Home Page for Daniel Spisak-> Fry's Electronics->Tue, 3 Feb 1998 14:37:26 PST

From steve_sherwood@MENTORG.COM Tue Feb 03 14:36:12 1998
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 14:37:26 -0800
From: Steve Sherwood <steve_sherwood@MENTORG.COM>
Reply-To: steve_sherwood@MENTORG.COM
Organization: Mentor Graphics Corporation
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en] (WinNT; I)
To: dspisak@mminternet.com
Subject: Another Fry's story

Since you seem to be the keeper of Fry's stories, I thought I would send
you mine. Do with it as you like.

I live in Oregon where Fry's just replaced Incredible Universe with one
of their stores. At first blush it appeared to be "-vana."
Everything anyone could possible want for computing under one roof. So,
where did they go WRONG! It's there lack of principle and their
attitude toward the customer!

I purchased a brand new 4.5GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-Wide SCSI hard drive and
(I thought) a " GUARANTEE" on this drive for $39.95. The
disk itself was guaranteed through the manufacturer for 5 years, but the
sales person sold hard on the benefits of the FRY's PERFORMANCE
GUARANTEE. In a nutshell, the PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE states if the disk
goes bad "" within two years of the date of purchase, Fry's will
replace it INSTANTLY with an equivalent disk or better. The key word
here is INSTANTLY. As the sales rep explained, if the same disk is not
available when the defective disk is returned, Fry's will replace it
with another disk that is at least as good or maybe even better. The
example given to me was if the only disk that FRY's has in stock that
comes close to the 4.5GB disk is a 6.4GB Ulta-Wide SCSI disk, then
that's what the PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE says I'm supposed to get.

So, here's what happened. First, let me say that I know the following
story is an unusual one, but that's exactly why people buy insurance (or
PERFORMANCE GUARANTEES), for protection against unusual situations.

I purchased the afforementioned drive, took it home, and installed it
the same day. The minute I powered up the system, I knew something was
not right. The new drive was squealing terribly. Even so, I worked
with it for about two hours trying to get it to work until I finally
removed it and headed back to Fry's. All of this occurred in under 4
hours. When I arrived back at the store, the Fry's technician hooked
the drive up to their system to test it and immediately agreed the drive
was defective. I pulled out my PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE. The technician
said, " problem. We'll get you another drive." Unfortunately, she
discovered that I purchased the last of these particular 4.5GB drives,
and the only other drives Fry's had in stock that were as good as this
one were priced $200 to $250 more than what I paid.

Here's where the story gets interesting. All of a sudden my PERFORMANCE
GUARANTEE was being "" by the sales personnel to mean that I
would ONLY get an INSTANT replacement once the ? day Return Period"
expired. No where on the PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE was there a reference to
a 30 day return period. In fact, I did not even know about a 30 day
return period. In other words, I was being told that the PERFORMANCE
GUARANTEE I paid $39.95 for did not become effective for another 30
days. Interestingly enough, right at the top of the first page of the
PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE the EFFECTIVE DATE (that was entered by the sales
rep) was the day of purchase. It was NOT postdated to 30 days later.

I asked the technician to show me on the PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE where it
stated there was a 30 day waiting period. She called her supervisor
over to deal with me. The supervisor immediately agreed that the
guarantee was not in effect for 30 days. So, I asked HIM to show me on
the PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE where it said that. The supervisor took the
guarantee and read every bit of fine print on the back page. AS he was
reading he even stated, ", this sure is small print," but he was
unable to find anywhere in the agreement that the PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE
was not in effect for 30 days. So, he took the agreement and went to
talk to the store manager. When he returned he told me the store
manager confirmed his and the sales rep's interpretation of the
agreement. In short, Fry's refused to honor a PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE
they sold me for $39.95. I was told they were willing to honor it in 30
days, but unfortunately my drive failed on the first day.

For me it was the principle. I was not trying to get something for
nothing. If Fry's had the exact same drive I would have been happy. In
fact, I wound up buying a lesser drive (i.e. 5400 RPM Ultra-Wide) before
I left, but I still felt ripped off. Sure, Fry's refunded all of my
money for the defective drive, but the realization that I had been duped
into purchasing something that was in effect worthless (i.e. the
PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE) made me feel like I had been conned by the
store. Needless to say I did not buy the PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE on the
lesser drive.

I told the supervisor that he was potentially risking bad word-of-mouth
advertising by not simply honoring what was clearly stated in the
PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE and his only comment was that he was simply the
messenger. He pawned off the responsibility to the store manager, who I
did not speak to. At this point the supervisor was pretty much through
with me and began treating me like I was an unreasonable customer. I
did not feel like ranting and raving, creating a scene or pursuing the
principle any further with Fry's. I needed a drive, so I bought the
lesser one and just accepted the fact that this store manager did not
care about customer satisfaction nor had the principles to uphold an
agreement if it was to his disadvantage. He obviously had no problem
taking my money for nothing, but when it hit his pocket book, it was a
different story. The only person I felt really cared was the sales
technician, who appeared embarrassed about the whole situation.

You may not agree with me that Fry's should have given me the upgraded
disk and that's okay. I pass on the story for you to do with as you
like. Make your own decision, but just remember Caveat Emptor!!! The
buyer alone is responsible for assessing the quality of a purchase
before buying, and I personally believe this story shows the ""
of Fry's PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE" is very low. For me there is no reason
to ever purchase it!!!

Last updated: 1998/2/3 21:52:12 GMT