Story of the Day 6/ 11/ 2013- Saga of the camera- Part 3

Best Buy.

On June 9th (which is now two days ago) I find myself calling their 800 number, again.
I will not call the store.
The store lied to me, so I will not call them, but I need to know if the camera is back there.
If it has been repaired.
If we can finally get it back.

The 14-17 days I was originally told it would take has morphed into a full month.

It is 3:32 PM.
I am transferred to a woman named April.
I give her the case number and ask her to check on my camera.
She looks it up.
She tells me that the camera was shipped to the vendor to be repaired on May 10th.
I groan.
I would like to pretend that I groaned silently, but I didn't. I groaned aloud.
I tell her the chain of events.
I ask her why I do not have the camera yet, if it was shipped out to be repaired on May 10th.
She agrees that this looks wrong. It doesn't match up.

She puts me on hold.

For 20 minutes.

At 3:54 she is finally back on the phone with me.
There was a shipping label made out on May 10th, but it was never shipped.
She is checking.
The store manager is checking.
And I am back on hold.

Eventually, I am told that it was shipped out from the vendor to the store.
She knows it was repaired on June 4th. It was also shipped out to the store on June 4th.
But it is not yet back at the store.
I am told to keep checking.

On June 10th (yesterday), I find myself calling the 800 number, again.
I still refuse to call the store, directly.
I have some faith that while the 800 number is not well run, I haven't been lied to by them.
At least not on purpose.

I have already checked on the Internet- at geeksquad.com. The camera is not yet at the store in Indianapolis.

I explian to Britanny that I am not calling to have her check, I am calling because I want to complain. And I want her to record my complaints because hopefully someone at the company is interested in fixing how things work.
I explain that it is bad enough that they misplaced the camera, or forgot about it, or whatever it is they did with it for the 2 weeks before I called them and reminded them that they were supposed to send it out to be repaired; but what I am really upset about was that I was lied to, and that every time I check on the website, it is adding insult to injury when they thank me for dropping it off on May 23rd to be repaired.

I tell her that it is now over a month that they've had the camera.
No videos, no photos of my niece's graduation, no use of it.
By the time we get it back, if we do get it back, the warranty will have expired and if they haven't properly repaired it, we will be further screwed.


Today is June 11
The website still insists that I dropped the camera off on May 23rd to be repaired.
It thanks me for it.
I think a few choice words in its direction.

How can UPS take an entire week? This is not the UPS that I know.
I decide to call the 800 number again.
Yes, I am a glutton for punishment.

They transfer me.

Dennis asks me for the tracking number. He tells me he will put it into their website to see if it has been received at the store.
I explain that he can do that, but I just checked it, again, and the website still says that it was shipped on June 4th.
Shipped, but not received.
And, since they managed to lose it once, I want him to make sure they haven't done it a second time.

I think he is irritated by my asking him to investigate this.

Too bad.

10 minutes later, Dennis tells me that the geek squad person at the local store cannot locate the camera. The local person thinks there may have been a mix up in how it was written up and that it might still be at the warehouse. He will speak with the manager.
I am told that they will get back with me in a couple of hours.
I am polite.
I say "thank you" and don't relate that I have never received a phone call back, yet, from the previous time I was told that I would be called back.
And that was 9 days ago.


Amazingly, less than half an hour later, I really do get a phone call from Saul.
The same guy who was supposed to call me over a week ago.
I am polite and do not ask him why he didn't call me then.
At this point, I consider it a major accomplishment to be polite.

They do have the camera.
It was sitting at the dock area.
They had been unable to check it in.
It was sitting there for a while.
The numbers didn't match up, so it had to be overridden by a manager.
If I had not called the 800 number, and if the person from the 800 number had not called, it would have sat there a few more days, judging by the fact it had already been sitting there a while.

Oh, and the icing on the cake?
I cannot pick it up with the paperwork they originally gave me.
That is no longer the number attached to the camera.
Instead, I will need the new repair number, which they assigned it on May 23rd.
Of course, because they handle this with the same competence as everything else they have done regarding our camera, I do not find this out until I arrive at the store.

In fact, because I do not have it, the only way I can get the camera back is to have the owner show a picture ID and sign for it.
The owner is the person to whom the camera was originally shipped when my husband ordered it.

Fortunately, my husband did not have it shipped to himself.
The owner is my daughter, Sarah.
My husband had the camera shipped to her, at our address. After all, the camera was for her and her brother to use making films.

I, of course, only find out that the owner will need to sign for it after I am already at the store.

This, however, is the one moment in all of this that luck is with us.
I mean good luck.
Sarah happend to have come along, which she did not do when I dropped off the camera.
And she has her learner's permit with her.

Leaving they store, I feel like I am escaping from a bad dream.

I am desperately hoping that the camera is actually repaired.