The following is a true story about Futureshop.
We'd like to hear your opinions.

Here’s the story. About two years ago, I bought a TV at a Futureshop in Calgary, but a few months ago it broke. The microchip inside fried itself and it could only play in bad quality black and white through my VCR. I had moved many times since I bought the TV (as is the life of a student) and I couldn't find my receipt, but I was pretty sure I had bought the extended warranty. So, I tried contacting the store to find out if I had. For the few times anyone actually answered, they wouldn’t check if I had the warranty, and eventually said just to bring in the TV—not to worry, the warranty would be in the system.

So, I took a taxi to the store, only to wait for more bad service. The lady checked under every phone number I gave her but couldn’t find a warranty, and she wouldn’t check under my uncommon name when I asked her to. ("Store policy" and according to some at the store not even possible--yeah right.) She concluded that there must not be a warranty, and given the pressure of the situation, I started to doubt if I had bought the extended warranty, and ended up believing her. It would've cost a lot to fix the TV, so my roommate and I decided to just buy a new TV and left the broken one at the store and told them to do whatever they wanted with it. Why would we bring home a broken TV that didn't have a warranty?

A few weeks later, I found my receipt and I DID have the warranty. I contacted the store (with great difficulty--they don't seem to know how to use phones) and eventually talked with a manager who said to come in to the store. When I got there, he was very condescending, rude, and contradicted himself on more than one occasion ('Your warranty can be refunded and probably the TV--warranties can never be refunded!' 'It isn't possible to look up names in the system--well I bet I can find many people with your name since you think it's so rare', etc.). He offered us $100 for the $300 purchase, along with a lot of attitude.

Unsatisfied, over the next month we contacted further employees and managers (with more difficulty) and were given the run-around, unreturned phone calls, contradictory messages (the broken TV is/isn’t here so we can/can’t help you). We complained to Head office and the store was forced to contact us, but not without further hassle and more run-around trying to get rid of us. Eventually, the store manager offered a very “fair” deal (in his words) to refund the warranty and give us $50. $50 on a $250 TV that was covered under warranty to be fixed or replaced if broken. Their problem? The TV was no longer there, even though they knew it was there (and have testimony to it) and that they threw it out (although I'm still not sure if that is the truth, given the many stories we received), and we therefore weren't hiding it somewhere, and obviously it must have been broken since we just left it and went through all the trouble trying to get it fixed.

We know our opinion on how “fair” that offer was, but we’d like yours. Vote in our poll and leave your opinion on our Guestbook so that Futureshop can get the message. And, take this as a warning that Futureshop won't care about you either. After all, their very accurate slogan is "I want more!"

Thanks for your opinions!