Hidden camera investigation: Best Buy electronics (Marketplace)

Honestly Best buy shouldn’t have marketplace included with their website, it should be a separate business altogether

What's worse is many of these broken "refurbished" things are only on discount for a small amount. At that point, you might as well just buy new.

Telling non-tech-savvy people to install freeware diagnostic tools on their pc is dangerous considering all of the malware out there.

I used to work for Best Buy for almost 7 years, and was in customer service for part of that time. I completely echo what the other employees said about marketplace and used to tell customers the same thing. Two things need to happen. First, Best Buy needs to start making their messaging more clear and transparent regarding the condition of marketplace items. Second, consumers need to start paying better attention to who they’re buying from when they shop online. Research is important especially as we move further and further into this age of e-commerce. Amazon and Walmart have a marketplace section too, so always check who the product is shipped and sold by.

Never buy anything refurbished with a battery that you cannot easily replace

Step 1: turn on sold by best buy Step 2: don't buy refurbished.

I'm retired from over 2 decades of working on phones and computers. The only problem I see is the listing. You have A, B, and C stock items. So far the problem I see is the inaccurate listings from sellers. There is no general standard of these grades. It always falls back to, "You get what you pay for" mentality. My opinion of these grades are as follows: A (Mint Condition - works Perfect) B (light cosmetic defects - works perfect) C ( light to heavy cosmetic defects - works perfect ) In summary the grade is only for cosmetics. If it is for sell it should always work perfect or it is to be parted out.

As someone who worked at best buy selling computers, I knew the open box computers were unreliable. I never sold them until my managers basically forced me to and got mad. The open box computers are supposed to be checked over or certified by geek squad to ensure their functionality. Out of quite a lot of open box that I sold, I would say well over 70% of them were brought back or returned with issues. From my personal experience with open box, Ive never had good experiences. I know this is not a refurbished item but if their open box is like this, I cant imagine how good their refurb products are.

Props to the BestBuy employees for honesty and their knowledge.

Weird how a tablet would need to be charged every few days...

I love that this show exists and try’s to hold companies accountable.

With a lake front house like that, with that view, a broken tablet purchased form a third party seller would be the last thing on my mind.

These 3rd party sellers are basically built to take advantage of those who aren’t savvy shopping online, and the retailers like BB and Walmart are profiting off it too, as they are taking a cut of the profit to host the sellers listings.

yea, I typically NEVER do refurbished items, at all. the cost is typically not that impressive, and you never know what kind of wear and tear they were put through prior.

Did you really just do an entire piece on an old couple that complained that their iPad is telling them to charge it every few days?

Great investigative reporting, I'd rather spend the extra money for new than to struggle with a refurbished unit.

Quote: "BestBuy says their refurbished devices MAY BE more reliable than a brand new version"... always read all the fine print. This phrase can also mean that refurbished devices MAY NOT BE more reliable.

Chris standin on the hill staring at the best buy that finessed him

And when you go back to Best Buy, all you will get is a single statement: Best Buy doesn’t have any responsibility towards 3rd party sellers’s merchandise.

It’s exactly like shopping on Amazon but when you don’t buy from a prime seller, so third party. Also, almost every single chain does this including Home Depot, Lowe’s, Target, Marshall’s, Kroger, etc.