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You are here: Home  REVIEWS 10 Reasons Why FRY'S ELECTRONICS SUCKS and Has The WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE
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10 Reasons Why FRY'S ELECTRONICS SUCKS and Has The WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE |
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Wednesday, 07 March 2007 |
Here is my stab at making the ultimate anti-Fry's Electronics articles. I'm tired of Fry's Electronics because of their horrible service towards good honest paying customers.
There is no doubt it that Frys Electronics has bad customer service, terrible customer service, the WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE!
I spend roughly $10k-30k in computer technology purchases every year. Every visit to Fry's recently has more pathetic customer service. Fry's doesn't understand that I am already outgrowing my college student budget and that what use to be regular computer techie hobby purchases is now becoming serious IT business purchases for my clients.
----- TODAY BEGINS MY QUEST TO PUT FRY'S OUT OF BUSINESS. -----
I might not be able to do it. It's hard to empty such deep pockets, but I can sure as hell put a big dent in their pocket and help their more deserving competitors to get an edge. If only I was rich; I'd open a giant non-profit tech store just to put Fry's Electronics out of business.
I'm tired of Fry's Electronics taking advantage of people. False advertisements, fine print purchase terms, and rude customer service is only the tip of it.
A company this big and this rich can afford to offer quality service and a quality image. Everyone loves to shop here because their stores are huge and they seem to have everything. Growing up, the Fry's experience was a fun adventure trying out all the demo equipment and electronics and looking at all the different selections of products. It was a fun place to play. Then I got older and began making purchases at the place. Buying the latest games, cds, and computer stuff for my personal use. I got older still and began buying computer parts and shopped with friends and family while offering tech advice. Again, I got older and used Fry's as one of my main suppliers to buy parts for custom-built computers. Time passed and I became an IT professional constantly making weekly runs to Fry's to buy important network components and scrap parts for business offices of clients. I spend a ton of money every year and Fry's is extremely conveniently located just 5 minutes down the street but for some reason, I still choose to wait the 2 days for Newegg.com to ship me products.
Why?
Easy - Fry's is a terrible company. But don't take my word for it. There are plenty of other sites with huge archives of complaints againt the company. For this article alone, I will only use my TRUE and PERSONAL events.
1. Fry's Electronics treats their employees like crap - They are almost as bad as Walmart in this aspect. Fry's Electronics forces their employees to work overtime under extremely stressful conditions. Employees at Fry's Electronics are constantly placing the blame on everyone else but themselves. I had a friend named Vivi who was forced to work full-time AND over-time during Christmas when she was pregnant and was SUPPOSED to be allowed time off from work. How did Fry's Electronics do it? Easy, her manager subtly implied that if she wasn't able to work when they needed her the most, that they probably wouldn't need her at all.
I've also had many other friends who are ex-employees that tell me they love kicking around all the merchandise in the back especially when their managers treat them like crap.
2. Fry's Electronics does not care about quality - Everybody knows Fry's re-packages damaged and incomplete products as "new" or "open-boxed" at a discounted price. If it's been open, it has probably been damaged! Do not trust Fry's. There has been many moments when I have return items that I stated as "NOT WORKING" and watched is disbelief as the employee working in the returns department simply opens the box to make sure the product is there and then closes the box and slaps a discounted price sticker on the box and prepares the box to be put back on the shelf to be sold to another unsuspecting customer.
3. Fry's Electronics has terrible management - They don't know how to run a company. I don't know who to blame...it's certainly not the employees' fault. They haven't been there for more than a couple months. Everybody is always waiting. The flow of communication, information, and services is always slow in this company. I see customers waiting on employees, and employees waiting on managers, and managers waiting on supervisors, and supervisors MISSING IN ACTION. What is the hold up? Where are you guys? Fry's Electronics' management is non-existent.
4. Fry's Electronics' staff are poorly trained - This isn't the fault of the employees but the management. I've seen dozens of times when customers literally had to tell a Fry's employee how to do their job or times when a Fry's Electronics employee had to go grab another employee to answer a simple question. The Fry's Electronics employees also don't even know anything about the products sold in their department. There has been plenty experiences of my shopping at Fry's when I overhead an employee giving bad networking advice to customer and telling them to buy a specific product for all the wrong reasons. Of course, this is still better than all the Fry's Electronics employees that are in charge of a department but can't even find a product in their own department and can't even tell you what it does! I've found myself helping other customers while shopping at Fry's because the employees are useless! Employees should be trained to be knowledgeable in their department, courteous and helpful towards customers, and to be easy-to-find in their departments at all times! Want more proof that Fry's Employees don't know what they're talking about? Just go to the website or store and look at the job application. All of the jobs INCLUDING THE COMPUTER TECHNICIAN position have attached lines of "No experience necessary", "no degree necessary", and "no certificates necessary but are a plus". Yup, that's exactly what you get when you pay for Fry's Electronics to fix your computer - "No experience necessary." With luck, you'll get some high school kid with a passion for computers and can at least provide you with work that can at least appear to be on the same level of what an IT expert of several years can do for you. The bottom line is: don't take your computer to Fry's Electronics if you want it fixed right.
5. Fry's Electronics does not reward their best customers - I have not heard of any big company that does not offer a Rewards program for their best customers. Fry's Electronics is the first big company I've heard of to do this. Fry's employees harass me everytime I stop at the counter to pay for my purchase with the "Do you have a Fry's card? No? Do you want to apply for one?" I tell them NO NO NO every single time because they don't reward you for being a repeat customer. I get more rewards from my creditcard company than I do from them. Fry's Electronics is arrogant and they take your business for granted. No coupons, no membership only deals, no points programs...nothing.
6. Fry's Electronics CHEATS CUSTOMERS and do not honor their own word - I've seen tons of advertisements put on a newspaper and then I rushed to the store only to find myself and many others groaning when a correction and apology is printed on a piece of paper and glued to the front doors of a store taking back the claim of a certain deal advertised on the newspaper. I don't understand why they don't fire the person who does the ads! OH, I GET IT! They're doing it on purpose; yup, that's gotta be it. It's also known as a bait-and-switch tactic to get people to come to the store and shop. Fry's does it just about every week here. A perfect mis-print every single time. Unfortunately, some people don't even find out about the correction until they reach the cashier. Another part of Fry's Electronics deceptive practices is related to the return policies. They are strict and reasonable and for the most part, the return policies are fair. The problem is that Fry's Electronics forces customers to jump through all sorts of hoops and steps just to get their money back. They accuse customers of everything under the sun to try and keep people's money. Try going to Fry Electronics with a damaged product and if you're lucky, they'll take it back no questions asked. Every now and then, they'll question you and even blame you for damaging the product in which case, you won't get your money back. Even more disheartening still is when you buy one of those re-packaged products labeled with a discount and sticker verifying that the product is OK, then you come home and open it up and find out it doesn't work or is missing parts, and then come back to tell your story to the Fry's Electronics customer service department only to see them not believe you and keep your money.
This list goes on. Next up is the rebates. Ok, this is obvious: if you're going to buy a product with a rebate from Fry's Electronics or even anywhere for that matter, you are at risk to that promised money. They might not ever pay you or they may take like a year to do it and make you re-submit the rebate form numerous times. Goodluck!
More still is the extended warranty that Fry's Electronics pushes you to buy. Everytime I buy anything at Fry's Electronics, the employees keep pushing me to buy extended warranty. I DON'T NEED TO BUY extended warranty for a product that already has manufacturer's warranty. I will use for example, a motherboard. Most computer technicians can probably tell within 1 week how long the motherboard is going to last. High quality motherboards that will go bad will usually go bad right away allowing a chance to replace within the 30 day return period. Other than that, a good motherboard can go up to 3 years before it gives out on you. The point is, if your motherboard dies in 2 years, Fry's Electronics will probably not be selling that motherboard any longer and a replacement through their own warranty plan will probably take a good couple weeks. Keep in mind that most motherboards are built with a 3-year manufacturer's return policy and you can get the manufacturer to replace the computer hardware component part FREE OF CHARGE! Long story short - you don't need to buy the extended warranty, it is no better than the manufacturer's warranty in most cases and make sure that even if you DO buy it from Fry's, that they may not honor it at all or at least not in a timely manner! If you're going to buy extended warranty, buy it from the manufacturer!
7. Fry's Electronics has the worst customer service ever - I'm sure you've heard of all of these. Employees appearing to be busy every time a customer is about to approach them, employees ignoring customers by telling them to wait forever or giving them the "not my department" excuse, employees spending more time socializing with each other and talking on the cellphone instead of assisting customers, employees telling customers that a product not found on the shelf has also ran out in the back WITHOUT ACTUALLY CHECKING. I've seen managers argue back at customers like a 10 year old child. I also had a friend that was given bad advice by a Fry's Electronics employee and ended up buying the wrong printer cable. She came back to the store within an hour since she lived so close and Fry's Electronics refused to give her back the check that was STILL SITTING IN THE COUNTER NEXT TO THE CASH REGISTER as refund. Instead, they said she would received a check from Fry's Electronics in 14 days. This was unacceptable because she had a low income and needed to have the money to buy the correct cable elsewhere and did not want to risk any NSF charges from her bank should Fry's Electronics decide to cash her check. It took her 5 hours of arguing through the chain of command at Fry's Electronics before the store manager finally threw the check back at her and muttered a derogatory term under his breath.
Other stories of bad customer service at Fry's Electronics have always included an employee or even upper-level manager (shame on you!) promising to assist a customer in 10 minutes only to disappear for an hour. In fact, they will peek around the corner and wait to make sure the customer has given up and left before they return back to their department counter! I remember wanting to buy a big expensive all-in-one laser printer one time only to have one employee after another telling me it wasn't their department and that they didn't know where "the printer guy" was. I can't believe a company would leave this aisle unattended and unmanned for this long! I took my business elsewhere and bought the printer from Newegg and waited the 2 days and saved about $100 and hours of waiting.
Here goes another personal story that I have witnessed numerous times at Fry's Electronics. It usually goes something along the lines of a customer getting angry at a Fry's employee and then demanding to talk to the supervisor. At this point the employee says "ok" and then disappears to get his "supervisor". Here's the key part, the employee runs over to the next aisle to get his friend who's wearing a coat and tells his friend to cover for him. The friend wearing the coat walks over to the still-angry customer and says "yes, I am the supervisor" and then argues with the customer and behaves extremely rude while maintaining a giant smirk because the customer doesn't know it's not the supervisor. This is sad and pathetic. What's even sadder is that most of the time at Fry's Electronics, there IS NO SUPERVISOR or anybody else you can talk to. If you complain to the cashier, he or she will just get another cashier to try and deal with you and tell you the exact same crap all over again. Fry's Electronics has no heart. They simply bounce you from one department to another until you give up. It's the attitude of the managers and it's passed down onto the employees.
8. Fry's does not care about customer complaints - They have no central company website. They don't even care about their image or brandname or mission statement that will claim to uphold to the people. They have no openly listed customer-service phone number or venue for customer complaints. Their sales website has no customer service email or inquiry forms that can be easily found. They are not a real company! All they have they is the little white pads with pencil and the box with a slit next to it inside their stores SOMETIMES. What a joke. I have YET to hear of a story where somebody from Fry's Electronics actually take a complaint into consideration and try to make right of what their company did wrong. Fry's Electronics also does not care about potential customers either. I've called the store several times myself only to find the phone ring on forever. Other times when someone actually picks up, they give me attitude for making them look up to see if they have something in stock. There's other stories on the internet about people asking for quotes on $70,000 worth of merchandise only to take their business elsewhere because of extreme rudeness from the Fry's employee over the phone. I have no choice but to feel that Fry's Electronics does not care about any of their customers - past, present, or potential.
9. Fry's Electronics will never change their dishonest ways! - I have seen tons of employees and managers cycle through the store and time and time again I give Fry's Electronics a chance to change my mind and show me that an entire company cannot be judged upon the actions of a few bad incidents and employees alone. But year after year, I still see the same exact incidents at their electronics superstore and I keep hearing about the same dishonest business practices over and over again. Customers left wandering in the aisles looking for help, people arguing at the return lines, employees being rude, advertisements not being honored, and rebates not being paid. The problem is the company and its values. They've got no heart. They won't change their ways because they know people will still shop there. Fry's Electronics takes of advantage of people's ignorance and fears. Fry's Electronics makes a ton of money when people go to Fry's Electronics instead of looking for BETTER deals elsewhere like THE INTERNET!
10. My latest visit to Fry's Electronics - My last visit to Frys Electronics was hell in the form of a simple routine cpu and motherboard purchase to upgrade an older computer. The motherboard was DOA and I went to get it replaced at fry's. I waited 40 minutes in line to get to the return desk only to have them send me to the hardware aisle to get a new quote printed up. The new quote was printed up and I was told to go back to the return desk. I went back to the return desk and from here I was sent to the checkout line to PAY for my replacement item. This was totally weird but I figured the papers in my hand would resolve an even exchange. Turns out the motherboard was bought on a discount and I was now supposed to pay the difference between the discount price and current price. I argued at the counter and was sent back to returns after arguing with 3 cashiers and explaining to them that it was UNFAIR to have to pay a difference on a DOA part that was returned only ONE DAY LATER. Returns department couldn't help me because the person that handled me previously was gone and only she could UN-DO my paperwork and print me new paperwork for an even exchange. I'll try not to forget the fact that the manager yelled at me for not just asking for even exchange in the first place - I DID! Anyway, the employee never came back and the supervisor that told me to wait for her just went ahead and UN-did my paperwork despite that he said he couldn't do it earlier. Again, I was sent to the hardware department to have more paperwork printed to reflect the discounted price. This time, I wait an hour in line with numerous other customers that had been waiting 20-45 minutes before me for service. Everybody was mad as hell and I had no choice but to take a number. I finally get to a manager and he says he can't print me a quote for the discounted price and I had no choice but to go back to the return desk. I did but again they said I had to go back to the hardware department and tell them "Anthony says it's ok". I complained that I had already done that and finally, the 2 departments spoke to each other and handled my paperwork for me. It took me about 4 hours to return the motherboard. NOT WORTH MY TIME!
My final message to Frys Electronics: Frys, you are a piece of crap. You better wake up and change now. This is the 21st century and you don't shape up, your company will go out of business sooner than you think. Years of marketing have already proven that customers do not always purchase entirely on price. There are very many people that will pay a couple extra dollars for service and honesty and the moment somebody steps up, you will disappear. This is the internet age and more and more people are migrating to online shopping for better deals and better service. And if you still refuse to change, we'll just sue you into bankruptcy...or at least annoy you with tons of phone calls and make your bad business practices more popular than you want them to be. Damn, I wish I had more power.
Here are more great external links to aid your quest in getting rid of Fry's Electronics:
Customer Complaints Pages:
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Fry_s_Electronics_Outpost
http://frys.sthomas.net/index.php?page=/contactfrys.php
http://www.doofus.org/frys/other2.html
http://www.accesscom.com/~dave6592/frys.html
http://www.careerramblings.com/2007/02/23/frys-electronics-the-worst-customer-service/
http://www.geocities.com/tarahertz/frys-sucks.html
http://www.daniel.fishman.org/frys.html
http://www.yelp.com/biz/eK6_eaiswbJfyzD5Ii9sOA
http://blogs.msdn.com/ericlippert/commentrss.aspx?PostID=107379
http://archive.salon.com/21st/feature/1998/05/cov_21feature.html
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=49560
http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/fraudreports/topic4086.html
http://www.complaints.com/directory/2004/may/2/15.htm
http://local.yahoo.com/readreviews?id=20822598
http://local.yahoo.com/readreviews?id=21330103
http://search.cityguide.aol.com/losangeles/entertainment/frys-electronics/v-100342145/reviews
http://losangeles.citysearch.com/review/315801
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fry's+Electronics
http://blogs.msdn.com/ericlippert/archive/2004/04/04/107379.aspx
http://www.lightconsulting.com/~thalakan/frys-notes.html
Read up on Fry's Electronics at RipOffREPORT!
http://www.pizzazzmagazine.com/complaints-frys-electronics-complaints.html
The customer is always right? Not at Fry's!
http://www.rateitall.com/i-27925-frys.aspx?&orderBy=1&pagesize=all
http://blog.hypercubed.com/archives/2006/11/15/frys-quality-service/#comment-40858
My five rot in hell companies
http://www.nonfamous.com/blog/archives/000281.html
http://kotaku.com/gaming/ps3/rumor-frys-forcing-mega-ps3wii-bundles-in-store-214459.php
http://www.complaints.com/september2002/complaintoftheday.september8.8.htm
Alternative Places to Shop -
Newegg.com - EXCELLENT prices (their everyday price usually beat Fry's prices even on sale days!), items shipped fast and cheaply, great deals, very helpful reviews and easy-to-use website and search engine.
Mwave.com - Just like newegg except they have the local pickup option which is great if you are within driving range of their City of Industry location and want your items right away!
Costco - Most people have a membership here and still don't know that Costco stocks many items at a lower price than Fry's Electronics.
Circuit City - You won't find much better service here but they have a great no-hassle return policy as of the moment.
HOORAY! A list of Phone Extensions that work for most Fry's Electronic Stores!
Here is a short list of phone extensions that may be used at ANY Fry's store. Replace the last two digits of the store's primary phone number with the extension listed below. The operators will not transfer calls to the floor, but you can bypass them. (This information was found from the link above)
00 - Operator
10 - Components Manager
11 - Components Supervisor
12 - Components Sales
20 - Computers Manager
21 - Computers Supervisor
22 - Computers Sales
30 - Software Manager
31 - Software Supervisor
32 - Software Sales
37 - Audit
38 - PIC (Person in Charge)
40 - Service Manager
41 - Service Supervisor
42 - Service Technicians
50 - Audio, Video, Telecom, Appliances Manager
51 - Audio, Video, Telecom, Appliances Supervisor
52 - Audio, Video, Telecom, Appliances Sales
55 - Loss Prevention (Security)
58 - Ast. Store Manager Direct Line
59 - Store Manager Direct Line
60 - Customer Service Manager
61 - Customer Service Supervisor
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