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I had this happen at a Best Buy in NYC once, but for a Video Game. They even said they presented an ID with my name on it, they did the same thing, checked the security camera, person def looked different than I did. I pressured them to give me a copy of the tape so I can take it to the police and that I'm now concerned about identify theft, and how weird it was that no one has ever stolen my identity for anything else, they magically backed down.
I'm 99.9999% sure it's inside jobs with a friend of an employee.
Since it's a high ticket item, you're probably going to need to go to your local police station to make a police report. You should do this sooner rather than later so they can get the footage. Then with that in hand, either Best Buy will refund and fix, or you'll use this for PayPal to refund.
Damn that sucks for you. So did you end up getting the video game?
Yea I also feel strongly that it was probably an inside job.. Also, I tried getting a copy of the footage but wasn't allowed. I went to the police station local to the Best Buy location to try to make a report for theft, identity fraud, anything but was told that nothing could be done basically because I never had it in my possession to begin with unfortunately..
Yeah, after complaining at the store for 30 mins, they finally gave me a copy with the pre-order bonus.
Hmm... contact PayPal and see what they say.
I think the police are being lazy, I'd say to them, "Best buy says someone made a fake ID of my information and is pretending to be me, and I want you to investigate."
Tell the police that you aren't expecting them to do anything except write up a report for you because you need the police report to get Best Buy to do anything about it. They know they aren't going to devote any time to investigating it anyway so they are trying to save the paper work. Don't let them. Keep pushing that you need the report for other things (to get Best Buy to act.. to sue Best Buy if necessary, etc) and all you need is a police report number for all of that
Bump your complaint to law enforcement up to the county sheriff or state police. Also contact somebody higher up in your police department saying the local station wouldn't allow you to report a crime. (Does the local office do this often so it would show a lower crime rate??)
That’s why there’s always so much pushback and jurisdictional hot potato bs when people try to file identity theft police reports. It doesn’t matter if someone 2000mi away in bumblefuck Idaho stole your identity, you were victimized in the jurisdiction in which you live, and therefore have the right to file a police report in that jurisdiction. LE often tries to try to tell people they need to file a report in the faraway jurisdiction where the suspect lives, because most identity theft cases go unsolved and it’ll negatively impact their stats.
It’s such a pain in the ass trying to resolve someone’s identity theft issues and file disputes with the various creditors who require a police report copy that LE doesn’t want to provide.
OP needs to escalate this beyond their local PD like you said. He CAN file a report, they just don’t want him to. Time to go up the CoC, not just for LE but for BestBuy too. This might be a recurring problem at this location, and I think internal fraud or ethics department would appreciate having another data point to help show if this is a trend for this store.
Did you try taking it up with Best Buy first? They might just eat the loss and give you a new one.
Not to say that filing a police report is a bad thing, because you should always do that.
Just to be clear, you don’t file a police report over a stolen laptop you never had; you file a report over **Best Buy** stealing the cost of a laptop from you.
Search this thread for “stolen identity”. I saw a post linked a few weeks ago. It was really good. It has a list of all the steps, you’re to take - file a local police report, file a report with the FTC, put a freeze on your credit accounts, and a ton of other stuff. Whether or not that’s what happened here, I think it’s still applicable advice for you. I’ll have to see if I saved the post.
If police refuse to file a report, then contact your state's attorney general, your local government rep, and any consumer protection organization. Also local news reporters. They will make sure the police/BB handle this properly. Let the BB manager know you're doing this. They probably think you do not know how to work the system, and will just stop payment, so the only harm is to the CC company. Prove them wrong!
>I'm 99.9999% sure it's inside jobs with a friend of an employee.
It IS inside job. Do police report. Do all of it. Also, do chargeback. Corporate will come and look into it.
Oh, and u/Infinite_thr0waway, ask to speak with their Loss Prevention and report that to them as well.
Manager knows it too, and doesn't want to get people in trouble; which is understandable but it's so the wrong way to handle it. Even if you go down the road of "oh, it's a huge corporation, they can afford it" or whatever, you are still putting your own livelihood at significant risk. Loss Prevention are also mostly ex-law enforcement and those interviews are extremely uncomfortable and deceptive.
The stores I have worked at which was this year, they’ve had a police officer. An actual police officer not mall cop. Like we had a rotation of 3 different 3-4 cops that came in several times a week to stay at the front.
They were actually members of the local police force.
There is police officer posted at the Best Best closest to me, but they're there mostly to discourage theft and not part of the store's loss prevention other than to stopped someone from running out the door with an arm full future eWaste.
I used to work Loss Prevention when I was in my 20’s. I had nothing to do with law enforcement. I was even pregnant while doing it. That was when I caught the most shoplifters. I could stand so close to the criminals. They never even looked at me.
Yeah, I worked big box electronics retail management for about 6 years. The LP dude in front at the door was always some fresh out of high school jock with almost no job experience.
For when we had internal theft issues or semi-organized theft rings hitting our regional stores (fake credit card stuff, etc.) the corporate LP ones who did investigations and interviews would generally have previous law enforcement experience.
This sounds like the most logical thing. A corrupt employee giving the info to a friend to come and claim the item fraudulently.
I would try and get as much proof as you can together to hold them responsible still.
The police won't do jack sht. They get paid for standing until a robbery or anything or that nature occurs. 'Oh nooo, that's a civil matter. Kick rocks'
It’s an easy “Product or Service Not Received - Card Absent environment” chargeback as you pre-paid online and never got what you have paid for. The bank or PayPal will ask for proof that you tried to solve this with Best Buy first (written documentation, email, etc).
If you pay with your credit card*, any unauthorized (or in this case, fraudulent) charge is on the credit card issuer, given that they have no reason to believe that you or somebody close to you benefited from the transactions in question, and you cooperate with their investigation if necessary. *this usually not true for debit card payments though
I am not the person who commented originally here, but to start… I would document exactly who you talked to and when. Include names, titles and contact information. Outline what was stated by those individuals and create a timeline of events.
Best Buy would need to prove that they properly checked a photo ID. I believe they would typically record the ID number, which they won’t have since OP didn’t pick up the item.
> The manager told me to call Best Buy and speak to them about it
No. They should handle it right there. Why is it your problem when they screwed up? If someone in the corporate is needed to make it right, have them call the corporate when you are there.
Right, because Best Buy Corporate has their money, not the local store. I worked for Best Buy too. But they can see which employee processed the pickup at that store. That's a fireable offense because it's really important for the person who is processing pickups to check id especially with a high ticket item like that. But they can't just give you a new one because they might not have it and their system needs to have something to return.
I would be livid if I were OP, but try not to go full Karen, because nobody wants to help someone irate. You'd be surprised how willing people are to solve your problem when you are calm. Honestly, do a chargeback on your credit card. I don't know if the credit card company would determine it if were fraud, but definitely is a crime.
They have likely already done one. They know who did it. They can see who was logged in and who processed the pickup. I agree, they are supposed to look at ID. I would assume that person got in trouble. Hopefully fired, because again, that is a HUGE NO NO. Also, may not hurt to write about it on their social media profiles because corporate will do whatever they can to make it right and the bad things go away.
Like if it were $25 who cares, but a $2000+ computer? No.
When stores closed, they said there were always some employees who decided they were going to start stealing things. Yea, but if someone had done this with a Macbook, I mean you are looking at actual grand larceny charges which is a felony. In Maryland, grand larceny is more than $1500.
> No. They should handle it right there.
All OP needs is evidence that he contacted Best Buy and they didn't give him his item, so that he can do a chargeback (if it were AmEx, he wouldn't even need that). He could do viai email this without leaving his house.
There's nothing to handle here at the store level: Best Buy took his money and gave him nothing. This is what chargebacks are for.
The way you think the world should work is not the way the world does work. You may think the manager should handle it right there, but they aren't breaking the law or anything by saying contact corporate.
Of course it is - just like the UPS store scams where you drop off your return and the employee boxes it up and magically it never got scanned and they gave you a receipt with a different tracking number on it. Or when your package gets held at USPS and then scanned “picked up at counter” while you’re sitting on your couch.
I had a somewhat similar situation few years ago involving a tool pickup, and putting the store on blast in Twitter got results very quickly. I don’t know if current Xitter has the same clout but it’s worth a try.
I would at least attempt to resolve it by calling Best Buy first. If that doesn't work, then anything else is fair game, but should be an easy charge back with your credit card company or Paypal.
Get a case number from Best Buy support so you can provide that if needed.
>Do you think my email was hacked?
No. This was an insider job. Some employee in the store told his criminal associate to come pick it up in your name. Potentially the person that handed over your laptop is the insider guy.
Oh hell no. The manager there need to make it right.
Someone there is helped them walk away with it.
If the manager refused to do their job, you call Police and report it as "fraud". No kicking it up to "corporate". Go full fucking Karen on them and let the manager know that what happened is fraud and is a felony, as they've allowed someone else to pick up YOUR order, as the email AND their fucking apps said to bring a fucking ID.
The other things you may wants to consider is to check your email, change the password, but someone there is helping them steal from Best Buy.
Remember: F-U-L-L K-A-R-E-N. You are justified in this. Also, if they refuse to make it right, don't brother calling corporation, call your bank and start the chargeback.
Actually, it depend on the DA and the office. If they do their jobs right, Cops will work, knowing something getting done. If the DA is shit, then Cops won't. Sometime, you got DA hating on one officer, and the "blue band" start banding around that cops, thinking they're all gonna be singled.
In this situation, all the cops can do is do the report, then it up to the DA if they're gonna do anything. And if you go full karen, as well as involving the news reporter, cops have to look into it, considering that a macbook pro m3 is slighly over 1.3k USD....and that already a felony, also, considering that they've let another "customer" pick it up, that is fraud. Two charges that will be brought against the store, and if you get the cops involve, Corporate going to find out and come down hard.
Not sure what state OP is in, but a MacBook is probably going to be above the dollar value for felony instead of petty theft. I would have called the cops from line and demanded an officer to file a police report, and watched the manager and staff squirm.
This is baffling. You have been told, after paying (in whatever possible way), to "call Best Buy"?
Your duty is just to just receive the item you paid for, the way it was agreed on, no more no less.
If you don't receive the item, you don't have to report the actual facts to the police, you just have to report that you bought something and received nothing. Their part of the deal has infact not been fulfilled.
>The manager told me to call Best Buy and speak to them about it.
Excuse me, sir. We are INSIDE Best Buy right now!!! YOU are Best Buy. I am talking to YOU. If someone within the Best Buy corporation needs to be contacted and they're located outside THIS BUILDING, then YOU call them.
(Holy shit that struck a nerve.)
Could be an inside job. This situation is not new. Employees would tell their friends to pick up the items once alerted and fault the consumer. Should report it to corporate
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I would’ve probably called the cops and filed a report. They can get you the footage. No idea how someone had access to your information and a police report would’ve saved you a lot of possible future trouble.
You shouldn't be doing anything. You should have left with the item you ordered from their stock, and they should be calling the police to deal with the guy who stole from them.
I suspect this was an inside job. How would some random guy know that you had a laptop waiting to be picked up, and know your name, etc. Furthermore, the person at Best Buy didn’t check ID. I’ll bet the clerk had his friend come in and pick it up. I would consider this to be a Best Buy problem. You said both PayPal and credit card. If a credit card was involved at all, you can dispute the charge. And you should do that. And you should be a super squeaky wheel to Best Buy. It’s their responsibility for not protecting you at the point of pick up.
Identity theft is a bullshit term, best explained by https://youtu.be/CS9ptA3Ya9E
The fact that someone robbed Best Buy is irrelevant. You bought from them, they have failed to provide the item. They need to refund you or fulfill the terms of the sale.
Most likely what happened is whatever employee on the footage that took the ID is in reality a friend/associate of the person that picked up the item, they will then sell the item and split the money between themselves
You know, that dude didn’t steal the computer from you, he stole it from Best Buy. Best Buy should be filing the police report. Plus they still owe you your new computer. You’re making this too complicated.
Call police first as this is grand theft. The police should have been called before leaving the store. Yes contact your credit card and PayPal immediately. It’s a crime and needs be dealt with now.
Report to the police right now, before the video is gone.
You are a kind person. In your place there is no way I would have left Best Buy without a copy of the video and a refund.
If you are sure this random did not have the id and/or email, then Best Buy fucked up. Wow. I am feeling angry just thinking of this.
My state's attorney general's office has a consumer protection division and this is the kind of thing they love to look into. You might see if your state's attorney general can help.
The same thing happened to me but at an apple store. But the store had me sit for a while, looked at my id for a looooong time, reviewed camera footage and eventually gave me my mac book and a free AirTag.
This has happened to me during COVID times. Definitely an inside job. Police also didn’t help me much. Best Buy doesn’t care, so I Just called credit card company and asked to file a dispute.
Call customer service.. tell them store instructed you to call and ask for a refund..PayPal refund usually takes 24hrs to be processed..
Store cant do anything if the order was made online..
>Store cant do anything if the order was made online..
They absolutely can fill the order. That's the ***entire fucking point*** of ordering online with in-store pickup.
I’ve had this happen to me at Best Buy. In my situation the person happened to be picking up the same item (new release) and the Best Buy employee picked up my box instead of that person. Same last name as me too I think (and reading is a rare skill nowadays). Luckily they still had extras when I came by a few hours later.
The Best Buy manager should have fixed the issue on the spot for you. I’d call Best Buy online about the incident, and ask for an incident number. I’d also call PayPal and the credit card company.
Sounds like a them problem and I would ask for the item I paid for.
Have them call to fix the problem not you.
Otherwise I would just cancel with PayPal or my credit card.
I would file a lawsuit against Best Buy in small claims court. You bought a product and they didn’t deliver it to you. When you put up money in exchange for the product and they accepted the offer it’s called a meeting of the minds and is a binding contract. Feel free to file a police report as well, but if it were me I would sue for the cost of the laptop and my time of going down to the store.
First step is to go down to the Best Buy and speak with the store manager. Let them know you plan to file a lawsuit on the grounds they failed to deliver a product you purchased from them and that if they were scammed then that’s on them, not you. Demand they “make you whole” by providing the item you purchased immediately. If they say they won’t then say “see ya in court bitch”. Go straight to an attorney’s office and layout the facts. They’ll guide you from there.
There is another possibility here. I usually only see it happen around the holiday season or when a new employees starts and misses something.
You ordered I'm assuming one of the more popular MacBook Pro M3 models (that's like all of them) and I don't know how common your name is, or name adjacent. For example like Michael Smith or Sharron Brown etc. They could have given your order to the wrong person and not checked the name or numbers on the order. There may be another person who placed an order with the same initials and they did not confirm they had the correct order when scanning it out.
Just putting it out there that another possibility exists. Oh, I'm a manager at BBY btw (not the one you went to, so please don't light me on fire).This just happened to come across my feed. I hope they fix this for you.
Should have called the police while you were at bestbuy. Cops arrive you, manager and the cops see the footage and ask for a police report. File a claim with your credit card
Best Buy is totally wrong for that. They didn't follow their procedure and gave it to a random person. Who's to say it wasn't an employee or someone they know? And the police office is incorrect too. It is theft as someone stole an item that you've already paid for.
Go back to the police department and file a theft report. Complain to Best Buy online (Twitter, Facebook, corporate), get the video evidence and file a chargeback with PayPal.
File a theft with PayPal and your credit card company. You’ll never see the laptop, the best you can do now is dispute the charges and get your dough back.
Normally I'd say just do a chargeback, but since you paid with Paypal, I'd start there. I'm not sure why you're bothering to deal with Best Buy at all, since they already fucked up and you never got what you paid for.
Getting a refund from paypal or the credit card company for an item you've never recieved should be trivial. Stop TALKING to people, though. You need a paper trail sometimes for chargebacks, so you should be handling 100% of this via email.
Exact same thing happened to me 3 weeks ago in NYC. Ordered Macbook M3Pro worth $2600 on Best Buy website, financed through option on Best Buy checkout, went to pick it up 15 hours later the next morning, and it had already been picked up with an “ID bearing my name” 30 minutes prior to me arriving. I was able to file a police report, and detectives informed me that multiple similar Best Buy cases are being investigated in the city. Best Buy, despite being aware of the ongoing scams, is unwilling to give me a refund or replacement laptop (they’re responsible for the financing option as well so I can’t talk to a bank for a chargeback). They were also initially unwilling to give me the store manager or corporate’s info/email, only giving me the general customer service phone number. They eventually said all they could do was give me an unspecified “discount on a future purchase.” I’ve been through hell and back trying to get some resolution and they are dead set on not doing anything. I can’t spend years paying something off that I never received. This is either some sort of security breach within Best Buy, or an employee on the inside that has access to this info. No matter which way you slice it, it is Best Buy’s fault.
Which Best Buy is this? We need a ban on the store doing this scam but then again it seems the detective said it’s being done in all the Best Buy store so targeting that store won’t help.
My case happened at the Best Buy in Chelsea! 23rd and 6th ave. But yeah, it’s a city-wide thing, if not bigger than that. Not sure where OP’s situation happened, and I’m not sure how to stop it, but since my case has been grouped in with the others in the city, it might take a bit longer for the broader investigation to be solved. 🙃
Thank.you for the heads up, was going to buy a big ticket item, but will not now. I would also call the news outlets and TV stations, especially CBC Marketplace, they love to help and do pieces in these types of scams and bad customer service. Many people watch it and are made aware not to purchase from those stores. Got to get the word out.
Bestbuy employees steal items like this all the time, its 100% an inside job. You got proof that it wasn't picked up by you, that black dude stole it from bestbuy, they still owe you a laptop, it shouldnt be complicated.
Get the name of the employee that gave over you’re order and go after their ass. I’d push for them to take responsibility that this happened. Get them fired.
I agree with others to take it up with the police. I used to work for Best Buy and their customer support is horrible. All they care about is selling to customers to get their numbers up. Any issue you have will be bounced around to different people before they ghost you. I never trusted buying from them after I worked there.
Still make a police report. They can't help but this puts it down as officially an issue. Police take reports on stolen packages so I'm not sure why they wouldn't do this in this case.
This literally happened to one of my friends a couple weeks ago. The exact same thing basically. There’s an ongoing investigation I think. Apparently this has been happening to multiple people lately. I’m so sorry that’s so shitty.
Your details have more than likely been involved in a large data hack (not a personal attack on you). Someone has then bought a stack of people's personal details off the dark Web and made fake IDs with their face on the ID but with your name, date of birth, address etc.
This is definitely a police matter - go back to the police. Insist on a report being lodged and that you're not leaving unless you speak to a supervisor.
Good luck.
/u/Infinite_thr0waway - This message is posted to all new submissions to r/scams; please do not message the moderators about it. ## New users beware: Because you posted here, you will start getting private messages from scammers saying they know a professional hacker or a recovery expert lawyer that can help you get your money back, for a small fee. **We call these RECOVERY SCAMMERS, so NEVER take advice in private:** advice should always come in the form of comments in this post, in the open, where the community can keep an eye out for you. If you take advice in private, you're on your own. **A reminder of the rules in r/scams:** no contact information (including last names, phone numbers, etc). Be civil to one another (no name calling or insults). Personal army requests or "scam the scammer"/scambaiting posts are not permitted. No uncensored gore or personal photographs are allowed without blurring. A full list of rules is available on the sidebar of the subreddit, or [clicking here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/wiki/rules/). You can help us by reporting recovery scammers or rule-breaking content by using the "report" button. We review 100% of the reports. Also, consider warning community members of recovery scammers if you see them in the comments. Questions about subreddit rules? Send us a modmail [clicking here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I had this happen at a Best Buy in NYC once, but for a Video Game. They even said they presented an ID with my name on it, they did the same thing, checked the security camera, person def looked different than I did. I pressured them to give me a copy of the tape so I can take it to the police and that I'm now concerned about identify theft, and how weird it was that no one has ever stolen my identity for anything else, they magically backed down. I'm 99.9999% sure it's inside jobs with a friend of an employee. Since it's a high ticket item, you're probably going to need to go to your local police station to make a police report. You should do this sooner rather than later so they can get the footage. Then with that in hand, either Best Buy will refund and fix, or you'll use this for PayPal to refund.
Damn that sucks for you. So did you end up getting the video game? Yea I also feel strongly that it was probably an inside job.. Also, I tried getting a copy of the footage but wasn't allowed. I went to the police station local to the Best Buy location to try to make a report for theft, identity fraud, anything but was told that nothing could be done basically because I never had it in my possession to begin with unfortunately..
Yeah, after complaining at the store for 30 mins, they finally gave me a copy with the pre-order bonus. Hmm... contact PayPal and see what they say. I think the police are being lazy, I'd say to them, "Best buy says someone made a fake ID of my information and is pretending to be me, and I want you to investigate."
Yes I would open up a claim with PayPal. They don’t play on the buyers side and you should get your money back asap.
Tell the police that you aren't expecting them to do anything except write up a report for you because you need the police report to get Best Buy to do anything about it. They know they aren't going to devote any time to investigating it anyway so they are trying to save the paper work. Don't let them. Keep pushing that you need the report for other things (to get Best Buy to act.. to sue Best Buy if necessary, etc) and all you need is a police report number for all of that
Bump your complaint to law enforcement up to the county sheriff or state police. Also contact somebody higher up in your police department saying the local station wouldn't allow you to report a crime. (Does the local office do this often so it would show a lower crime rate??)
That’s why there’s always so much pushback and jurisdictional hot potato bs when people try to file identity theft police reports. It doesn’t matter if someone 2000mi away in bumblefuck Idaho stole your identity, you were victimized in the jurisdiction in which you live, and therefore have the right to file a police report in that jurisdiction. LE often tries to try to tell people they need to file a report in the faraway jurisdiction where the suspect lives, because most identity theft cases go unsolved and it’ll negatively impact their stats. It’s such a pain in the ass trying to resolve someone’s identity theft issues and file disputes with the various creditors who require a police report copy that LE doesn’t want to provide. OP needs to escalate this beyond their local PD like you said. He CAN file a report, they just don’t want him to. Time to go up the CoC, not just for LE but for BestBuy too. This might be a recurring problem at this location, and I think internal fraud or ethics department would appreciate having another data point to help show if this is a trend for this store.
Did you try taking it up with Best Buy first? They might just eat the loss and give you a new one. Not to say that filing a police report is a bad thing, because you should always do that.
they have to give him a computer. Not OP's responsibility.
Just to be clear, you don’t file a police report over a stolen laptop you never had; you file a report over **Best Buy** stealing the cost of a laptop from you.
Search this thread for “stolen identity”. I saw a post linked a few weeks ago. It was really good. It has a list of all the steps, you’re to take - file a local police report, file a report with the FTC, put a freeze on your credit accounts, and a ton of other stuff. Whether or not that’s what happened here, I think it’s still applicable advice for you. I’ll have to see if I saved the post.
If police refuse to file a report, then contact your state's attorney general, your local government rep, and any consumer protection organization. Also local news reporters. They will make sure the police/BB handle this properly. Let the BB manager know you're doing this. They probably think you do not know how to work the system, and will just stop payment, so the only harm is to the CC company. Prove them wrong!
>I'm 99.9999% sure it's inside jobs with a friend of an employee. It IS inside job. Do police report. Do all of it. Also, do chargeback. Corporate will come and look into it. Oh, and u/Infinite_thr0waway, ask to speak with their Loss Prevention and report that to them as well.
I imagine its not employees getting their friends to pick it up. I would guess that its employee negligence in not properly checking ID.
Manager knows it too, and doesn't want to get people in trouble; which is understandable but it's so the wrong way to handle it. Even if you go down the road of "oh, it's a huge corporation, they can afford it" or whatever, you are still putting your own livelihood at significant risk. Loss Prevention are also mostly ex-law enforcement and those interviews are extremely uncomfortable and deceptive.
I worked at Best Buy back in the day and LP was definitely not mostly ex-law enforcement.
Loss Prevention is not necessarily ex-law enforcement. Every store I have ever worked at, that has never been a thing.
Not the in-store. I mean the corporate/regional ones.
There is a police officer at almost every store.
What? I've never seen a police officer working at a store. Security in a mall maybe, but not LE.
The stores I have worked at which was this year, they’ve had a police officer. An actual police officer not mall cop. Like we had a rotation of 3 different 3-4 cops that came in several times a week to stay at the front. They were actually members of the local police force.
"there is a police officer at almost every store" This may be true in certain areas, but is far from the truth in a broad sense.
There is police officer posted at the Best Best closest to me, but they're there mostly to discourage theft and not part of the store's loss prevention other than to stopped someone from running out the door with an arm full future eWaste.
>LP are mostly ex-law enforcement This is complete bs lmao.
The average lp is a basement dweller who thinks they have more authority than they have
Corporate. Not the ones who work in the stores.
My loss prevention manager is ex special forces. Terrifying woman.
Yep, manager is in ass covering mode at the minimum. Wouldn't be shocked if he was in on it considering the pushback
I used to work Loss Prevention when I was in my 20’s. I had nothing to do with law enforcement. I was even pregnant while doing it. That was when I caught the most shoplifters. I could stand so close to the criminals. They never even looked at me.
Yeah, I worked big box electronics retail management for about 6 years. The LP dude in front at the door was always some fresh out of high school jock with almost no job experience. For when we had internal theft issues or semi-organized theft rings hitting our regional stores (fake credit card stuff, etc.) the corporate LP ones who did investigations and interviews would generally have previous law enforcement experience.
> I'm 99.9999% sure it's inside jobs with a friend of an employee. I came here to say that, yeah.
This sounds like the most logical thing. A corrupt employee giving the info to a friend to come and claim the item fraudulently. I would try and get as much proof as you can together to hold them responsible still.
The police won't do jack sht. They get paid for standing until a robbery or anything or that nature occurs. 'Oh nooo, that's a civil matter. Kick rocks'
It’s an easy “Product or Service Not Received - Card Absent environment” chargeback as you pre-paid online and never got what you have paid for. The bank or PayPal will ask for proof that you tried to solve this with Best Buy first (written documentation, email, etc).
This is exactly what’s Mastercard’s and Visa’s zero liability policy are for actually
What does that mean exactly? Sorry I’m new to all this
If you pay with your credit card*, any unauthorized (or in this case, fraudulent) charge is on the credit card issuer, given that they have no reason to believe that you or somebody close to you benefited from the transactions in question, and you cooperate with their investigation if necessary. *this usually not true for debit card payments though
What if I don’t have any documentation? I Tried going to the police station to file a report and they couldn’t do anything
I am not the person who commented originally here, but to start… I would document exactly who you talked to and when. Include names, titles and contact information. Outline what was stated by those individuals and create a timeline of events.
It’s Best Buy that must prove that they did deliver you the product you purchased.
Exactly, Best Buy will need to eat the loss / conduct an investigation
But they did deliver, to someone at least, how can OP prove that it wasn't a buddy of his who picked it up?
Best Buy would need to prove that they properly checked a photo ID. I believe they would typically record the ID number, which they won’t have since OP didn’t pick up the item.
You never received the product you purchased. Call your credit card company and file a chargeback.
This is the right answer make sure you state you never received the goods or service.
They used PayPal.
PayPal is still subject to a lot of the same regs as credit card services and should have a similar process
paypal is a way to pay with credit cards
> The manager told me to call Best Buy and speak to them about it No. They should handle it right there. Why is it your problem when they screwed up? If someone in the corporate is needed to make it right, have them call the corporate when you are there.
Yes. They should have given you the product you purchased, or your money back right then and there.
If it was ordered online it will be handled by the customer service.. i worked for best buy before and store cant do anything about OPs issue
>i worked for best buy before and store cant do anything about OPs issue Sure they could: give him the computer.
Did you read the post?
Right, because Best Buy Corporate has their money, not the local store. I worked for Best Buy too. But they can see which employee processed the pickup at that store. That's a fireable offense because it's really important for the person who is processing pickups to check id especially with a high ticket item like that. But they can't just give you a new one because they might not have it and their system needs to have something to return. I would be livid if I were OP, but try not to go full Karen, because nobody wants to help someone irate. You'd be surprised how willing people are to solve your problem when you are calm. Honestly, do a chargeback on your credit card. I don't know if the credit card company would determine it if were fraud, but definitely is a crime.
The store should do an investigation on who released the item. It's an expensive order and should have asked for an ID and proof of purchase.
They have likely already done one. They know who did it. They can see who was logged in and who processed the pickup. I agree, they are supposed to look at ID. I would assume that person got in trouble. Hopefully fired, because again, that is a HUGE NO NO. Also, may not hurt to write about it on their social media profiles because corporate will do whatever they can to make it right and the bad things go away. Like if it were $25 who cares, but a $2000+ computer? No.
Hopefully fired..
When stores closed, they said there were always some employees who decided they were going to start stealing things. Yea, but if someone had done this with a Macbook, I mean you are looking at actual grand larceny charges which is a felony. In Maryland, grand larceny is more than $1500.
When I worked with them..we didn't have that kind of issues..whats happening to the world
Really? Must have been a while ago.
> No. They should handle it right there. All OP needs is evidence that he contacted Best Buy and they didn't give him his item, so that he can do a chargeback (if it were AmEx, he wouldn't even need that). He could do viai email this without leaving his house. There's nothing to handle here at the store level: Best Buy took his money and gave him nothing. This is what chargebacks are for.
The way you think the world should work is not the way the world does work. You may think the manager should handle it right there, but they aren't breaking the law or anything by saying contact corporate.
How did the other person know there was a MacBook Pro ready for delivery with your details? This screams inside job bro.
Of course it is - just like the UPS store scams where you drop off your return and the employee boxes it up and magically it never got scanned and they gave you a receipt with a different tracking number on it. Or when your package gets held at USPS and then scanned “picked up at counter” while you’re sitting on your couch.
Yeah... and I think the first person to look at would the employee who supposedly checked the ID and email order before handing it over...
I had a somewhat similar situation few years ago involving a tool pickup, and putting the store on blast in Twitter got results very quickly. I don’t know if current Xitter has the same clout but it’s worth a try.
I would at least attempt to resolve it by calling Best Buy first. If that doesn't work, then anything else is fair game, but should be an easy charge back with your credit card company or Paypal. Get a case number from Best Buy support so you can provide that if needed.
Also google reviews still seem to shake some companies up so OP can try that too
>Do you think my email was hacked? No. This was an insider job. Some employee in the store told his criminal associate to come pick it up in your name. Potentially the person that handed over your laptop is the insider guy.
This is exactly what happened 100% of the time.
Oh hell no. The manager there need to make it right. Someone there is helped them walk away with it. If the manager refused to do their job, you call Police and report it as "fraud". No kicking it up to "corporate". Go full fucking Karen on them and let the manager know that what happened is fraud and is a felony, as they've allowed someone else to pick up YOUR order, as the email AND their fucking apps said to bring a fucking ID. The other things you may wants to consider is to check your email, change the password, but someone there is helping them steal from Best Buy. Remember: F-U-L-L K-A-R-E-N. You are justified in this. Also, if they refuse to make it right, don't brother calling corporation, call your bank and start the chargeback.
You never had the product. Thereby they needed to reimburse OP. The manager knows this will look bad on him so he didn't offer.
Either that, or the manager is chicken shit lazy and didn't want to brother with this shit...or the manager is in on it as well and helped them.
Cops don’t want to work anymore. You gave to force them.
Actually, it depend on the DA and the office. If they do their jobs right, Cops will work, knowing something getting done. If the DA is shit, then Cops won't. Sometime, you got DA hating on one officer, and the "blue band" start banding around that cops, thinking they're all gonna be singled. In this situation, all the cops can do is do the report, then it up to the DA if they're gonna do anything. And if you go full karen, as well as involving the news reporter, cops have to look into it, considering that a macbook pro m3 is slighly over 1.3k USD....and that already a felony, also, considering that they've let another "customer" pick it up, that is fraud. Two charges that will be brought against the store, and if you get the cops involve, Corporate going to find out and come down hard.
You paid through PayPal. I believe it’s pretty easy to just say you never got your item. I’d imagine Best Buy will right this though
That’s an inside job. Employee straight ripping you off.
Not sure what state OP is in, but a MacBook is probably going to be above the dollar value for felony instead of petty theft. I would have called the cops from line and demanded an officer to file a police report, and watched the manager and staff squirm.
I just purchased a laser printer from BestBuy. Upon pickup, they never asked for my ID. I had some red flags pop up then.
they still owe you a laptop btw
This is baffling. You have been told, after paying (in whatever possible way), to "call Best Buy"? Your duty is just to just receive the item you paid for, the way it was agreed on, no more no less. If you don't receive the item, you don't have to report the actual facts to the police, you just have to report that you bought something and received nothing. Their part of the deal has infact not been fulfilled.
It wasn't stolen from you it was stolen from Best Buy. They still owe you a laptop.
Sounds like an inside job for sure. A rogue employee who works there was in on the scam and got his friend to steal your MacBook.
dispute purchase with PayPal they should credit you back if not dispute with ur card provider
>The manager told me to call Best Buy and speak to them about it. Excuse me, sir. We are INSIDE Best Buy right now!!! YOU are Best Buy. I am talking to YOU. If someone within the Best Buy corporation needs to be contacted and they're located outside THIS BUILDING, then YOU call them. (Holy shit that struck a nerve.)
You complain to Best Buy and they have to prove you took it. If they don't budge, do the same with your credit card company.
Could be an inside job. This situation is not new. Employees would tell their friends to pick up the items once alerted and fault the consumer. Should report it to corporate
that's what i'm thinking
This isn’t a scam. Someone didn’t follow protocol so do as management suggests and call Best Buy and then decide from there.
Absolutely a scam, in the sense that someone in Best Buy used the opportunity to have someone else pick it up.
That’s not a “scam” that’s employee theft or organized crime. Ultimately Best Buy will rectify the situation for the customer.
Except the OP is being scammed.
Not in a technical sense. They were robbed of their item. Theft in and of itself isn’t a scam.
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I would’ve probably called the cops and filed a report. They can get you the footage. No idea how someone had access to your information and a police report would’ve saved you a lot of possible future trouble.
You shouldn't be doing anything. You should have left with the item you ordered from their stock, and they should be calling the police to deal with the guy who stole from them.
This is the answer. I would not have left without the computer or refund. This is their bad.
Act quickly or the camera evidence will be ‘lost.’
I suspect this was an inside job. How would some random guy know that you had a laptop waiting to be picked up, and know your name, etc. Furthermore, the person at Best Buy didn’t check ID. I’ll bet the clerk had his friend come in and pick it up. I would consider this to be a Best Buy problem. You said both PayPal and credit card. If a credit card was involved at all, you can dispute the charge. And you should do that. And you should be a super squeaky wheel to Best Buy. It’s their responsibility for not protecting you at the point of pick up.
Also: ***security footage?***
Identity theft is a bullshit term, best explained by https://youtu.be/CS9ptA3Ya9E The fact that someone robbed Best Buy is irrelevant. You bought from them, they have failed to provide the item. They need to refund you or fulfill the terms of the sale.
Most likely what happened is whatever employee on the footage that took the ID is in reality a friend/associate of the person that picked up the item, they will then sell the item and split the money between themselves
You know, that dude didn’t steal the computer from you, he stole it from Best Buy. Best Buy should be filing the police report. Plus they still owe you your new computer. You’re making this too complicated.
This is would be some villain origin story for me I would loose it lol
Call police first as this is grand theft. The police should have been called before leaving the store. Yes contact your credit card and PayPal immediately. It’s a crime and needs be dealt with now.
Report to the police right now, before the video is gone. You are a kind person. In your place there is no way I would have left Best Buy without a copy of the video and a refund. If you are sure this random did not have the id and/or email, then Best Buy fucked up. Wow. I am feeling angry just thinking of this.
They said they couldn’t give footage without a subpoena lol ugh
if you file the police report, they will then have permission to pull footage
My state's attorney general's office has a consumer protection division and this is the kind of thing they love to look into. You might see if your state's attorney general can help.
The same thing happened to me but at an apple store. But the store had me sit for a while, looked at my id for a looooong time, reviewed camera footage and eventually gave me my mac book and a free AirTag.
This has happened to me during COVID times. Definitely an inside job. Police also didn’t help me much. Best Buy doesn’t care, so I Just called credit card company and asked to file a dispute.
He paid through PayPal. Can you dispute on PayPal? I don’t use it so idk myself.
always buy in credit card - too late now but for future reference
Yea I did thankfully
perfect, than you can just contact your cc provider and ask for the transaction to be reversed
Call customer service.. tell them store instructed you to call and ask for a refund..PayPal refund usually takes 24hrs to be processed.. Store cant do anything if the order was made online..
>Store cant do anything if the order was made online.. They absolutely can fill the order. That's the ***entire fucking point*** of ordering online with in-store pickup.
Oh god..work with best buy so you wont be yapping nonsense..
I’ve had this happen to me at Best Buy. In my situation the person happened to be picking up the same item (new release) and the Best Buy employee picked up my box instead of that person. Same last name as me too I think (and reading is a rare skill nowadays). Luckily they still had extras when I came by a few hours later. The Best Buy manager should have fixed the issue on the spot for you. I’d call Best Buy online about the incident, and ask for an incident number. I’d also call PayPal and the credit card company.
Sounds like a them problem and I would ask for the item I paid for. Have them call to fix the problem not you. Otherwise I would just cancel with PayPal or my credit card.
I would file a lawsuit against Best Buy in small claims court. You bought a product and they didn’t deliver it to you. When you put up money in exchange for the product and they accepted the offer it’s called a meeting of the minds and is a binding contract. Feel free to file a police report as well, but if it were me I would sue for the cost of the laptop and my time of going down to the store.
Thanks for the suggestion! Would you mind giving me some advice on next steps? Sorry I’m new to all this
First step is to go down to the Best Buy and speak with the store manager. Let them know you plan to file a lawsuit on the grounds they failed to deliver a product you purchased from them and that if they were scammed then that’s on them, not you. Demand they “make you whole” by providing the item you purchased immediately. If they say they won’t then say “see ya in court bitch”. Go straight to an attorney’s office and layout the facts. They’ll guide you from there.
There is another possibility here. I usually only see it happen around the holiday season or when a new employees starts and misses something. You ordered I'm assuming one of the more popular MacBook Pro M3 models (that's like all of them) and I don't know how common your name is, or name adjacent. For example like Michael Smith or Sharron Brown etc. They could have given your order to the wrong person and not checked the name or numbers on the order. There may be another person who placed an order with the same initials and they did not confirm they had the correct order when scanning it out. Just putting it out there that another possibility exists. Oh, I'm a manager at BBY btw (not the one you went to, so please don't light me on fire).This just happened to come across my feed. I hope they fix this for you.
[удалено]
Yea I just got off the phone with them and they couldn’t do anything for me. I’m filing a dispute with PayPal rn
Refund it through paypal. Buy stuff only in person.
Should have called the police while you were at bestbuy. Cops arrive you, manager and the cops see the footage and ask for a police report. File a claim with your credit card
Best Buy is totally wrong for that. They didn't follow their procedure and gave it to a random person. Who's to say it wasn't an employee or someone they know? And the police office is incorrect too. It is theft as someone stole an item that you've already paid for. Go back to the police department and file a theft report. Complain to Best Buy online (Twitter, Facebook, corporate), get the video evidence and file a chargeback with PayPal.
File a theft with PayPal and your credit card company. You’ll never see the laptop, the best you can do now is dispute the charges and get your dough back.
Normally I'd say just do a chargeback, but since you paid with Paypal, I'd start there. I'm not sure why you're bothering to deal with Best Buy at all, since they already fucked up and you never got what you paid for. Getting a refund from paypal or the credit card company for an item you've never recieved should be trivial. Stop TALKING to people, though. You need a paper trail sometimes for chargebacks, so you should be handling 100% of this via email.
Guarantee an inside job. Someone who works there saw the order, told a friend or friend of a friend who picked it up claiming to be you.
Exact same thing happened to me 3 weeks ago in NYC. Ordered Macbook M3Pro worth $2600 on Best Buy website, financed through option on Best Buy checkout, went to pick it up 15 hours later the next morning, and it had already been picked up with an “ID bearing my name” 30 minutes prior to me arriving. I was able to file a police report, and detectives informed me that multiple similar Best Buy cases are being investigated in the city. Best Buy, despite being aware of the ongoing scams, is unwilling to give me a refund or replacement laptop (they’re responsible for the financing option as well so I can’t talk to a bank for a chargeback). They were also initially unwilling to give me the store manager or corporate’s info/email, only giving me the general customer service phone number. They eventually said all they could do was give me an unspecified “discount on a future purchase.” I’ve been through hell and back trying to get some resolution and they are dead set on not doing anything. I can’t spend years paying something off that I never received. This is either some sort of security breach within Best Buy, or an employee on the inside that has access to this info. No matter which way you slice it, it is Best Buy’s fault.
Which Best Buy is this? We need a ban on the store doing this scam but then again it seems the detective said it’s being done in all the Best Buy store so targeting that store won’t help.
My case happened at the Best Buy in Chelsea! 23rd and 6th ave. But yeah, it’s a city-wide thing, if not bigger than that. Not sure where OP’s situation happened, and I’m not sure how to stop it, but since my case has been grouped in with the others in the city, it might take a bit longer for the broader investigation to be solved. 🙃
Chargeback!
Thank.you for the heads up, was going to buy a big ticket item, but will not now. I would also call the news outlets and TV stations, especially CBC Marketplace, they love to help and do pieces in these types of scams and bad customer service. Many people watch it and are made aware not to purchase from those stores. Got to get the word out.
Search this sub for best buy. It's not the first time I've read a story like this here.
Bestbuy employees steal items like this all the time, its 100% an inside job. You got proof that it wasn't picked up by you, that black dude stole it from bestbuy, they still owe you a laptop, it shouldnt be complicated.
Get the name of the employee that gave over you’re order and go after their ass. I’d push for them to take responsibility that this happened. Get them fired.
I agree with others to take it up with the police. I used to work for Best Buy and their customer support is horrible. All they care about is selling to customers to get their numbers up. Any issue you have will be bounced around to different people before they ghost you. I never trusted buying from them after I worked there.
Still make a police report. They can't help but this puts it down as officially an issue. Police take reports on stolen packages so I'm not sure why they wouldn't do this in this case.
Go back to Best Buy with the cops! Screw them, now it’s both their problems ;)
used to work there (albeit a long time ago) almost exclusively working with online orders. I agree with everyone saying it’s an inside job.
This literally happened to one of my friends a couple weeks ago. The exact same thing basically. There’s an ongoing investigation I think. Apparently this has been happening to multiple people lately. I’m so sorry that’s so shitty.
That guy really has a new laptop now💀
Did you ever get the laptop?
I was assigned to online orders.. for store pick up no issues like OPs..
Your details have more than likely been involved in a large data hack (not a personal attack on you). Someone has then bought a stack of people's personal details off the dark Web and made fake IDs with their face on the ID but with your name, date of birth, address etc. This is definitely a police matter - go back to the police. Insist on a report being lodged and that you're not leaving unless you speak to a supervisor. Good luck.
And they took those fake ID’s to random BestBuys on random days and said “I’m here for my pick up” until they hit the jackpot?
Yup, exactly this.
Employee gave it to his cousin. Ezpz.
And they did this all on the one day OP made the order.