Best Buy customer purchases $300 hard drive, receives oodles of dried beans
By Darren Murph 
posted Mar 4th 2008 6:49PM
posted Mar 4th 2008 6:49PM
No, this isn't the first time we've heard of innocent consumers snagging some new kit only to find random bits of unwanted garbage in place of the actual product, and unfortunately, we've all ideas it's not the last. This go 'round, a couple waltzed into Best Buy, snagged a "brand new" $300 hard drive and zoomed home to start packin' those platters. Much to their dismay, no HDD was found inside the box -- rather, three bags of dried beans weighed it down enough to not seem suspicious. As expected, Best Buy wasn't about to refund any money for fear that the actual purchasers could be the culprits, and while that's certainly understandable, we're quite relieved to know that a little outside intervention netted the two a $300 gift card to the retailer. We bet they'll inspect that package a bit more closely before taking it home next time (sad though that may be).[Image courtesy of DKImages, thanks Craig]
shake the box before u buy anything
open the box at the checkout counter
screw that, who pays $300 for a harddrive
NewEgg is your friend
the only screw up I heard of was accidentally giving people 5 eeePCs for the price of one
why don't these events ever happen to me?
@JohnTitor
1TB Drives are almost $300....
Maybe they were high-capacity beans.
Or solid state beans
Or you can always record the unboxing of anything you buy at Best Buy.
Course, you can't get the camera there.
To linuxamp:
Even when I get my beans in solid state, they almost always end up in a gaseous state.
attempting to break combo of all highest rank in a reply thread
@Sanchez:
I tried voting you up, don't know what they'll do with my entry.
Continuing the streak. Vote us up!
Seems like we've been really + loose today.
hey were those Faba beans? did he get chianti to go with em?
"A census worker once tried to survey me...i ate his liver with some Faba beans....*slurp*"
FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!
Did the box look like it had been opened?
...at least you can eat the beans.
they're dried beans foo
dry... so?
With Best Buy re-shrinkwrapping returned merchandise and restocking the shelves, how could you know?
It's a hdd that supports Java Beans
Java Beans
Java Beans
get it know ^^
you can tell because:
1. they put an open box sticker on it (sometimes)
2. they put best buy tape on it (sometimes)
3. you can see the old ripped tape. (most times)
4. users don't open boxes gently, but like opening a christmas present. omg xbox!
Shaking a box isn't always going to help. If the object inside the box weighs about the same as what's supposed to be inside and sounds pretty sturdy, it's going to be hard to tell if the object inside the box is what it's supposed to be or not.
Apparently you never used to get Legos for Christmas.
First of all, I'm Jewish, so I don't celebrate Christmas. Second, I used to get Bionicles for Hanukkah a lot, and they're made by Lego. But as far as classic Legos go, I don't recall ever getting them as a present. Though my friend did get a Lego Star Destroyer one year. It was awesome looking.
"Hanukkah"?
I think you're making that up. That doesn't sound real.
@bartoron:
Star Destroyers RULE!!
Bionicles have been out for how long now?
You're past your bedtime.
I'm 16, I don't think I need to have a set bedtime.
Maybe we should all be using dogs to sniff this junk out.
Bean sniffing dogs? What about... package inspecting dogs?
bean sniffing dogs are cheaper because they come from mexico
@Derek
My grandma already has one of these... Everytime I come over, her dog "inspects my package"
@jive: O man I almost cried laughing so hard.
seems like youve given this some thought...you dont work for best buy do you?
Speakin of which...every time I see this I reminded that I was actually TOLD to do this by a friend of mine who used to work at Best Buy. His exact words were:
"Want a free Xbox? Buy one, wait 3 days, put a couple rocks in the box and return it. They never check they just throw em in the back."
I guess more people are catching on that it actually works...
except that one time they check and find rocks. dude, get real.
I usually insert a pipe-bomb into the box. Then if anyone tries to check inside when I'm returning it they promptly cease as they watch me bolting at full-speed in the opposite direction.
Then they just throw it back on the shelf.
weeeeeeeeird
the same thing happened to me when i bought
a macbook air
an optimus maximus keyboard
ps3
xbox 360
iphone
sony OLED tv
and
panasonic 150 inch lcd
!!
in my case though they werent dried beans, just refried. they werent that bad actually. but i didnt get any gift cards or anything )=
"I like refried beans. That's why I wanna try fried beans, because maybe they're just as good and we're just wasting time. You don't have to fry them again after all."
Mitch Hedberg FTW!!!
Some guys have all the luck
Best Buy: The customer may dutifully buy our products and trust our overpriced Geek Squad service, but you just can't trust them.
exactly. My friend wanted them to install an anti virus software as a test on his dell laptop, and he didn't get his laptop back for 2 and a half months. My other friend also got a HDDVD player in a Blu ray player box he bought from Best Buy.
Best Buy is hinting that it will make HDD's outta beans!
" Bean storage for dektops are the next wave of the future"
Beans and (HDD) platters (a.k.a: dish, plate, etc.) It had the makings of a punny title but you didn't take advantage. For shame.
Sometimes i begin to think is it the consumer pulling these kinds of things. When i return something, they tear it apart even if its brand new. But most of the time i see them not bothering with the package if it's completely sealed. I think because of these stories, people will see it and try to take advantage of the situation. I mean what is best buy going to do? say your lying? They can't really prove one way or another.
No, but I was part of these best buy people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utkkXCF8ZVc
this can happen to anyone, it happen to me but my box was empty at least this guy got beans lol. If your buying a PS3 or xbox 360 you should not leave the store until you open the box. People buy these thinks all the time and to take parts out of them and then return them, and since they have a bunch of Morons handling returns customers get screw all the time