The battery in my digicam is getting tired. After taking only a couple dozen exposures it is starting to shut down and it has always been doing 2-3 times better than that. Yesterday, somewhere in Maryland, after striking out in a Radio Shack and a camera store, we ended up at a Best Buy. They didn’t have a Kodak labeled battery, but they did have a generic. For $20.99 I was out the door.
When we stopped last night I opened, with great difficulty, the plastic oyster shell and put the battery in the camera. All three lights on top of the camera started blinking, meaning that the battery was fully discharged and would be a while before it would be ready for use. In the morning all three lights were still blinking. Bad news.
Today on arrival in New Britain, Donna wanted to got to Friendly’s and I wanted to go to Best Buy. My brother knew just where to go, a shopping center on the Berlin Turnpike. We started at Friendly’s where we were seated and promptly ignored. After waiting 5-6 minutes and no one even acknowledged our presence, we walked out.
In Best Buy I went over to the Service Desk and explained that I purchased this battery at a different store in a different state and that it wouldn’t charge. The CSR started entering stuff in a terminal from my receipt, mid type another employee walked up with a phone and handed it to my CSR saying, “This person wants to speak to someone in customer service.” The CSR stops what he’s doing and starts to talk on the phone. After a half minute or so when it is apparent he isn’t wrapping up the conversation, Donna looks at him and says, “We were here first.” He takes the hint and tells the person on the phone to hold on a second. More typing and then he hands me a paper voucher and says go to the cashier and they will give me my refund.
The cashier takes one look at the papers and says, “I’m not normally at a register, I don’t know how to do this.” She gets on her radio and asks for help. After some non essential chatter we finally see another CSR head our way. She tells our cashier this is how you handle a suspended transaction and proceeds to hit an 8 or 10 sequence of keys so fast I don’t know if anyone could follow. When she gets to the end, she goes, “Uh-oh. Did you buy this in another state?” “Yep,” I tell her. “Must be the tax messing it up.” Off she goes with our cashier in tow.
After another couple minutes the original CSR walks over and hands me $21. I guess the extra penny was because I had to wait so long.
best buy is notorious for bad service…I feel your pain.
I know better too, but figured how could I go wrong buying a battery….