Melissa left a comment in my Free USB article talking about her bad experience with Future Shop. I feel very sorry for the way Future Shop handled your case Melissa :-(Â
I thought I’d dedicate a post for this to let others share their opinions and experiences.
Melissa wrote:
I had the worst experience trying to get this item. I placed the order on Saturday during the sale. The website said I had the option of picking up the order in-store. I chose that option. Several hours later I got an email saying my order was cancelled because in-store pick up was not available. I thought I would get an email offering the shipping option.
I tried to place the order again online and have it shipped. The web price was showing $34.99 instead of $24.99 less rebate. I tried phoning, waited on the phone over half an hour two different times. No humans available. I tried all over again Sunday. No phone human. I emailed: no response. I just got through on the phone today–Monday after 45 minute wait. The service person tells me to place the order online and then phone back to get the price adjusted back to $24.99. NO WAY! I wasn’t going to spend another 45 minutes trying to get someone to answer the phone. I asked her to wait while I placed the order online. She then corrected the price but told me the rebate would be invalid because I didn’t place my order on the correct date!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I asked to speak with a supervisor. He kept me waiting another 15 minutes. Then he said if I read the fine print, rebates are not always honoured. And the weekend was very busy so it’s a shame I couldn’t get through on the phone.
I cancelled my order today. I couldn’t believe the supervisor didn’t have the dignity to make the situation right. Future Shop’s relationship with the rebate center is nothing to do with the customer. They sell the products based on the boasting rights of the rebate offered. I tried every way I could to place the order during the right time period. Future Shop should have offered to make this right with the rebate center on my behalf or just give me the blasted item with the rebate discounted.
The two people on the phone got snarky with me and neither one would acknowledge how ridiculously poor the service was in this instance.
Thumbs down for Future Shop.
Most of us have been in similar unfortunate situations where a few hours of our time are pointlessly wasted because of ignorant supervisors. Hopefully people will give advice on what to do in such situations.
I would go to best buy and ask for a price match from them. They honour 110% price matching, so you can just go there and tell them, 100% price match with 10% of the difference extra = 110%. Make sure the sales period is still valid ok.
Andy, The item was free after a mail-in rebate and the sale is over:
http://smartcanucks.ca/2006/06/29/canada-day-sale-free-usb-drive-from-future-shop/
So going to Best Buy in this case would just waste more time rather than help.
But your Best Buy idea is very interesting in other situations. Thanks for the hint 🙂
Ouch. Can’t say I’ve ever got great service from Future Shop. (Specially their Sales people who have virtually no knowledge on their products). Still my rebate went smoothly was ready to pick-up that night. Picked it up Canada Day and have sent off for the rebate. Spent a couple short minutes in the store.
They gave me the usb drive, photocopied the receipt and offered to print off the rebate form (i said I’d rather do it at home and had seen the form online). Still although, the people i dealt with where helpful the rebate could have been planned much better. They should have had printed off the rebate forms in advance and attached them to the USB drives so that the customer would have all the rebate instructions right there. And I’m sure they could have programmed a double receipt to be printed out for just that product to skip the photocopy.
Thanks for posting my comment here. I was really upset by the way the Future Shop staff handled things. No one from Future Shop acknowledged that the situation was unfortunate and perhaps that Future Shop should take some responsiblity for the problems (incorrectly listing the item as available for in-store pickup, for cancelling my order without my consent, for the price being incorrect on the website when I tried to reorder online, for the fact that I couldn’t get through on the phone after waiting on hold for over 30 minutes on several attempts, that they didn’t respond to my email trying to get assistance with the situation….). They made it sound like I should have stayed on the phone the entire day trying to get through and that that’s an acceptable expectation.
In my work life where I have trained customer service staff, we have always instructed staff to say, I’m sorry about this situation and What can I do to make it right? In my experience, customers are very fair when treated respectfully and offered this ammends. I know I would have simply asked to get the rebate however they needed to work it out at their end.
If I had had any energy left on the phone today I would have asked to speak with the supervisor’s supervisor and kept going up the food chain until I met with a rational and caring human being. The ones I spoke with were simply determined to ‘enforce policy’ and defend each other instead of helping me.
Thanks again. I really enjoy checking this site each day to see what’s up.
That’s B.S! another reason to never go into Future Shop for me!
Me too! I tried getting this item on July 1st and finally gave up. Every time I finished the credit card info the site wouldn’t allow me to go forward and complete the transaction and would start over with a blank transaction sheet. Very frustrating!!!
One other suggestion about BUYING ELECTRONICS at FUTURE SHOP. IN my point of View never buy electronics at Future shop that you are not sure of buying. I say this because the EMPOLYEES at Future Shop will try to sell you things you dont even need, and sometimes they might even trick you. e.g. you are buying a new computer and not sure which one to get, They will say stuff about one comptuer and make you get it. The reason why they do this is because, some of the salary that a Future Shop emplyee comes from is from COMMISION. So that means that they get 10% of wht they sell. So in other words, they will try to sell you stuff you dont need, so that they make money. SO i suggest that you go to BESTBUY to buy electronics. BESTBUY has no COMMISION so NO PRESSURE. No one will Pressure you to buy products. If you have seen there COMMERCIALS, you will know wht i am talking about 🙂
Future Shop is the worst for customer service. I got screwed quite a few times before wising up.
My girlfriend used to know a manager at one of the stores, and they tell the employees to do whatever it takes to make the sale. They can do this because when the problems arise ( and they always will ) EVERYTHING is at ” the discretion fo the manager” who will basically say that whatever the salesperson said was wrong. This puts you out int e cold. And with salespeople working on commission, they have no problem pushing the stuff on you.
NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER get the extended warranty either.The salesperson gets a substantially higher commission from those than regular items, so they promise the world, but give you NOTHING, as its all again ” at the discretion of the manager.”
More people than I care to mention have had similar problems.
Most other places will price match these days, so there’s really no need for anyone intilligent to shop at Future Shop.
Wow! Didn’t expect so many people to hate Future Shop that much! It’s really unfortunate that nothing can be done about this whole mess 🙁
But we can try reaching a Future Shop Manager (Supervisor) and refer him to this post and the comments. Maybe they’ll do something then.
But I’ll wait until more people write about their Future Shop experience (whether positive or negative) first.
I went to futureshop the other day and went directly in to buy the linksys wireless router and go out, without talking to a salesman. On my way back to the cashier, about 10 meters from it, a salesman, who was talking with another client stops me and ask if I’m going to buy this thing… I’m a little suprise, and I answer yes, and he gives me this paper with a number on it and asks me to give it at the cashier, and I just took it, said yes, and went off to pay… I was thinking… OMG He STOPS SERVING A CLIENT AND WANTS TO GET A LIGHT-SPEED FAST COMMISSION ON A 100$+ sale from me!! I was so shocked and mad, I didn’t give the paper at the cashier, I just threw it in the garbage!
They are so desperate, I can’t believe it!
I’ve had nothing but pretty good service with FutureShop. Maybe I’m just lucky, but the people I’ve talked to have had a pretty good idea of the products they were selling. I do hate the commission thing intelmic was talking about, I’ve had that happen many times as well. Anyway, I don’t like or dislike FutureShop as I haven’t had enough experience with them. All I know is they’re a lot better than London Drugs.
I have plenty of experience with futureshop in the last couple years since i constantly buy electronic gadgets from them. They tend to have competative price and once again, like i said before, you can always ask for price matching. Their service is total bullshit but the product is excellent. For you not to experience with being rip off or them trying you to sell products that you dont’ even need, then you are required to do a little bit of research before you pay them a visit. For example, if you are planning on spending $900.00 on a computer desktop or laptop, it’s better for you to research and find out exactly what you are going to use the pc/laptop for in that way, you can save more money if you know what you want. My last item that I bought from Futureshop was a digital camera Canon SD630 which I ended up saving $150.00 then from any other store. Best buy was selling it for cheaper, but since I use my price matching knowledge, I came out a winner in the end.
For you to get any other service other than buying the product you intended to at Futureshop, you’re gonna have to put up with rude, or reps who haven’t got a clue what they are saying. The ones I dealt with in the past, I asked information about a router and it’s like he’s trying to tell me how the TV works. WTF!!!! anywayz I’ve learned my lesson, before going to the store, know what you want to buy and after you got the product, get the hell out!!!
Have a good day every1.