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From: terryl@tekchips.UUCP ()
Newsgroups: net.consumers,net.video
Subject: Stay away from Best Price Video
Message-ID: <142@tekchips.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Dec-84 23:49:21 EST
Article-I.D.: tekchips.142
Posted: Wed Dec 12 23:49:21 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Dec-84 02:34:44 EST
Lines: 54
Xref: watmath net.consumers:1558 net.video:810


     Well, the old adage "You get what you pay for" has rung true again.
I ordered an NEC Beta Hi-Fi unit from Best Price Video, a mail order outfit
somewhere in New York. As per their name, they did have the best price I've
found($639 for the NEC V739-E Beta Hi-Fi). After receipt of your cashier's
check, whatever you order will be shipped out within 48 hours. Well, being
the trusty soul I am, I sent them my check on Oct. 27. Allowing one week for
the check to arrive to them, plus the one week it takes UPS to ship it from
New York to Oregon, plus an extra week just for good measure, I did not receive
my VCR. I called the order desk again(unfortunately on a weekend) they informed
me I have to get in touch with their "Customer Service" people, and of course,
they only take calls during the week day. Well, still being a trusty soul (but
definitely a little less trusting when I found out you can only call "Customer
Service" from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM Eastern time). I gave them a call. I could
not get through to them. I was always getting a busy signal. Well, I called
the order desk back and said they would relay my message to "Customer Service"
and "Customer Service" would call me back. Well, I got a call back the NEXT
DAY, and I was informed that "Customer Service" could not find ANY records of
my order. Well, this is getting very close to Thanksgiving, so I gave them
a call the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, again not getting through, but
they graciously gave me a call back that day and informed me that they still
could not find any record of my order. Well, I'm getting a little miffed, but
"Customer Service" assured me that they would give me a call the day after
Thanksgiving. Well, I wait all day, and still no call. I got a hold of another
sales person who probably gave me the best service yet(he actually went over to
the desk of the original sales person I ordered the VCR from and found some
evidence of my order in a log book). So, on Monday, still not being able to
get through to "Customer Service", but getting a call back from them that day,
I informed them of the information the second sales person found on Friday.
Well, it took them a WEEK after that to find out that my name was incorrectly
spelled when the order was put in the computer. It took them TWO WEEKS to find
this out. I was also informed that the order was shipped out Nov. 7, which
sounds about right (if I could believe them). Well, they put a tracer on the
order thru UPS and found that UPS didn't have any record of it being shipped
(I'm not really sure of this last point). So they said they will ship me
another unit, so I said fine. I just got another call from "Customer Service"
(in case you're wondering, the reason I put customer service in quotes is 
because I don't really believe that one could call their customer service
department by that name, because I sure didn't get any satisfactory service
from them) saying that they were now out of stock on that particular model,
and it was being discontinued because NEC was coming out with another model
(for about another $100, but they never really asked me if I wanted to get the
other model). Well, as soon as I cool off, I'm going to send a letter to the
company telling them what I thought of their shabby service and their "Cust-
omer Service" department, but I thought I might save someone out there a
little grief by telling them to avoid Best Price Video at all costs. They
are definitely not worth the hassle. BTW, I originally saw an ad for them
on ESPN(and I only saw it once; I never saw it again, which probably should
have told me something.....)


				Terry Laskodi
				     of
				Tektronix