Fry’s Electronics store poor customer service
I purchased an Asus Motherboard from Fry’s in Fishers Indiana. The system was going to be an ESXi PC for home use. When I got the machine home, I wasn’t able to find where to enable AMD-V. I found an article online that made it sound like you need to upgrade the BIOS to get the functionality to enable the AMD-V. I downloaded the rom file from the Asus website and extracted it to a USB key. I booted the workstation into the BIOS and ran the EZ flash utility. Everything appeared to have gone well, until the system rebooted. I received a bad checksum error and that it needed the backup rom to restore. I popped in CD that came with the board, and it reported an error stating that it was too old for the functionality of the system. The processor was a Quad Core Phenom 2.4ghz with 4GB of Crucial Viper DDR2 1066 ram. Next I tried downloading an earlier version of the BIOS rom and changing the name to what the system was looking for. I tried different version of the ROM, USB, CD, and could never get it to fix the BIOS.
So, I packed the family into the car and made the 40 minute drive back to Fry’s. I packed up the motherboard, processor, fan, memory. I took everything in, just in case I switched over to Intel. Well, after speaking to the customer service rep, she was going to give me the credit for the motherboard and I was going to go grab a Gigabyte. Another rep, looked at the box and said that I was missing the shield for the case to cover around the ports on the back of the case. Unless I picked up the exact same board, I couldn’t return the board without doing an 80 minute round trip. She spoke to her manager who said there was nothing they could do.
Now, I knew better than head up there without the shield. I even looked at it before I sat down in front of my workstation to research other boards that would work with ESXi that they had at Fry’s. Now, if they would have said that there would be a restocking fee or something along those lines, for 10-15%, I would have paid it. When they told me there was nothing they could do, I told them fine, I’ll return everything else. I returned $300 worth of components, all opened of course, and I’ll return the motherboard on Monday. If they drop the price for open boxes by even 10%, that little shield will end up costing them over $30.
I always try to purchase locally before going online, if the costs are even remotely comparable. It helps to keep the local stores open and I assume that I’ll get better service than from an online vendor. However, the local store needs to realize that they usually charge a premium over the online retailer, and as such, they need to be aware of customer service. Now, I’m fully aware that the mistake was mine, but Fry’s could have handled the situation better. Hopefully, someone from the Fishers’ Fry’s will pick up on this post and make their service reps aware of alternate solutions to situations.
Keurig Special Edition B60
I finally received a semi-approval from the wife to purchase a Keurig single cup coffee maker. I say semi-approval because I’m not sure if she was really serious when she said yes. I didn’t give her a change her mindJ, I just ran out of the door. I went with the B60 version. The primary reason was that it can make 3 cup sizes. The other advantage is that my wife, a non-coffee drinker, can make teas and hot chocolates, just as quick. We still have our Senseo, but it doesn’t handle tea or hot chocolate, as well as the Keurig.
List price for the B60 is $199 but you can find it online and at local resellers for $149. We bought our at Kohls. They were offering scratch off tickets that could give 15, 20 or 30 percent off for Kohls Credit card holders. You also get a $10 Kohl’s cash voucher for every $50 spent, to use after Christmas. I was able to scratch off a 20%. I walked out of the store with the B60 for $120 including tax. We also got $20 Kohl’s cash. So the system basically cost us $108.
So far we’ve ran three kcups through it. The first was the Celestial Season’s Mandarin Orange Tea, made it for my wife. After adding a little sugar to it, she really enjoyed. Next I put in the Van Houtte French Vanilla. It wasn’t bad, but I probably won’t buy it in bulk. I tried a second cup using the same Kcup. The second cup was pretty weak. I could have been because I’ve been using the large mug setting on the machine. The third Kcup was the Green Mountain Nantucket Blend. This was really good. I still used the large mug setting, and the resulting cup tasted similar to a good cup of percolated coffee that you would get at a catered event.
Our Senseo is over two years old; I was just getting bored with the limited coffee selections. So far we are pretty happy with the Keurig taste. Time will tell it the quality of the system is as good as the Senseo.
About mordtech
Experience:
I’m an IT professional with over ten years of Microsoft Server support. I’ve also supported Checkpoint and VMware. I’m currently employed by a large IT outsourcing corporation in the US.
I’ve implemented Windows Active Directory, Checkpoint VPN/Firewalls, VMware Infrastructure, Sharepoint/Project Server amongst others.
Personal:
I’m married and a father of two boys, which is by far the most trying job of my life: the boys, not the marriage. We reside in the midwest and aren’t looking forward to the fast approaching winter.
sitemeters
