Best Buy

On March 12 2015 late afternoon, my Husband and I went into the store
BESTBUY WIRELESS
566, 7th Avenue
New-York
NT 10018
Telephone : [protected]
I bought a USB charger for my iPad. I gave my Visa card # **** **** **** 2036. The Clerk A (since the clerks didn’t give their names, they will be identified with the letters A and B) showed me what seemed to be a receipt for the amount of $21.56, receipt I signed. Everything went on in English, which is not my native language, for French is my first language.

At that moment, the Clerk B came in and put a box on the counter. The clerk A, who was still in possession of my card, showed me a $1, 633 receipt for an iPad. I asked what that was for, and the clerk B said it was for the purchase of an iPad. I said that I had never bought an iPad, that I only bought a USB power charger, showing them the product that I had bought. I asked to have the iPad transaction canceled, since I have never intended to buy an iPad. We talked like that for many minutes.

The clerk A told me to sign the receipt in order to cancel the transaction. I said I wouldn’t sign since I had not made that purchase, that he could cancel the transaction without needing my signature, that I would not sign, repeating this many times over many more minutes. I said I would go to the police regarding this situation. Since I wanted the transaction to be canceled, I was getting more anxious, and I finally signed the receipt, out of despair.

The clerk B presented me with what seemed to be a receipt for the refund, to the amount of $1, 499. I said that $1, 633 had been charged and that I wanted a total refund of that amount. He argued that he could not cancel that amount and needed to make a manual document.

He finally handed over two documents :

DOCUMENT 1 : (mar 12 2015 05 :05 PM)
Trans. 202565 :
1 (restocked-1) Apple iPad Air 2, 64 GB WIFI SILVER : $1633.11
1 items Sub Total $1633.11
NY 8.875% Tax : included
Total $1633.11
Credit Cart Visa 2036 $1633.11
Change : 0.00 Customer Copy

DOCUMENT 2 :

Trans 202567 (mar 12 2015 05 :13 PM)

1 APPLE IPAD AIR 2 64GB WIFI SILVER (exchange 202565) -$1633.11
_________________________________________________________________
1 CUSTOMER HAS RETURNED THE IPAD AND HAS BEEN ISSUED A STORE CREDIT……$1633.11
2 Items Sub Total $0.00
NY 8.875% TAX Included
Total $0.00
This is a store credit

The Clerk B showed me the link between the two transaction numbers, the reference to one another. Thinking that the issue was resolved, I took my things and left. No receipt for the power charger was given to me, which was bought with my Visa card, and its amount of $21.56 does not show on my Visa account.

Leaving the store, I looked around for a police officer, fruitlessly. I photographed the store front and one of the clerk to whom I asked for the power charger, before interacting with clerk A. This man rapidly left the premises after I arrived.

With my husband, I immediately went to the Starbuck cafe close-by, on the other side of the street, to verify my Visa account. I rapidly noted that a charge to the amount of $2, 141.60 CAD was written as a purchase pending, naming BESTBUY WIRELESS NY. In a now very anxious and stressed out state, I looked for a payphone to notify this fraud to Visa. Since I could not find any phone, I went into a Bank of America close-by, explaining to an employee that I had just been a victim of a fraud and that I needed to call Visa, that I do not have a cellphone and that it was a toll free number. This employee brought us to a closed office where I called Visa Desjardins. The Visa employee told me not to worry, that the transaction was pending, that the cancelation transaction took a longer time to be done and that I had to wait some days. Since I feared my credit card had also been cloned, and without knowing that I had been issued a STORE CREDIT, I didn’t use my card for the remaining of the trip.

Leaving the Bank of America office, I told the bank clerk what happened in that BESTBUY WIRELESS store. He told me that, within the last month, it was the second event of the kind he heard of concerning that same business.
March 24, together with my bilingual son, we tried to reach the store BESTBUY WIRELESS at the number written on the receipt [protected]) to have more information about the STORE CREDIT, as instructed by the clerk from Visa Desjardins. This number is inoperative, as recorded on iPad. It was thus impossible to talk to a clerk to allow a resolution of this dispute, enforcing our opinion toward the fraud.