I’m taking care of some last minute errands before I move and I decide to take care of one thing that has been bugging me for months, namely use the product replacement program I bought for my PS3 to get a new one that doesn’t freeze every other time you start it. So I box up my shiny, 50 lb Blu-Ray player and head off to Best Buy in CC. Get my little pink sticker and step up to the return desk. I tell them my situation they start going through the box doing their checks and scanning their scannables. I’m kind of zoing out, basking in the ambient din of at least 70 different movies, TV shows, and songs constantly filling the air inside the Best Buy when the clerk startles me out of my reverie informing me that she cannot return the PS3 because the serial number on the box does not match the unit itself.
Huh?
How is this possible, I ask? She doesn’t know, I certainly don’t know, but I tell her this is the only PS3 I’ve ever owned, if there’s some mix up, it’s on Best Buy’s shoulders and to replace it via the agreement I bought with them. I must have the worst electronic luck known to man. She gets the Assistant Manager, a dumpy slow-moving mouthbreather who slowly states the same thing. She can’t return the PS3 because the serial numbers don’t match.
Starting to lose my cool, I restate the obvious, this is Best Buy’s mistake, not mine, I bought the replacement program on this unit, they should replace it. She stands in her position. I count the ten zits on her face, calm down a little, and ask to see the manager. She slags off and I go through my little replacement agreement. Sure enough, there is nothing in there about serial numbers not matching. I try to reason through why they would not take it back and figure that people must be using other customer’s replacement plans to replace their shitty PS3’s, but honest to god, I did not take advantage of this little clause. I have a legitimate issue here and there has to be some resolution.
Mouthbreather returns with sad-eyed, inflexible, balding Manager, both of them laughing as they approach the desk. Manager offers his hand and introduces himself, and tells me he can’t replace the product in a very smug matter-of-fact way. I reiterate the situation, in case his henchwoman didn’t explain it clearly. He tells me what I’ve already figured out, people are using the replacement plan to return other people’s PS3’s with different serials. I’m losing the ligitimacy of my case, despite it being a geuine mix-up on whoever packed the box.
I get a little pissed and start yelling, to which he asks me to stop yelling. Might-as-well ask me to stop breathing, yelling’s what I’ve been doing best lately, it’s the source of my joi de vivre. I eventually calm down, one zit, two zits…ask him who else we can talk to to straighten this out. He has me call Best Buy corporate.
After waiting on hold a sufficiently infuriating amount of time listening to Linkin Park muzac I get a technician who will return the product if I mail it in, but cannot authorize it in the store. I ask him to get someone on the line who can. He puts me on hold for ten minutes and hangs up on me. I’m starting to quietly Hulk out, looking for something I can strangle, the Manager, a small child, maybe a kitten. Can’t find the latter two and the Manager’s got about two feet of counter between him and me, so I call back corporate and wait again.
After being hung up one more time, I finally get a supervisor on the line, about 20 minutes later. I hand the Manager the phone and let the two BB mavens puzzle out the problem while I concentrate on my spirit animal. After about ten more minutes of deliberation, he hands me back the phone, looking rather pleased with himself. Corporate tells me that they cannot take the unit back with researching what happened with the serial numbers more. I know what this means, it will sit on some lackey’s desk for a few weeks until he notices the overdue slip on it and calls me back to inform they can’t replace it.
Manager wishes me a nice day and I let him know he ruined it and sulk off, paperweight in tow. I get out to the car and I’m steaming mad, I’m not giving up yet, no sir.
I drive to the new Best Buy in the area and try again. I get my pink sticker, hand the unit to the clerk, anxiously waiting and watching to see if the clerk is going to scan the two serials. She doesn’t. She hands the PS3 to a technician who checks the hard drive and determines it’s the unit itself. They begin the paperwork, putting the replacement machine 
next to my paperweight. I’m giddy with secret glee, but try to exude just the right amount of feigned nonchalance. I banter with the clerk a little as she fills out her forms, wincing every time she says something like, “oops!” or “huh, why didn’t that work,” but it turns out to just be her infamiliarity with how to use a keyboard. Five minutes later I walk out of the store with a new unit laughing manaically like Barbosa going into the Maelstorm.
I consider driving back to the other store and finding the Manager just to rub it in, maybe make another scene, but I have won my private war.
next to my paperweight. I’m giddy with secret glee, but try to exude just the right amount of feigned nonchalance. I banter with the clerk a little as she fills out her forms, wincing every time she says something like, “oops!” or “huh, why didn’t that work,” but it turns out to just be her infamiliarity with how to use a keyboard. Five minutes later I walk out of the store with a new unit laughing manaically like Barbosa going into the Maelstorm.