The story continued, and not in totally expected way.

Acting on a hunch on Sunday, December 24th I went to check CompUSA web site and - voila - found same Sony N130G laptop for same $999.95 with $200 rebate as I did in BestBuy before. It still looked like a pretty sweet deal, plus when I called the store on Columbus Circle (57th and 7th) the store manager confirmed three units in stock. With BestBuy’s statement that their laptop deal was “sold out throughout the US” I remained suspicios, but decided to check the store anyway. Hour and fifteen minutes later I was talking to sales rep, who confirmed 3 units in stock, however they were in “warehouse in NJ”. I took the bait and purchased two laptops with firm promise that CompUSA will call me next Tuesday as soon as laptops appear in store for pickup.

Obviously they didn’t call. On Wednesday store manager gave me some corporate sales rep who, obviously had no idea what was going on (neither did I), but who at least tried to be of help. With his and some other sales rep help we established that laptops will definitely be in on Friday.

Alright, Friday comes, I call CompUSA - the store manager immediately tells me they don’t have laptops in stock. Begs to wait for next Tuesday (aka January 2nd), since the store expects large shipment that day. At the moment of weakness I agree to wait, but when I hung up the phone I reconsidered. After all - they took the money the moment they swiped the card, but kept telling me to call later for laptops - guess some bonuses were on the line. Two hours later I went to the store and lined up for Returns and Exchanges. Told the customer service rep that I would like to return two laptops. She asked if they are open. I replied that I’d like to know myself, since I never got them in the first place. Another rep takes my paperwork and disappears for ten minutes. Upon return he asks me if a discount would help me wait until next week. I tell him that receiving the laptops would help much better. He says that it’s holiday week and they’re oversold and stuff… I tell him it’s a holiday week and laptops were intended to be gifts and not only CompUSA screwed me on Christmas, they are trying to pull same trick on New Years, so there’s no question whether I would wait - ofcourse not. He (very upset) while angrily running to the cashier to process the return asks if there’s anything he can do. I respond with a memory of N160G laptop, sold for same price, only without posted rebate. The guy rejuvenated, he just started glowing - he immediately agrees to produce two N160Gs instead of N130Gs, gives me additional $100 discount ($50 per machine) plus discloses that there is, in fact, $200 rebate on N160G too. Fast forward 40 minutes of waiting in line for a single cashier (you would expect a store virtually in the middle of the world to have more then one customer service rep, but…) - I leave with two next-model laptops for a hundred dollars less then expected originally and only $50 per laptop more, then missed deal.

Popularity: 14%

Last week I just happened to be shopping. You know, we all do it from time to time, especially around Christmas. This time I was shopping at BestBuy for very good deal on Sony N130G laptop ($699 after rebate) and Wi-Fi range expander, from Linksys (seems like no other company producing anything like this). First, I bought the range expander that didn’t work because folks at Linksys still unaware of the fact that HTTP is a stateless protocol. Fortunately, BestBuy has this generous 14 days return policy. Unfortunately I went to the 5th Ave & 44th Street store to return the device and was truly amazed at the quality of the customer service… or the lack thereof.

When I got in and went in line for customer service department the store was literally full. However, only two reps were in customer service. One of them was stuck for a long time with a couple from New Jersey trying to get a refund on city tax. Another was looking around for customers. I am not a small person and I don’t regularly wear invisibility cloak, so I assume I was quite visible at the moment. However, the customer service lady decided that there is no one else to help and proceeded about her own business. She also served couple of more people who were picking up something - no line, no wait. I was still stalled behind the tax-refund couple, who pulled three other people from customer service. However, the second customer service lady was still quite relaxingly chatting with some other people. Waited some more. The couple was still trying to get their tax break. Customer service lady was still glancing at me and did nothing. Finally, after another 5 minutes of the stalemate, she proceeded to take my return. In fact, I was thinking of getting a replacement, but that “busy” lady discouraged me from getting anything.

Two days later with hope that on a last day of sale the laptops will appear I drove to that same BestBuy on 5th and 44th early Saturday morning. Ofcourse, there were no laptops on sale, however, I picked up a pre-N Belkin ExpressCard adapter for a friend who owns a Dell laptop that only takes ExpressCards. So I figured it would be a good Christmas gift. Ventured to the cashier, only to find out that the whole stack of packages had a wrong price on it, with the actual price being ten dollars higher. Being fed up with the store already I asked the cashier to make sure he rings it through for the price of the tag. He politely refused and asked me if I can show him the tag. Since I saw no problem with that, I went downstairs to the lower level and brought him a tag. Turned out the tag was for a different type of merchandise, however, it wasn’t my problem that the tag was attached to this specific kind of card. Ten minutes later, I was still surrounded by three other cashiers who offered various kinds of suggestions. Finally, some smart girl dialed the manager who resolved this matter in less then a minute to my full satisfaction. Outcome - $10 savings, 20 minutes lost. Morale to the story - never ever go to BestBuy at 5th and 44th. Deals are no better then anywhere else, but overall customer service is worse then in Russia.

Popularity: 13%

A new, just discovered, at least by myself, tool for blogging - Perfomancing plugin for Firefox. Essentially breaks the page in half, bottom used for editing (typing this blabber) while top part is regular browsing. Very convenient if you want to brag about the web page or such.

Will keep working on this one. So far it was able to successfully recognize WordPress, Blogger and LiveJournal blogs. Will post more as I create more elaborate blogs

UPD: Apparently the tool prides on adding a link back to plugin page. It’s okay for once, but making my blog infested with links to some other web site is a thing I am exactly trying to avoid by moderating comments…

As one sport commentator back in days of Soviet Union said, while watching mayhem during USSR-USA fight on ice: “We don’t need this kind of hockey”.

UPD2: My bad, found the option to turn the link placement off. But still…

Popularity: 22%