The blogosphere makes it a wee bit harder to stomp on the voiceless individual

By sb admin on June 4, 2007.

CompUSA screws over a customer bigtime. They sell him an empty box, and when he comes back for a refund, they refuse. They think they can get away with this because, hey, who's he going to tell? Their customer base is so huge that if he and his friends get torqued off and never come back, it's no problem.

But, this is just the sort of thing we bloggers just love to trumpet about. Big company stepping on individual. It happens all the time, and it's crappy every time it happens... but now the word an spread a lot farther, a lot faster, and potentially the company might finally feel some embarrassment over it. It kinda worked with the stupid copyright notice Shelly got on her blog; who knows if it will work here.

I had a bad experience with CompUSA back in the early-mid 1990's, and avoided the chain for many years after that. In the last 5 or 6 years, though, I've started going back to the CompUSA in Nashville, and have had nothing but good experiences there. However, stories like this guy's story makes me wonder if I should be a bit more careful....

(Found via BoingBoing.)

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The only good experience (the only experience?) I've had with CompUSA was when one of their stores about a block away from our dorm went out of business. Merchandise they couldn't get rid of and for some reason wasn't worth enough to them to redistribute was unceremoniously tossed into a large dumpster in front of the store ... and left ripe for the picking from various mobs of MIT students.

People still shop at CompUSA? What the...!!?

-- jolt

By joltvolta (not verified) on 04 Jun 2007 #permalink

CompUSA - Gone from the Chicago Area. I guess tehre is not enough profit in selling empty boxes.

I guess tehre is not enough profit in selling empty boxes.

Short-term, there's huge profit, but it's not a very sustainable business model....

Hmm.. I have bought some stuff at CompUSA, but more often I buy online or from PC Connection (catalog). Only had one problem with PC Connection, and that had to do with a rebate situation.

By David Harmon (not verified) on 05 Jun 2007 #permalink

If the purchase was made with a major credit card, follow the instructions on the credit card bill on which the charge appears as to how to place the charge in contest. Given that what was promised was not delivered, it would appear that the customer has a fair chance to have the charge deleted.