I ordered a Ring Chime last week from Best Buy. They didn’t have any in-store at the time, so I ordered it to be picked up curb-side, as I have several times in the past since the beginning of the pandemic. Yesterday (Sunday 11/8/21) I received a text stating that my item was ready for pickup, so I set aside a time during the day to run out and pick it up.

I parked in one of the reserved curbside-pickup parking spots and used the text message I had received to “check-in”. Best Buy requires you parking spot #, the type of vehicle you’re in and its color. After completing my check-in it said someone would be out with my order shortly. This normally takes just a few minutes, then I get another text message stating someone is on the way out with my item(s). This time, however, someone cam to my car and apologized, explaining that either their system messed up, or someone misplaced my item, because they haven’t been able to locate it yet. He said he was going to go look for it, and if he still can’t find it, he’ll take one from stock and give me that one. He said he’d be back shortly.

Good thing I wasn’t in a hurry. So I waited. And waited. After about 30 minutes of waiting I was getting pretty frustrated and contemplated leaving. Then someone else came out – a manager – empty-handed again, so it didn’t look promising. He explained that their system must have had a glitch or something, because my item definitely wasn’t at the store, though their system said it was. He knew how long I had been waiting, so he offered to make it right by giving me a $50 Best Buy gift card. He said they will correct the issue and get my item re-ordered and sent to the store,. or they could even ship it to my house, but the gift card pretty much makes it free, as the Ring Chime Pro costs about $50 itself.

He kept apologizing for the error and the time that I wasted waiting. I didn’t appear angry or anything, just a little frustrated. I said it was alright, no problem, this is fine. He gave me the gift card and after I left I got the text that my Ring Chime Pro had been re-ordered. He said that, if I wanted to, I could even return it when it came in, and purchase it again with the gift card if I wanted to truly make it free. I knew that, but as long as the gift card never expires, there’s no hurry and I’m sure I’ll make use of it in the near future. Returning the item to the store would be a last-resort task, only it if was defective. The less exposure to others the better.

I went home empty-handed and a little disappointed, but it was free now, so I feel better about the whole thing. Except I wish I knew exactly what went wrong. Can I trust Best Buy’s ordering system anymore? This is the first time I’ve had an issue with it at all. But now I’ll always be wondering when I order something… I just hope, if it screws up again, they’ll be just as nice next time.