You say goodbye, I say hello. Another chapter in the Best Buy saga of doom.

A few months back I blogged about how much I hated Best Buy because of the clusterfuck from the problems with my dying iPod, which included how it took forever to get it back from the repair depot. Well, after the first repair, the fix was to "reseat the cable." I was skeptical, and sure enough, a few weeks later, my iPod started exhibiting the same behavior again, that being it would lock up my computer, make crunching noises, and generally acting broken. I brought it into Best Buy, they sent it back to their service depot with a message saying, "not fixed the first time, please fix," among other things. After about 3 or so weeks, I get it back. Guess what they did? They jiggled the fucking cable again and called it fixed. It was the same tech as last time, too; we could tell by the identical handwriting and wording on the work release form.

At this point I was livid. It obviously didn't help the first time, why would the same fix help a second time? We got the Geek Squad person to get a manager. We got a cool manager who put it in writing that if the same problem happened again, we could get an instant replacement. Since normally it takes four fixes to be considered a lemon, I felt this was fair.

So, of course, after a couple of weeks, it starts acting funky again. Crashing the computer, reporting bad blocks, even a few Sad iPod screens here and there. The little guy was just not happy at all. It took a few days for Best Buy to actually get them in, which in itself was pretty ridiculous. Once they had some new 60s in, I went there to do an exchange. It wasn't one of the new video iPods which had just come out (they had the 30s, but not the 60s -- I didn't care at this point) and they honored the signed agreement from the manager and exchanged it on the spot for a brand new, still shrinkwrapped 60GB 4G color iPod.

I eBayed the iPod as quickly as I could and made a respectable $350 from the sale, especially considering it was now an "old" model. I already bought a replacement 60GB when it died the second time around, so I didn't need it. I figured the saga was closed, and Best Buy at this point had redeemed themselves enough to be considered a place I would shop at.

Yesterday, Leslie and I went to Best Buy to buy some new component video cables for today's home theater re-cabling project. As as were walking by the section with the MP3 players, I saw an iPod in a plastic shell being sold as an open box special. Upon closer examination, it was the iPod, dock, USB cable, and unopened earbuds that I had returned a few days ago! Ain't that about a bitch. I feel sorry for the poor sucker who will purchase this cursed iPod. Maybe they will have better luck than I, but I doubt it.

If you go to the Bellevue, WA Best Buy and you see a too good to be true deal on a 4G 40GB iPod, look away. Just look away.