The purpose of this thread is for Digital Home members to review and relay their experience with Futureshop

This is NOT a discussion thread so please limit yourself to one post which includes your review.

We welcome the input and opinions of all members whether they are good or bad, however, please note that this thread is NOT for rants. Whether you had a good or bad experience with this vendor we want to hear about it but in an OBJECTIVE manner.

If you post a rant or childish comments like, these guys "suck" or they're all a "bunch of idiots", then your comments will be considered trolling and your post will be deleted.

When you post, please try to include the following information:


What product or service you purchased.
Approximate timeframe you ordered the product
What location you dealt with if it’s a company with many stores or service locations
Your overall level of satisfaction
If you had a positive experience, please explain what made it such a positive experience.
If you had a negative experience, please read our guidelines below.


Guidelines for Posting Negative Reviews

The truth is no retailer or service provider is perfect and occasionally even the best companies can disappoint. Our experience is that good companies have problems but they typically make every reasonable effort to resolve problems.

If you had a problem and are posting a negative review, then please note what efforts you made to resolve the problem and the feedback you received. If you think the efforts to resolve the problem were NOT reasonable then please explain why. Saying you phoned up and talked to some idiot, suggests the problem may lie with the consumer and NOT the company!

Now owned by Best Buy, a U.S. company, though they don't advertise this fact, and market the FS stores as a 'Canadian' company. Similar selection to BB in products, and prices are generally the same although during sales the products and pricing are often different between the two. They use commissioned salespeople who are highly likely (in my experience) to give bad/mistaken advice - either to make a sale or due to lack of knowledge. Do your homework before entering a store, and don't depend on getting 'educated' there.

Pricing on different items varies wildly between overpriced, competitive or occasionally very good deals on sales items. Again, do your homework and check pricing with other suppliers. Price matching policy can be a benefit during and after a purchase, but seems (from ancedotal evidence) to be applied unevenly depending on the product and the store.

Would agree with the comments from WESTCDA. Have had excellent service with extended warranties on several items. Returned a Canon printer that stopped working three weeks before its four year warranty expired. Replaced with the most recent model......no questions asked. Due to the decrease in cost of printers my original warranty was extended until 2010 to make up for the differance in purchase price. Returned a defective Hard Drive.......replaced in about five minutes under warranty. Replaced a defective AV receiver under extended warranty two years ago. Have found that good manners and a smile go a long way in getting good service.

I do not know why but I got consistently better service than BB for the same type products

I"m under the impression that FS has just moved to salary-based salesmen now (not commission) too.

I much prefer FS to BB. Returns are never a problem at FS, price matching within 30 days of sale has been hassle free at FS on the two occasions where I have taken advantage of that policy. I recently returned a Kodak digital camera purchased in Oakville outlet and returned it to Burlington store with no questions asked. Nice. I agree that pricing often varies widely on same product between the two outlets. And why is it when "casing the joint" and not looking to purchase anything, a sales person will always be right there and when you need a question answered they are all in the back. ;) That's Murphy's Law in play. sailmaker

no we are still 100% commission and wouldn't have it any other way

AKAIK, I believe it was actually a merger, not BB buying out Futureshop, and what was FS ownership has a significant stake in the merged company.

BB and FS are not run the same. There is a definite attempt to differentiate the products and the customers. BB is supposed to replicate the shopping experience of BB in the US (big box) and FS has been targeted to move upscale from BB and the old FS.

As a result, the newly renovated FS stores are much nicer with a much larger selection. Salespeople also seem better trained than they were (although there is a long way to go on that front). My personal shopping experience at FS has improved siginifcantly in the past couple of years. I used to hate FS, now I find them acceptable, not great, but acceptable.

Purchased a 50" Plasma from FS on boxing day. Experienced quite a few ups and downs with the delivery.

First of all FS does not call you to arrange a time which is convenient for you. Rather, they email you with a pre-arranged delivery time which you then have to change if it doesn't work for you. The window for delivery was quite large (4-9pm or 8-2pm).

Then instead of delivering the TV to my shipping address they got the address from an expired credit card that I had on file and shipped it to my old house. So the first delivery just didn't happen. After calling customer service and letting them know that I never received my delivery they called back a few days later and confirmed my address and brought the TV. Although I did a delivery inspection I missed a large crack in the bottom 1/4 of the screen and plugged it in to find the entire panel DOA. Called FS again and arranged for an exchange (which took another week due to the TV being out of stock) They finally delivered the TV without any further mishaps and it is now wall mounted and looking great.

My main issues relate to the scheduling of these types of deliveries as well as how hard it is to talk to someone from the shipping company. They are all contracted out and you have to do all your conversations via the FS customer service representatives as an intermediary.

Have had several positive experiences with the Dartmouth, Nova Scotia FutureShop. Had a Panasonic DVD recorder hard drive die; store replaced the unit with a new one just before the warranty ended. Bought a Sony KFE-50A10 a year ago; instead of waiting for back ordered Sony stand, they removed the one from their display and sold it to me. Have had no problem with returns or price protection during sale events. Overall, the management at this FutureShop is tops.

I recently purchased a phone (Panasonic KXTG5652M) dual handsets with answering machine.

I ordered online and chose instore pickup. I picked up at the Coventry Hills location in Calgary. I actually ordered at around 11:30pm on Jan 29th and picked up at the store at 10am on the 30th.

No problems at all and the phone works great.

ihdtv

I have purchased a lot from FS both online and in store without any complaints. They are not always the least expensive, so you need to check your prices before purchasing. They have always been prompt in crediting me when a lower price is found during their guarantee period.

My experiences with Future Shop has been very satisfactory. I find the Ajax store have a slight edge in service in my area. Returns are handled with no questions asked and will always match prices if you could show them who has a better price.

Good experiences:
- Never had a problem returning anything, I've returned about 5 items. (I'm pretty careful about being in policy and have never been questioned/challenged)
- Never had a problem with the few times I've asked for price matching, once or twice at time of purchase; once or twice afterwards
- I've never had a big problem with pushy sales people, (but I have low expectations of staff there, pretty much want them to know if something is in stock and what the price is)
- I like trading travel points for gift cards

Bad experiences:
- Online inventory is not really accurate
- Had 1 or 2 online orders with "pick up in store" option, rejected because the store has claimed to be out of stock. In one case, I was by that same store a few days later and the item I wanted was in stock, but not at the 1-day price.
- I had an online order delayed for no apparent reason, for about a week. An e-mail to customer service asking them to check the order resulted in a "your order is being processed" response. A few days later, a call to customer service resulted in the rep "releasing" the order, and he could not tell me why it had been delayed.

Does anyone have experience with Futureshop's refurbished computers? What are their 'refurbished' criteria?
Thanks!

We got a $300 compaq refurb at future shop and boxing day and we have had no problems with it.
Overall we are really happy with FS. Nice clean store, good employees (little pushy sometimes). Good expiriences returning stuff and getting the (30 price guarrentee, we were even 2 days late and they still gave us like $10 back) Overall good store.

I think FS is great, when shopping for plasma tv's 2005 and 2007 I bought a couple to try out in my family room...Than returned some no questions asked...
Once I had an xmradio that broke 8 months after purchase, I could not find a receipt for it...BUT after contacting customer service i received a full in store credit.

Great retailer in my opinion.

Lets start with the bad:
- Made online "pick up in store" purchase, received email that the item was ready to pick up, got there only to find out they were out of stock
- Online showed item in stock, phones store to double check and was told "if it says we have it online, then we have it" got to the store, and they did indeed have it...in a box in the back room. Was unable to purchase.
- The Northland Village location in Calgary has the most uninformed, rude, lazy, pushy, obnoxious, and just plain stupid (see below) employees I have ever come across. I have had more run ins with employees at this location than anywhere else, ever.
- When I ask if the store has any Wii controllers in stock, the answer should be yes or no, not "what's a Wii???"
- Employees lying about a product just to make a sale. Don't even bother asking about HDMI pass thru on a receiver. 3/4 of the recievers I was told has this functionality in fact did not. (a Google search provides better information than the employees)
- New employees are thrown on the tills with little (if any training) so when something goes wrong...you have to wait, and wait, and wait for them to figure out what they've done wrong or for someone to fix the problem (it shouldnt take 15 minutes to change receipt tape)
- Why are there 5 people standing around at Customer Service doing nothing with only 1 person helping customers and a lineup of 15 people?
- FS is unbelievably disorganized. And what's with all the unpriced items on the shelves?


Good:
- Prices (sometimes...)

I would rather go out of my way to find a product at a competitor than give FS any more of my business. They used to be my first stop however the service over the past few years has gone straight down the toilet. Not impressed.

I've never had a problem returning any items to either FS or BB. I will note, however, that the amount of effort that goes into a return (length of the line, the amount of paper that is generated to do the return, etc) is staggering at both stores. I would also say it's relatively useless to require almost every return to be authorized by a supervisor (except for maybe unopened DVD's or CD's), and then rarely have a supervisor near the returns desk. I can't tell you how many times I've leaned on the desk, listening to the PA ask for a supervisor (or someone from TV's, someone from Computers, etc) to come to the returns desk. I couldn't help but notice that it is now Returns Desk, not Customer Service Desk, so maybe I've answered my own question.

I frequent the Heartland FS. It amazes me everytime I go in there how the sales people always outnumber the customers.

Anyways, here are my bad experiences:

1. A few years ago, bought a Nokia cell phone and accessories for ClearNet service. Returned it a couple of weeks later. The return desk called some doofus over to inspect my return. I didn't have the plastic packaging for the accessories because you pretty much had to destroy it in order to open it. He picks a random number out of his head on what to charge for the lack of packaging. I was fuming and vowed never to enter the store again. That didn't last long.

2. I was in the return line to return a laptop. I was asked by two sales guys (seperately, the second one repeating the first one about 10 minutes after the first one left) while I was in the line about my situation. They both asked me to show them my receipt. I did so, thinking maybe they are managers looking to expedite my return. They both tell me to stay in the line and the lady at the desk will help me. I asked the lady what the deal is with the sales guys asking me about my return. Never did get an answer. It hasn't happened again, but if I'm ever in the return line and some sales guy asks me about my return, I'll inform him that unless he can process my return, he should shut his piehole and walk back to whatever section of the store he came from.

3. I purchased a plasma tv from them less than a year ago. I knew there were price cuts coming for that model, so I went in to the store to get a price match on a couple of occassions. THe first went fine, no problem. THe second was a manufacturers price drop. I was told by the salesman who sold me the tv that they would refund any price drop. He even wrote it on my receipt. So when the price dropped, I went to see him. He was very rude to me and told me "ok, you are not serious about this tv. Go to the returns section and return it". I didn't hesitiate one second, I turned around and returned the tv. The returns lady called the manager over and he was practically begging me to keep the tv. Even the ******* salesman came over to apologize. I wound up re-purchasing the tv through the manager rather than the salesguy. He lost his commission on that one. I had even bought the product service plan originally, and he lost that commission as well.

The only good thing is that they will beat or match prices, will give you 30 price protection, and also allow returns. Actually, the 30 day return is a big point in their favour. And with the plasma purchase, they can negotiate extended price protection.