Best Buy & Geek Squad Policies

[Jackal]

This just happened to me again. I just got this charge a few wseeks ago and it caused an overdraft. No I just got it again this morning and it caused another overdraft. Why was I charged again so soon? This charge shouldn't have come again for atleast another week or more. Why is the charge date chnging? What can be done about this?

[Jackal]

How do you cancel an online order without having to wait ten minutes on the telephone? I'll also be aclling my bank shortly but I want to cancel this order today if possible.

[Nokia]

Call or email.

[Jackal]

I've cancelled this order and called my bank. They will take care of the charge but I will never pre-order anything from Best Buy again. If you state that the customers account WILL NOT be charged until the release date then that what should happen. If there is going to be a month charge to verify that an account is active then that should be stated for customers to see and read before they place their purchase. You should actually require them to check a box or something to acknowledge this BEFORE they can place the pre-order.

I'd hate to see what you all would do to someones account each month that pre-ordered a $500 item. Especially if you are "verifying" account more than once within a 30 day period.

[Sarah-BBY Retired: Community Connector]

Hi Jackal,

I’m very sorry to hear about this.  I believe what you are referring to is our authorization process as you should not be charged for your order until it has shipped.  Also, the authorization process should not cause you to accrue any over-draft fees and I would encourage you to contact your credit card company for more information.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?type=page&contentId=1099396531198&id=cat12098

Authorization Process

When you place an online order, we authorize your credit card to make sure sufficient credit is available. A hold is placed on funds equal to your order total until the order is fulfilled.

If your order is canceled, the time required to remove the authorization is determined by the financial institution that issued your card. Following is the estimated amount of time for common methods of payment:

Payment Type	Time Required
Debit or check cards	24-72 hours
Visa/MasterCard	7 days
Discover	14 days
American Express/Best Buy Credit Card	30 days

If you need more information, please call your credit card company.

*Also, if you still wish to cancel your order please contact our BestBuy.com department directly either by phone or email as Nokia instructed previously.

I hope this helps but please feel welcome to contact me by private message if you have any additional questions.  You can send a private message to me by clicking on the “private message” envelope in the upper right-hand corner of the page and then composing a new message to my username “SARAH-BBY”.

Thank you and have a great weekend!
Sarah

Community Connector
Best Buy® Corporate

[Jackal]

Thank you for replying Sarah but this charge comes through as a "Pending" charge and does affect the account holders balance. Therefore it does cause overdrafts even if they are unintentional. The charge is reversed after about 3 days but by then the damage is done. Apparently this process is repeated until the product is shipped. If I had know this was going to be happening I would have never pre-ordered and just waited for the item to arrive in the stores. Now I have paid for Windows 7 3 times over in the past month because of two incidences of this authorization charge. And that's been within a 30 day period. I have cancelled the order to avoid any chances of this happening again and I'll just pick up Windows 7 at a later date. Now I am aware of this process but I have to say that I still will not pre-order from Best Buy again in the future. If I had know about this process I would have never done it to begin with. This was my first experience and it was not a good one.

Once again I thank you for your response.

[Sarah-BBY Retired: Community Connector]

Hi Jackal,

You are welcome, and thank you for providing this additional information, I trust that your comments will prove valuable in the future when evaluating how the service from both Best Buy® and our business partners can be improved.  Please let me know if there is anything further I can try and do to help!

Thanks again and have a great day!
Sarah

Community Connector
Best Buy® Corporate