Circuit City...a rant

I had to return a ipod portable stereo system today to Circuit City. I found them hard to deal with and rude. My DH lost the receipt, so I figured we'd return it for store credit. We actually had two of the memorex ipod dock. DH wasn't sure if he wanted one for work as well as home. So we bought two and decided to think about it later. It was on sale for Black Friday for $25.

Well turns out Circuit City returns policy sucks. They do no returns without a receipt. So if you buy someone a gift and they don't like it, make sure to get a gift receipt. Because they don't take a return without a receipt.

But my store turns out okay. We were sitting eating lunch at the mall food court when a woman asked us where we got the ipod dock. We said CC, but then said it was $25. And then we sold it to her and she said it was the best gift she ever bought. So we not only stole a sale from CC, we also prevented a shopper from going in and browsing.

So at the same time we had my car stereo purchased also from Circuit City installed by their firedog. What happened? Well we waited for 2 hours, walked around the mall until they were done. Turns out they didn't install the stereo completely. Nope the auxillary output to an ipod connector was not connected. We drove home unable to figure out why it didn't work and decided we should probably read the manual.

Well we drove home and read the manual. Turns out the cable wasn't connected. How'd we figure it out? DH took it apart and connected the wire. What a waste of time. For a free installation it certainly wasn't worth it to have DH work on it anyway.

My take on Circuit City? Definitely not a place I will buy electronics from again. I'm sticking with Costco and their awesome return policy and customer service. Also just basic electronics servicing, I wonder how intelligent these people working there are? Guess this is why you don't buy extended warranty, because I bet Circuit Cit couldn't fix a problem even if they tried. And the warranty isn't from the manufactorer.