Best Buy Sells Hard Drive Box Full of Tiles: Refuses Refund

Another customer service win for BestBuy. This time a Jobsworth manager interrupted a routine transaction and plunged Consumerist reader Sam into a the Kafka-esque world of consumer law.

Sam had found the box of his new Western Digital 1TB hard drive to be full of bathroom tiles, which is normally enough to score an appearance on Gadget Lab. Here, though, the store manager's response is the story:

I got into my car, raced back to Best Buy and voiced my complaint. The employee and assistant manager were more than willing to help, saying that it happens.

So they set up the return and I repurchased the drive and while I was checking the contents to ensure it was a hard drive this time, the store manager came up, took the box from me and said to take it up with the manufacturer.

Now to my surprise, I argued with the guy saying that they have already accepted the return and I have now purchased the new one. He said I was shit out of luck.

Sam did the right thing. He contacted the consumerist, told Amex not to pay the transaction and made an official complaint. Of course, when he contacted Western Digital, it told him that it was Best Buy's problem. The consumerist offers this piece of wisdom:

We think it's not legal to sell someone a box full of bathroom tiles instead of a hard drive.

We'd tend to agree.

Best Buy Sells You A Box Of Bathroom Tiles... [Consumerist via BoingBoing]