Our GM: So did you hear about that Rock thing?
Me: Yep
GM: So what would you do in this case?
Me: Umm, that's a tough one. It's so hard to tell when...
GM: Just take back the rock
Me: Take back a brick?
GM: Where do they even get huge bricks like that, I want some for my yard

Not all BBY managers are douche-y. We try to err on the side of the customer.

Just for the record, it is entirely possible and quite easy to open the thin boxes Apple ships notebooks in without breaking the seal or leaving any external signs of trauma and if your going to steal a computer what is some broken styrofoam?

I probably shouldn't share the technique

Conversely, the guy who claims he bought a 2k brick, has no resource to show that this happened and that he is not just trying to get an extra free Mac Book.

Easy solution? After paying, open the box in the store.

This guy reminds me of an old lady, back when I was a delivery guy for a chicken joint. Every single time, she used to call my manager claiming there was stuff missing in her order, until my manager got sick of it and packed the thing himself... and she called again with the same claim so the manager called her on her bluff.

Difference here being this is a 2k chicken wing.

When you buy big electronics such as video game consoles and PCs, generally the person that rings you up at the location (in this case BestBuy) has to scan the serial number of the actual item, visible through an opening in the package. I thought this was the case with Apple products as well, but I guess I am mistaken. This would resolve a lot of confusion, and would at least cease the physical scams.

Buying stuff online is a different story. For something as important, I'd rather drive to the store.

I say, to the OP, try Apple, see if they can help.

RT
www.anonymity.ru.tc

An unsavvy customer probably wouldn't have noticed unless it broke.

You're allowed to cover your ( )( ) but the store isn't?

@Cyberxion101: Let's say you're in a situation where BestBuy (or similar store) does check every single return. How do you know the item wasn't switched by an employee working at the store? How do you know it wasn't switched at BestBuy's warehouse? The manufacturer's warehouse? At what point is it okay to call the customer a liar?

3 words:

READ THE ARTICLE

Also could have saved some tax money by getting it from amazon.com.

not all buyers are saints you know

@TheUncleBob: They probably don't like you opening their stuff because you have a restocking fee for opened boxes.

But, if you return a brick, is the restocking fee 15% of what you paid, or 15% of the brick's value?

@pgh9fan1: And if you open the box a restocking fee applies.

Although 15% of a brick isn't really that much to pay...

What would compel the manager to acknowledge that the customer never left the store? The manager is probably not even watching and the clerk could be in on the scam. Just call the store if it happens and they will let you know if you can return the item. If the store won't accept a return then initiate the charge back with your credit card company.

@ZakariyyaFunguar: The seal had to be broken to open the box. Do you have a scale in the store to weigh the item? Please report the weight that you recorded when the item was sold versus when the item was returned.

Seriously, gotta love these stories. I'm guessing there's a store within walking distance, that has patio blocks close enough to an employee can snag himself one, and voila, he's grot a fresh macbook.

The company has a helluva time figuring out where it came from unless they catch em red handed (I worked retail for long enough to see thieves in progress, and those not caught).

Basically, the best suggestion is that made many times.
Open it @ the store, and they can't claim you did the bait and switch. If they still give ya crap, call the CC company, and call the cops. Make the store deal with it at that point, you shouldn't have to.

@silver-bolt: what's the Mac Book Fire? The one where the battery spontaneously combusts?

@Chumas:
From what I can make out of this disemvoweled comment, it seems awesome.

If they'd just open the returns and check them, they wouldn't get shaken down. But they don't.

Easy to scam them; easy for them to skunk the poor slob that ends up buying the box of bricks. It's a lose all around, because they're too damn lazy to CHECK THE F***ING BOX.

@bigd7387: It is the anonymous technology and companies liberal return policies that facilitate the scams. Years ago the store keeper knew his customers and looked at the goods upon return- that is if you were allowed to return at all. Now a $9 hour person with little knowledge of the products is processing a return for $100s maybe $1000s of dollars with the approval of a $14/hr "floor manager".

This is why the barcode switch and return scam is rampant also. The checkout person no longer has to know about the product - just process it over the scanner and take a payment method. An aquaintance of mine related that someone he knew was selling $200 gift cards for $100 cash- probably processed through a return scam. But the payoff for the gift card buyer/final user is so great it is difficult to discourage...

@Joseph F. Becker: Did they charge an extra fee for that configuration?

In fact, there was a time I got a shaver at walgreens, the box seemed kinda iffy and i noticed after i bought it but i hadn't left the store yet. So i open it and the shaver was pretty much shattered.

Though when I bought my laptop at Best Buy I took it one better and opened it *before* I bought it, in the presence of a sale associate, accounted for all the pieces and made sure it had no signs of use before I put it back in the box and paid for it.

@urbanturban666: I even did the open the box at Walmart customer service for a $50 car radio.

One item I didn't open was a small window air conditioner from Walmart since the boxes were all strapped with two plastic bands and I pulled the unit we bought from under a couple of others. The checkout person had to enter its serial number supposedly for the warranty on our receipt. I couldn't help but think that this was for a return tracking situation also. Even if you paid cash originally you would have to give your name etc if returning the item.

I wasn't offended, but honestly, is this what we do here in the consumerist comments? Is this YouTube now? The reason this is the only 'comments' section I visit on the entire web is because most of them are full of people like chumas, but this place seems to be just a little classier.

@zandar: I hark back to the story of my ex-wife's stupid cousin getting bricks in place of a sewing machine from Walmart. The stupid part came in explaining to her that she wouldn't be arrested for returning the stuff and then explaining why someone would do such an act.

Thn gn, prfr vlnc t wrtng CB's.

I was just in the Hospital for a week and one night while my Wife and myself went for a 45 minute walk $475 worth of my electronics was stolen, and I was in a private room. I know from where the items were placed that someone on the nurses staff stole the items but like the cop asked me, How can you prove it? The reason I bring this up is because these thefts are more and more in the news and it cannot be just someone trying to scam a store. But who is to really to blame? The stores are paying the employees next to nothing and treating them like there worthless so what reasons are left for them not to steal besides the moral issue. If we as a country started paying people to actually work then people would start to take ownership again in their jobs and actually care, you would still have some thefts but the fear of losing a good job for a couple hundred dollars would be in their mind plus more people would be willing to tell on what they've seen. I just hope something starts changing. I couldn't even turn the theft I had on my insurance since I have a $500 deductable so again the innocent pay the bill.

@TheUncleBob: Did I say that? See, what I thought I was getting at is that if Best Buy had stronger procedures in place at the return level, this would be a non-issue.

Maybe I'm just naïve, but I believe that all it takes to keep everyone from being scammed all around is for Best Buy's customer service folks to open the damn box and make sure that what's inside is what should be inside it before they accept a return. If it were a matter of policy to do this, it would be impossible for scammers to put one over on them, which in turn would protect the customer.

I know that this is likely to be taken as anecdotal evidence given how cynical you folks are, but I just returned an external HDD to Best Buy a little over a week ago, and the girl at customer service didn't bother to open the box to make sure the HDD was actually in there. Now I'm not an unscrupulous bastard, but I can see how that sort of thing would make it incredibly easy for someone to scam them.

And let's be real. With this policy in place, that scammer in your hypothetical situation would be revealed as such. There's no ambiguity about it under these circumstances. They're not getting boxes of rocks from the manufacturers. As long as they're not taking returns without checking them first, the matter would be pretty cut-and-dry. As it stands, it's their lackadaisical return procedures that put them and their customers in such a compromising position.

So yeah, it's totally a failing on Best Buy's part.

@eelmonger:"Receipt checks" and "consumers verifying the packaged contents of big-ticket items prior to leaving the store" are mutually exclusive. No place that actually tries to do the former ever does the latter that I'm aware of.

Receipt checks are the devil's own pointless distraction, and I'll not submit. But it is in my own best interest to verify that the pretty box I'm toting out of the store does indeed contain what is purported, before I'm out the door, and in sight of an employee.

Very vivid imagery tho! Fuck the man! Right on.

Seriously, tho, pulling a weapon where I live *will* get you tased right quick. You *will* win against the desk jockey (+100::: self pooping = hi-larious), lose against the county cops (-1000::: You'll wake up in the back seat of a police cruiser - taking the handcuffed limousine ride to county lock up).

Next time you're in OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA (home of the bodybag, according to Ice-T), tho - feel free to prove me wrong.

@madog: Well, you're not going to be practicing on your iPhone any more...

@dave_coder: "What do you do in a case like this?"

It seems to me that the store that accepted a box of rocks and then sold it should accept it. It's pretty clear from past posts that big box chains do not check returns. Ever. They just go, "Yeh, sure, we'll resell it!" And then it ends up as a box of rocks or full of porn.

You made me *snark* on my KB.
LOL
Well played

and who the hell pays that for an apple paving stone - windows paving stones are 799. and do everything an apple paving stone can do.

If they break the seal they have to sell it as an OPEN BOX or DEMO at a discount.

People need to be careful on their own, I know that this is a rare situation and I truly feel for the OP, but bringing up these Big Brother security devices for iPods, etc is retarded and could lead to a giant breach of security.
It's logical to have something like this on a phone since it's meant to be linked to a network, etc, and consistently transmits personal data (your number, etc).

You mean there's absolutely, 100% no chance this customer didn't buy the item, take it out and replace it with a brick, then try to get a refund?

Tell me, what happens when a scammer buys an item, takes it home, opens it, removes the good item and replaces it with a brick, seals the package back like it's factory sealed, then tries to return it to the store and they *do* open it when it's returned? The scammer just gets to say "I never even opened it! You guys were trying to rip me off!" and we end up exactly where we're at now.

Might be worth the $2K, I'd call it a wash ;-)

@urbanturban666: I think that one alternative to this is to go with a online retailer that you've built a trust with - and remember, just because you buy something from amazon.com doesn't mean that you're buying it from amazon.

But yeah, anything over a hundred bucks I tend to open in the store in front of the sales reps, often before I purchase, making it obvious up front that I'm checking for completeness.

It does make you wonder why other electronics don't also do that.

Point is, Apple has no way of bricking an iPod. An iPhone? Maybe so, since you have the cellular network. But an iPod? No.

See, just as it may be argued that it's the customer's responsibility to check his items before he leaves the store, I think that it's likewise arguable that it's the store's responsibility to make sure that its employees are following proper procedures for returns.

Seriously, all they have to do to ensure that this doesn't happen is to open the box and check what's inside it before they accept the return. However, I'm betting that Best Buy wants to resell this stuff as new, and so if it's sealed up convincingly by the scammer, they won't even check it. I think that's evinced by the DVD player they tried to resell as new, that ended up having porn in it.

So it's most definitely a failing on Best Buy's part. What's worse is that it works in Best Buy's favor, because the onus is on the consumer to prove that he isn't a thief. It sucks. Someone of some influence needs to crawl up Best Buy's colon and get some much needed changes made...

On a kinda unrelated note, the security person was busy with his monitor because there was a group of people that he spotted as lookouts so they were trying to break that up.

Ding! Right on the first part.

As for things ordered on-line, I videotape the unboxing from start to finish.

And plastic is capitalist, not revolutionary, comrade. :)

if it looks like a mac, and tastes like a mac, it must be a mac.

lol thats a $.73 brick from home depot. i bought some a month ago for my yard

What a deal!

What'll you do when his management colleague points a shotgun to your head and asks you if YOU'RE telling the truth about the MacBook?

OPEN THE BOX IN THE STORE

If you open it in front of them they can't give you any problem about you being the thief.

I also find it interesting that there were Chinese newspapers in the box along with the paving stone, aren't Macbooks made in China? I suspect someone has a nice shiny laptop in their hovel.

When a friends iPod was stolen, Apple refused to "brick it", even after they were forwarded a police report. An iPod is useless without iTunes, so it was perfectly possible for them to help, but they didn't want to get involved. So, either they have to trust the complainer or - if they don't like that - then there are things they can do. Personally, I'd prefer the latter - it would do a lot more to protect consumers from theft, muggings, etc. In short, it would be a great feature.

As to the "Take it up with Apple, that's how we received it" - I know in the UK, your contract is with the shop as that's where you brought it from. You are not actually a customer of Apple's, you are a customer of BestBuy (or whoever) and if the order isn't right, it's the shops fault.

Now if only the Mac Book Water was made, we would have all four.

What? Too soon?

@GuinevereRucker:

Apple is great at taking are of customers. My mother dropped her 3 month iPod in the ocean and called them, and told them the truth. They sent her a new iPod no charge.

@Zclyh3:

Yeah. If Besy Buy let people open the box before they bought it then it is at that point open. The next customer does not want to buy an open item. Buy the product, open it in front of them, and if there is a problem then you're fine. You can't expect a retail store to allow people to go around opening sealed products whenever. It'd lead to this exact problem. OMG, I bought a laptop and it was reslealed and sold as new!

@CRCError1970:

Apple doesn't shrink wrap their boxes. Neither does Best Buy. Always look for the FACTORY seal.

@TheUncleBob:

Probably the only intellignt thing I've ever seen on this site. Kudos to you. This is exactly what needs to be done. Video card makers and game systems already do this, which makes me wonder about the Nintendo DS claims.

Debit cards are just as safe as CREDIT cards, if your debit card has a major credit card logo on it then you have the same protections as if you owned that credit card. The only reason why people feel safer with a credit card is because of the allusion they have that the money they are spending is not really their money... it is the credit cards money. A reality check though would indicate that roughly at the end of the month you are paying for what you buy.. maybe not in full, but you are paying for it.

There is a reason why people should have both a checkings and a savings account, but people treat their credit card as their checkings and their checking account as their savings and just simply leave there savings account near 0 because they aren't putting anything back like they should be doing.

So what I am saying to you is that the main reason you are using your credit card has nothing to do with this so called "protection" your primary reason is something much more irresponsible and you are just trying to justify it.

Long, bad day. Want to buy edit functionality!

A receipt check and a box check are essentially the same. They make sure you get what you paid for... in the case of the box, not less, and in the case of the receipt, not more :P

@redkamel
I have no more tolerance for petty morons who won't listen to reason. A little reminder of their mortality usually wakes them up.

@Mustybuckets
Long as it's not over a hundred, we always cool. :)

Its 'sealed' with a 'sticker'.

Sorry, Keith, I didn't buy this from Apple, I bought it from you. You sold it to me. You sold me a red brick. Not Apple.

Personally I enjoy being treated like a honest customer (in turn I am honest with them and pay for things), and I hope the thieves/scammers don't make Apple regret this policy.

I could be wrong about all this, it's just a general impression of years of being an Apple fanboi.

Some dude would buy new computers, and pull the components out, then return the "defective" machine hoping we'd give him cash/product and RTV the "defective" merchandise.

How about to fix these issues, everything comes in clear packaging? You will always know what you are getting if you can see it before you buy it.

I don't think everyone needs to blame Best Buy as much as they do. They are the largest in consumer electronics. People like to steal electronics. Put 2 and 2 together. Contrary to popular belief, there are no shrinkwrap stores in Best Buys. Customers WILL rip off retailers with this kind of deception. What can they do? Even if they "catch" someone, there is no proof. What's the difference between someone who blatantly ripped us off or made the claim that they were ripped off?

This is why manufacturers NEED to put a factory seal on everything. Some manufacturers use shrink wrap that has their brand name. Better methods are needed.

If the OP can somehow track the MacBook down by its serial number, maybe he can get the iSight to take a photo of the Best Buy employee using it?

And not to be pedantic but if you were pressing it against his stomach it probably wouldn't be his ass spilling all over the desk.

I've tried that where I work. Customers get upset. I know we're trying to *help* the customer, to make sure they're getting what they purchased, but customers don't like it when we break the seal of their new toy and expose it to air. It's crazy, I know. I don't know if it's because they're giving it as a gift or what, but I've had several, several customers express their frustration over me opening the package and having them check the contents.

Someone, somewhere, replied with the best solution - the packaging needs to have a window where the item can be seen. The serial number should *NOT* be on the package, but should be scanned directly off the item through the window.

This is, of course, up to the manufacturers to do, not something the stores can whip up.

If that's the case, I wouldn't have purchased the unit then. If they won't let a customer check to make sure the product is there, then I don't want to buy it. If they won't let us do it, then Best Buy employees should open the laptop RIGHT in front of the customer to make sure they're not being screwed over. Then when the check is complete, they should reseal it back up with a sticker so the customer can still return it if unopened.

Another reason not to buy high priced items from Best Buy. I bought a Raptor drive from them before and IMMEDIATELY opened it in front of them. I keep learning more myself since I kept checking Consumerist.

Fuck Best Buy. Fuck big box stores. No, stop, stop making excuses for them, just stop it. When they pull crap like this, they just prove again and again their absolute worthlessness. The whole point of a big box used to be that you had more support and more say than with a huge evil faceless website.

Now, it's the other way around. Best Lie employees run around freely taking whatever they want out of boxes, sealing them in the back with shrink wrappers so they can sell 'em as new again (and have plausible deniability since only the manufacturers have a $50 shrink wrapper, obviously).

This happens when "I WANNA ROCK" is taken literally.

Most expensive pet rock ever.

It actually makes perfect sense though since there is no other way to verify what really happened.

If you are spending any amount of money you would be unhappy to lose, and have any doubts about your ability to exchange bricks, remotes or Chinese newspapers for the actual purchased product, I highly recommend opening your product at the place of purchase and verifying its contents.

I smell scam on the part of the customers. sorry, i just do.

Back in the day, we use to have nice display boxes that had cutouts on several sides of the the box to show the actual goods inside.

Blister packs (I hate them as well) that mount the item with a clear view of both sides of the goods.

Anybody catching the pattern?

Instead we have blister packs that hide the goods behind a cardboard facade and heavy packing boxes with zippo chance to view the goods before they leave the stores.

Can't see the goods through the packing materials? Then the box gets opened before it leaves the store. Should be store policy. Solves a couple problems and prevents even more problems.

DOWn, baby, DOWn!

We used to have those kind of stickers at EB games, I'm sure Best Buy does too.

@webreacher:

Yep. Same crap second verse.

Until store start inspecting goods as they go out the door this crap is going to continue.

Seriously, after reading Consumerist I open anything that I can't see through the package either in the store or just outside. Much easier to deal with if you find a brick 6 minutes after purchase than a few days.

@RB_Bhoy: Beat me to it. Kudos to you!

Maybe if the MacBook's serial number was published someone may be able to locate it.

The serial # is printed on the box.

Kind of like an Amber Alert for computers.

"I'll buy anything that's shiny and made by Apple."

Sounds oddly familiar...

@CRCError1970:

Noticed the first picture, The Macbook boxes have a handle on them. If they shrink wrapped it, then it would defeat the purpose of the handle on it and dave is right, they have a sticker that seals it.

@Corporate-Shill:

Though it may not alwyas be practical, I think the retailer helping the customer check the merchandise at time of purchase is a great service to both.

A local Little Caesars pizza store has begun opening the boxes of every Hot 'N Ready pizza they sell in front of the customers to verify that they are getting the topping they wanted. I was pleased to see this, since I once forgot to check myself and got home to find a cheese pizza in a box that was supposed to be pepperoni.

I have no idea what the outcome of the inquiry was, but it didn't really matter to me as Apple made things right even though it wasn't even necessarily their fault. If Best Buy won't cooperate I'd give Apple a call. Just make sure you're nice on the phone and they'll take good care of you.

@cjones27: It's only slightly less useful than this: [www.theonion.com]

1. While sitting in stock at Best Buy (or even at their suppliers or shippers warehouse) someone opened the box, took out the system, put in the brick. From that point on, even if serial numbers are scanned, the assumption is that "Apple sealed it at the factory" and nobody ever opens the box to make sure it's not a brick. In this case, there's really nothing to trace... someone else is using the macbook, and probably hasn't registered it.

2. A customer bought the macbook, took it out, replaced it with a brick, and then returned it under the auspices of changed mind, cold feet, got two for Christmas, whatever. The store didn't check inside the box when they took it back. Eventually they tried to sell it again, and someone got the brick. Again, the person who stole it probably isn't going to send in the warranty registration card to Apple, so even with a serial number on it, it won't be discovered.

The third option is that whichever way it was stolen, it ended up in the black market and some unsuspecting dupe will or has bought it on eBay. In that case, they won't know its stolen and will try to register it. Catching it here relies on two things: (1) that Apple gives enough of a sh!t to compare registered S/N's against a "stolen list" - not likely. (2) that if BB sold it and took it back, at some point they scanned in the S/N as sold. I've seen BB scan S/N's irregularly. I don't know if this even goes anywhere where it can be cross-checked and used to detect a crime.

Long winded response, I know, but unfortunately the serial number is not as useful as a theft deterrent as it should be.

Sarah Pieper
Geek Squad Public Defender
Executive Resolution Specialist
Best Buy Co., Inc.
Phone: 612-292-0154
Fax: 952-430-4997
sarah.pieper@bestbuy.com

Well there must have been a real MBP in their at some point. The serial number will match the machine.

Recently, I witnessed, a customer trying to return a GPS. The model in the box, was not the same, as on the box. I still wonder : was he trying to scam, or he was a victim...

(Even a little plastic peep-hole would do!)

If the store employees know that all merchandise is checked out before it leaves, it makes in-store theft a wee bit harder to perform.

It also protects the store from scams like this - before the customer leaves the store, they're acknowledging that the correct item is in the box.

It's easier to avoid problems in the first place than to resolve them afterwards. Bad publicity for Best Buy, regardless of the customer being right or wrong. If he's right, they look like they can't sell products worth a damn. Wrong, and they look like a ripe target for cons (as if they weren't a good target already).

I just double-checked my Air box, and it's a sticker.

Not siding with Best Buy here...just treating it as if I were running a small business with say ten employees and someone came along with a brick telling me I owe them a new laptop.

Prove it.

Sorry, there are just way too many of these "substituted goods" posts.

IF these were factual, my first telephone call would be to the local PD. Second call is going to the state AG to encourage a state wide investigation of the merchant.

Instead these complaints land on consumer forums.

Sounds too much like an attemtp to shake down the merchant and/or manufacturer.

But also: never, ever, let "there" be a Best Buy.

PS - Apple should fix it just because. 1 Brick/Heavy Object replacement per person with proof of purchase. Is it too much to ask?

Think of the children.

Or. The rock is a feature.

After purchasing, but before you LEAVE THE STORE, open it and see if you're getting what you purchased. That way, you're certain you received what you paid for and they are sure they sold you what you paid for.

I've been doing this for about 10 years now and I've never been ripped like this. One can argue that it's not practical to open your merchandise before leaving the store, but is it more practical to go thru the nightmare this guy will go thru? Logic people...love it...use it.

What do you do in a case like this? No one wants to eat a $2000 brick?