Leathermang,

I'm probably the one you're referring to with the "Don't do business with Best Buy" signature.

Here's the short story:

I bought an aftermarket wire from La Jolla Audio (who sponser the audio portion of our Forum and have been GREAT to me) to use with the Pioneer XM radio unit. I bought the unit from BB after the salesmanager assured me that they could install the control unit of it into the ash tray of my E-320 so I could keep as much of a stock look as possible.

I bought the unit in January. It's now May and I STILL don't have a working XM unit in my car. No tunes, no sound. Just wires hanging in my trunk and a disconnected control unit in the arm-rest compartment.

The staff at Best Buy cares NOTHING for the customer. The techs refused to install the unit as promised. They also couldn't figure out how to hook it up with the after-market wire. The wire is made so that it can only hook up to the unit in ONE way. What could be simpler?? At one point he tried to convince me to throw the wire away and have the unit installed using the FM radio signal. Yeah......

I have been to BB at least five times to have them attempt to install the unit properly. Two of these trips yeilded nothing because the tech didn't show up for work. No one called me to let me know and no apology was given. One appointment lasted EIGHT, yes, EIGHT hours before they discovered that the unit was not working properly and had to be sent to be fixed. It had never been used, didn't work out of the box. No offer to give me a loaner while I waited, though I asked.

SIX weeks later it came back. The tech hooked it up in my trunk and it STILL didn't work. He said I had to come back at later date (AGAIN, ANOTHER APPOINTMENT) to have it sent out to be "fixed" again. I ran some errands, and, after arriving home two hours later, I decided to remove the unit from my trunk so I could send it to have it fixed myself. The stupid tech had left the unit DANGLING from the wires under the rear deck of the trunk!!! Who knows what other damage has occurred because of that stupidity. On top of that, he called me to let me know that he had left his power tool in my car so I had to drive back to that accursed store to return it to him. Should have kept it.....

I can't believe the shear stupidity and carelessness of this company. I was very patient up to this point, but seeing the unit dangling in my trunk was too much. I called the supervisor on duty and balled her out. She refused to give me the district manager's information and tried to make me believe that if I just called her store manager, he would forward the complaint to the district manager. I then called their "official" complaint line. That person put me on hold while he talked to the manager of the store. Minutes later, he said the manager I complained about would look into the matter and get back to me. Yeah, that's never happened. I'm not holding my breath.

Cleave, at La Jolla Audio has graciously offered to send the unit to Pioneer himself and then test it at their facility before sending it back to me. At that point, I'll just complete the installation myself.

Basically, BB wants you to buy their products, but has no intention of backing them up. The sell cheap and charge customers extra for installation. One lady was dismayed because her $120 Panosonic head unit would cost $150 to install. Can you believe that?? That gives you an idea of the scam.