, computer software, computer subscription software, in-Home Geek Squad Service, VoIP, Broadband, Desktop packages, Apple computing accessories, Wacom tablets, Apple iPod, Microsoft Zune MP3 player, Sony TX9, HX1, & WX1 Cameras, Sony D-SLR cameras, lenses and flashes, Sony camcorders, unlocked phones, contract mobile phones, mobile broadband cards, Fender, Squier, Marshall, Korg, Shure and Vox musical instruments, select Roland, Gibson, Epiphone, Boss and Edirol musical instruments, video game hardware, air conditioners, fans and dehumidifiers, Magnolia Home Theater products, Bose, MartinLogan, Sony S.U.R.E and JVC Procision TV merchandise, Sonos and SpeakerCraft Audio merchandise, Control4 merchandise and all the clearance, openbox, etc. disclaimers.
You Want My Business? 
