By Rachel Cericola, Apr 25, 2005

I get a lot of email every day. And when I say a lot, try to think of one of those jars where you have to guess how many M&Ms are inside.

It takes a really good story to catch my eye. So when my buddy Joel over at Geek.com ran this one in the April 20 edition of the Geek.com Newsletter, I told him I wanted to stick it to the man and repost it here...

Imagine your excitement if you're a 3-D enthusiast and a new video card has just hit the streets. This new card is no cheap card, either, selling for about US$500.

So, you go to your local Best Buy and pick one up. Then you go home, unwrap the packaging as if you were a kid on Christmas morning, and plug it into the PC. On boot-up you notice something strange, however: for some reason Windows is detecting the card as a model lower than the one you just purchased.

You go to the card manufacturer's Web site and download the latest drivers since it's clearly a driver issue. One new driver install later and the card is still being detected as an older model.

Being a computer-literate person, you shut down the PC and inspect the card a little closer. Now you see that the identification label on the card is actually glued on poorly, and you come to find out that the card you purchased is in fact an older card that someone has somehow put a new card label on. The surprising thing is that the card was in a sealed package in a shrink-wrapped box!

Clearly this is just a simple error at Best Buy or the manufacturer, so off you go to Best Buy to explain the "funny" situation that has occurred.

Now here's where it gets sad and not funny. The salesperson tells you that he can't exchange the card for a new one since, clearly, YOU switched it out.

WHAT??!!!! You just spent $500 on a new card and now Best Buy's telling you that you are stuck with the old one?

So, you talk with the store manager, feeling that resolution is almost at hand. Surprisingly, you get the same response from the manager that you got from the salesperson.

Now you're stuck with an older card that's clearly not worth the $500 you paid. What would you do next?

Well, the person who this REALLY happened to called Best Buy corporate ... which had the same reaction and refused to do anything about the card. The person then called the Better Business Bureau. He even called the local news and told the story, hoping the channel would do a news feature on it. Needless to say, he was still stuck with the older card that he paid a new card price for--and he really wanted the new card. What would you do next?

This person devised a plan. Why not go to another Best Buy and tell the salesfolk that the card doesn't work right and that he wants to exchange it?

Unfortunately for him, Best Buy is pretty savvy, so the returns person put the card into one of their test machines and told him that not only was nothing wrong with it, but it was, in fact, an older card. Still stuck with the same card, he finally gave up, never to shop Best Buy again.

What would you have done? I think I would have done the same things that he did, except that I probably would have actually broken the card and crazy glued the new label onto the card so that it would look like it was the NEW card.

I had a friend who once bought a soundcard, took it out, and returned the box without the card--it was heavy since there were a lot of manuals. While I don't condone that behavior, it may have worked in this case.

In the end, this person spent his hard-earned cash on a new card and got screwed. The person that stole the NEW card from Best Buy or from the card manufacturer got away with a new card.

Got an experience to share? Post your comment or drop me an email at !