I had lunch on Tuesday with a great group of folks and the topic of Best Buy came up. I was informed that Best Buy tracks which customers are not the ‘good ones’; for example, those that only buy things when they come on sale. Best Buy doesn’t exactly say what they do with the information, but it raises a few interesting scenarios. Are you going to be blocked at the entrance if you are a frugal shopper?
Anyway, I was a bit miffed that Best Buy would do that, but then it reminded me a very similar concept that I’ve never given half a thought. E-bay. I once bought an apple-peeler-corer-slicer on e-bay, (some day somebody is going to write a very good rap song about this device), and when it arrived it had apple gunk on it, it was rusty, and there was a 9 inch-long hair stuck to it.
Being new to e-bay I figured that if ever there was a time to leave negative feedback, now was the time.
Well, I was surprised to discover that after leaving the feedback, the favor was returned. The seller left negative feedback about me! They declared I hadn’t contacted them about the problem and had just immediately left negative feedback. They refunded my money, but I couldn't take the negative feedback... back. I felt bad. I was now a marred e-bay shopper. The whole world knew I was a cretin.
I got over it with therapy.
Anyway, I find it interesting that I have no qualms about the e-bay system that tracks how nice of a customer I am, and yet knowing Best Buy does the same thing really bugs me. And they aren’t even posting my information for the whole world to see. I guess I can always express my rage by passing Best Buy and going over to Media Play, but then Media play has that horrible replay system...
Maybe that's why I shop here. :)
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