Another crappy experience at Radio, I mean THE SHACK

nguyendot

So yesterday I went to Radio Shack to get a few items, wire, alligator clips, etc - you know random crap from RS. I was there around 5:30 and they had four employees who kept following me around to make sure I didn't need any help.

Anyways I grab my share of items and get to the counter. I see the Galaxy S from Sprint in their display case, so the manager asks me if I saw the new tablet. I tell him yes, I read that it didn't have an OLED screen like the phones however. He states that it's not economically feasible to make one that size (it's like a 7" tablet) because Sony has an OLED tv that's still $10,000!

I know he's talking about the 11" OLED that is more like $3499, but no longer in production or for sale. I tell him it's not even close to $10,000 anymore, more like $3000. You can go to the local Mathis Brothers furniture and they have it sitting on their customer service counter for people to see. I also saw it last year at the Sony Store in Dallas, for $2999. He doesn't believe me and says he saw it at CES last year for $10,000. At this point I know he's full of crap and is just feeding me lines as if I were some dumb lackie off the street. It's kind of annoying, and he pretty much was doing this the entire time I was there.

Anyways I figure I just want to check out and leave now, so I slide my credit card and sign. The pad refuses my signature. Odd, I think, so I sign it again. And again, and again. It refuses it about six times before the manager tells me that my signature was not acceptable. I tell him that's how I always sign my signature. He says that a new law came out on how they have to accept credit cards signatures. Alright boys and girls, how is it that only the SHACK is enforcing these rules? I went to Walmart, Target, Harbor Freight, and a dozen other places this weekend and none of them threw a fit when I signed my name. Given, my signature looks like two waves, but it's my legal signature. I bought three cars, a house, and signed a few leases with that same signature.

He claims that at the beginning of this year, the same rules applied to getting your drivers license. "Oh really?" I say as I whip out my new license from May 2010, with no less than two copies of my signature adorning the front of it. I show it to him and he still stands by his statement. If the DMV (Tag agency) digitally accepted my signature this year, and stamped it on my drivers license, I figure that I can use the same signature as legal tender on any of my credit cards. I tell him I'm not going to change or forge my own signature because I want to use my legal signature.

Well we go on and on and it about gets heated, when I pull the last trick I have up my sleeve. He tells me he can't sell it to me if I don't use a different signature. I tell him to hit the device failure button, and print me a paper receipt. He looks flabbergasted. Yeah, I just beat you, print the paper and let me go.
So he makes some excuse as I make him print it. I sign it and leave.

Geez, treat your customers better, not all of them are retarded.

Joe08867

Radio Smack isn't what it used to be..

I used to love spending hours in there looking at stuff. Now it is more like a mini BestBuy or enter chain name here _____.

I blame Lance Armstrong..

ohskigod

I gotta ask, why did you buy that stuff after all the hullabaloo. I have a rule, if you make it hard for me to pay you, I'm not gonna pay you.

nguyendot

It was 5:30 on a Sunday night. Didn't have many other options.....

Otherwise I would have left and ran somewhere else, but everywhere else would have been closed by the time I got there.

faster100

and some things can't "easily" be found locally elsewhere. and scratching a regular sig for the counter nerd isn't that big a deal :rolleyes::biggrin:

Radio shack serves its purpose, I try not to get to wrapped around the axle because the sales staff isn't always up to my level of knowledge. BUT ymmv

Good/better luck next time hopefully

AudioGenics

buy online and save the hassles....

bobman1235

jvc wrote: »

buy online and save the hassles....

This.

The important part of that story wasn't the sales assoc being "not up to his knowledge", but rather his being a dick about the signature. How many times does "the Shack" have to go through this crap with customers being fed up with their retarded sales practices before they get the hint? The batteries, the "required" email addresses / phone numbers, and now some retarded signature policy? I'm SHOCKED they're struggling to stay in business. SHOCKED.

zingo

They do have some of the most arrogant sales people in any store; even over BB!

cnh

I assume this has just happened NOW because I bought a few things there a couple of weeks ago and I NEVER sign the same way twice....those signatures are never recognized as anything but 'approved' by any machine...heck--my daughter could probably sign her name and it would say OK.

You've piqued my curiosity now....may be worth a run for something...soon...to test this. Unfortunately, I know the manager at my local RS fairly well...so he might just override...it?

cnh

faster100

It prob was a "overzellous" sp? Sales cleak, BUT the minute someone lost a credit card and a store clerk accepted the "doctor scribble" to be good enough is when it becomes a problem of "why did you accept that sig" my card was stolen. Just my .02 cents 99 times out of a hundred prob wont ever happen again.

Oh and i agree, BUY online.. but sometimes you have to have something "now" Been there before

cokewithvanilla

I wasn't aware that a signature mattered. Places like burger king don't even require one anymore. Also, you are not responsible for charges made by others on your credit card. You are only liable for $50 of charges made by others, as per federal law.

Debit cards are a bit different, same if you report within 2 days.

gdb

What's new ? RShack has been fostering dorky junior G men for the last 30 years, at least. I swear, I almost think that they might be disciples of Scientology!:eek: Plan ahead and buy from Parts Express etc.!

bobman1235

cokewithvanilla wrote:

I wasn't aware that a signature mattered. Places like burger king don't even require one anymore.

Places don't need to require a signature under some dollar amount. it used to be 50 bucks, but I think now it's up to 75 or something.

faster100 wrote:

BUT the minute someone lost a credit card and a store clerk accepted the "doctor scribble" to be good enough is when it becomes a problem of "why did you accept that sig" my card was stolen. Just my .02 cents 99 times out of a hundred prob wont ever happen again.

The whole signature thing is a JOKE. No sales clerk is going to be able to tell a forged signature, and they shouldn't be expected to even try. It's a ridiculous exercise in futility. If they cared about security, they'd ask for a photo ID. Your wallet's already out, and it's a lto easier to expect someone to match a face than a scribble.

For a while some CC companies were offering your photo on your credit card; surprised that didn't take off.


As for it'll never happen again, there's a billion stories like this out there and they all seem to come from Radio Shack, why is that exactly?

dorokusai

I find our resident Polkie Shack to be a completely unreliable source of anything good. And he likes to hug a lot when in person.


Oh...you mean Radio Shack? NM.

tonyb

ohskigod wrote: »

I gotta ask, why did you buy that stuff after all the hullabaloo. I have a rule, if you make it hard for me to pay you, I'm not gonna pay you.

Bingo...agreed.
Nothing like pissing people off when they want to buy your product. Why not offer an alternative instead of a loss sale ? Stupid buisness practice if you ask me.

nguyendot

Man I showed him my ID, both to disprove his theory on the DMV requiring a certain type of signature, and because it has my signature stamped on it twice. He verified it, at that point he should have STFU and let me buy my crap.

faster100

Never had it happen to me in radio shack. Not saying it couldn't. If radio shack is that bad for some, Stay away i guess or endure the 5 minutes of pain in the ****. i can certainly appreciate being aggravated at this situation but i'm sure its not just radio shack.

sucks2beme

Anymore, they don't have anything I need and/or at a price I'm willing to pay.
I can at least drive over to Fry's and a couple of other places and find all the stuff
they USED to carry. It's becoming a damn cellphone store.

brettw22

It wouldn't matter how badly I needed something I'd walk out of that, and I'd make sure that the person knew who/what the problem was.

sucks2beme

DSkip wrote: »

becoming?

There's one or two local sales guys that know me by name.
They know there stuff, but there's a lot less to know anything about.
The one sales guy(part timer) is the big scanner guy. All the other
stores send people over to him for setting them up and hands on
instruction. The rest are like deer in the headlights when I come in to paw
through the parts drawers. I prefer going to the local electronics surplus
place(Tanner's for you DFW guys). But every time I do come in anymore,
it's a "no longer in stock" item. Sad, but that's why the name change.
There's new bean counters in charge, and they really have no idea
why people come to the store. So My guess they go belly up in 2-3 years.
We all know it's true but the guys in the board room over at the Fort Worth
HQ. Everything is just ducky over there.

mdaudioguy

Sometimes I'm compelled to throw this one out there. This is one of those times.
http://www.r-word.org/

Ed

dudeinaroom

It's kind of funny, from what I have heard when the new CEO of radio Shack took over, he had no idea of how they were even still in business. I think they must be some sort of mob money laundering conspiracy.

sucks2beme

That was a satire article, but it rings true in more ways than one.

bobman1235

mdaudioguy wrote: »

Sometimes I'm compelled to throw this one out there. This is one of those times.
http://www.r-word.org/

Ed

That website is retarded.