My qualm with Best Buy

I may boycott Best Buy for a very, very long time. Although that may not matter much to a corporation that I rarely frequent.

But for the last two months, I've stepped inside the store and talked to sales associates more often than a person would ever want.

The issue: My camera charger stopped working this fall.

Lucky for me, I bought a two-year service plan when I got the camera for my birthday two years ago. Naturally, I brought in my camera and the charger on Oct. 20. The camera and the accessory were sent to the service center to be fixed. So far, so good.

When I returned to Best Buy about three weeks later, the camera had returned but the charger had not. No explanation was offered. Assuming that the charger was simply still at the service center, the associate helping me said he would have to e-mail the center about the problem. He also said that the charger would probably not make it back to Minneapolis before Thanksgiving but that I would get a call when it was in.

When no one called me by the first week of December, I started to worry. So last week (Dec. 10), I called Best Buy, explained my situation and was told I would get a call back that evening. No one called. At this point, I was mildly frustrated. But on Dec. 12, I called Best Buy. Again, I was told someone would call me back that night with an answer. I don't think I even need to tell you what happened or, should I say, didn't happen.

On Saturday, I decided to go to Best Buy and raise some hell. By raise some hell, I mean I wanted to show my frustration, huff and puff, that kind of thing. The associate who had helped me back in November fortunately was working. He checked his e-mail history. The service center never replied to his inquiry about the location and status of my charger. So a higher-up said he would call the service center on Monday -- because it's closed during the weekend -- and get back to me by Monday afternoon. And if he didn't, he advised that I call him Monday. What do you think happened? Not a word from Best Buy.

Yesterday, I called the store and relayed my ever-growing story to another member of the Geek Squad. He informed me that the little helper who promised to call on Monday doesn't work Mondays or Tuesdays. Certain expletives came to mind when I heard this. He also told me that my service plan had expired, and I reminded him that it wasn't my problem that it expired during Best Buy's two-month-long attempt at fixing and returning my damn charger. Likely becoming just as sick of my problem as I was of him, he offered a new charger.

I picked it up last night. It requires a USB cord, though. My old didn't. So I'm on the hunt for the original package my camera came in and the USB cord that should be in it. Great.

On a side note, while I was at the store last night, there were at least a few customers and employees just moments away from going postal in that place. I could only empathize.