MicroCenter, One CPU... For Life

C

Cecil

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jun 17, 2009
Messages
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MicroCenter's CPU policy used to just be one per person of that specific CPU. Then it was one CPU period for 30 days.

Sunday I went and bought a 4770K. Today I went to pick up a Pentium G2020 for my Grandmother's PC. The manager told me they would make an exception and let me buy it, but no more. Their new policy is you get to buy ONE CPU, and that's it, you can never buy another from them again. Convo was essentially as followed.

Manager : One CPU per person.
Me : This is a different CPU then I bought the other day.
Manger : New policy is one per person, any CPU.
Me : For how long? 30 Days?
Manager : No, ever.
Me : So I can never buy another CPU from here again?
Manager : Nope. They are on sale, and we have to make sure there are enough for everyone to get one. (then walks away)



Now there are ways around this (come when a different manger is on shift, send family/friend, etc...) but Im still finding this just crazy. Their idea is to get people in the door to buy other parts while they are there. Well what if someone buys a Haswell and parts needed for a build, then wants to come back in two years to buy parts for whatever is new then?

I wasn't just buying a CPU either, I did a top to bottom full new build based on the G2020 for $365. Sunday I got CPU, Mobo, Case, BD-RW for $600.


MicroCenter is going down the toilet imo. At least the NE Ohio location in Mayfield Heights.
 
I've never had them bring this up when buying from them and I've bought hundreds of cpus over the years(builds for other people and small office setups). I would suggest calling their corporate headquarters and requesting the official policy in writing. It sounds to me like the manager is trying to protect his profit sharing bonus by trying to refuse to sell you a discounted item (less margin counted towards his profit). It just doesn't make any logical business sense to limit a potential customer to 1 discounted cpu per lifetime when most of us only shop there for the combo deals period.
 
Sounds like manager's discretion to me. Thankfully my store in Dallas has no such policy!
 
I bought a 3570K last year and I just picked up a 4770K... no issues whatsoever. I did encounter one rude manager at a store, but everyone else was helpful during my shopping run.
 
I don't know about current processors there, but when I bought my i7 920 which was $199.99, they were actually selling them at a loss to try to get you to buy other stuff. Not many bought other stuff, ha.
 
King Icewind said:
I don't know about current processors there, but when I bought my i7 920 which was $199.99, they were actually selling them at a loss to try to get you to buy other stuff. Not many bought other stuff, ha.
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I think that's the problem. In fact, I saw a decent amount of fairly priced stuff there, and I bought a few just to make up for the discount. They had a xornet for $20 AR, and fairly cheap peripheral devices.

If you're going to buy it online anyway, why not buy it in-store for near the same price and keep microcenter going with these CPU sales?
 
King Icewind said:
I don't know about current processors there, but when I bought my i7 920 which was $199.99, they were actually selling them at a loss to try to get you to buy other stuff. Not many bought other stuff, ha.
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Yeah their CPU deals used to be a lot better. Now they are same price or $10 less then online, except for the most popular ones, but even they aren't hugely discounted anymore.
 
That can't be right.

lol, I can see the convo going like this:

Me: Yeah, I'd like to buy that 4770k please
Mgr: Sorry sir, says here you purchased a Pentium 200mmx on January 8th, 1997. Have a nice day.
 
this policy sounds ridiculous, I would bet on the manager just being very misinformed.
 
How are they going to know you bought more then one, did they check your purchase history based on your address at the register?
 
ND40oz said:
How are they going to know you bought more then one, did they check your purchase history based on your address at the register?
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It's actually linked to your credit card. They pulled up my info when they swiped.
 
ND40oz said:
So if you paid cash or used a different card they wouldn't know?
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I think if you paid cash and specifically requested not to give out personal info, I think they would have absolutely no way to track you.

I gave my number before when I paid with my credit card so now it's linked in the system, I suppose. But they never gave me any issue buying at my store so I don't really care.
 
unusualfire said:
If i was paying cash I would refuse to give them any info.
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My father tried that once at the Yonkers store in NY, they refused to sell him the item without it. I gave them mine instead.


One issue is a lot of the new combo deals require a manager (for $X off ram, hdd, etc with CPU purchase) and also if you want a mobo/cpu combo on an open box item, it requires a manager too. After enough times doing that, the managers will recognize you.
 
pay with cash keep your receipt, they don't know who you are nor can they ever reasonably enforce such a policy. You can tell them any BS phone number and email you want. In reality what probably really happened was he looked at your cart saw you were only getting the CPU and made that up on the spot. Want to get around that, easy too, just buy something else, then walk back in the store and return it. When is see loss leaders sometimes I just throw a bunch of junk in my cart and I get great service then right before I check out I unload it. Amazing what a difference in treatment you get.

If MC wants this to work right they should just make the policy work better, IE say you can get a cpu and motherboard combo with the purchase of RAM. Anyhow YMMV because at my MC sometimes they tell me about another really hot deal I am missing.
 
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ive bought over 10 3570k's and about 3 3770k's and 2 4770ks and never had a issue. all under my name when they ask. weird
 
Sounds like you have an asshole manager at that store. Contact corporate and let them know what happened. I bet they go out of their way to make you happy.
 
Stiletto said:
Sounds like you have an asshole manager at that store. Contact corporate and let them know what happened. I bet they go out of their way to make you happy.
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Good luck with this, if you do it. I emailed corporate a few weeks ago about when I was in buying some new monitors. 15 min, no help from anyone. I was considering a 27" and 2 23", instead of the 3 23" I went with, but wanted to see where some of the models were in boxes, and there were some in boxes that I couldn't find a display of.

I emailed corp, no word from anyone. It's been about 3 weeks now. Bastards.
 
rudy said:
In reality what probably really happened was he looked at your cart saw you were only getting the CPU and made that up on the spot. Want to get around that, easy too, just buy something else, then walk back in the store and return it. When is see loss leaders sometimes I just throw a bunch of junk in my cart and I get great service then right before I check out I unload it. Amazing what a difference in treatment you get.
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"I wasn't just buying a CPU either, I did a top to bottom full new build based on the G2020 for $365"
 
if this is actually their policy, I have to say its the stupidest business policy I have ever heard of....they are essentially turning away business, and I dont think that's a valid plan for any business on Earth.

That manager has to have misunderstood the policy he is enforcing, or he is just plain stupid
 
Just wear a fake mustache next time.

"Hey, weren't you here buying a CPU earlier?"
"Nope. I have a mustache."
 
makes me glad I got my 4770k from SabrePC for $310 shipped, Don't think I'll be visiting microcenter again if this is true for all stores.
 
Jeffman said:
Good luck with this, if you do it. I emailed corporate a few weeks ago about when I was in buying some new monitors. 15 min, no help from anyone. I was considering a 27" and 2 23", instead of the 3 23" I went with, but wanted to see where some of the models were in boxes, and there were some in boxes that I couldn't find a display of.

I emailed corp, no word from anyone. It's been about 3 weeks now. Bastards.
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You may have better luck posting to their Facebook page or engaging them on Twitter if you have a decent number of followers.
 
Odd, I have never had any issues with MC.

In fact, the Atlanta store I bought stuff from even let me do a return/exchange, via fed ex, back to the store for a bad motherboard. I live in Nashville, and bought on a trip thru Atlanta. The board I got (free with cpu purchase, no less) was bad. The manager allowed me to return the bad board, and traded to a different board (different manufacturer) no additional charge. Made sure I got the rebate for the new board, too (which covered the shipping cost on my end. They free shipped the replacement board.) New board, it was not a refurb.

Not a month ago, I bought a new laptop online. Ordered Sunday. It shipped Monday, and was delivered Tuesday. No, I did not request, nor did I pay for, expedited shipping. And it was $150 less than all online sellers...

I think the manager was trolling. Or misinterpreted a memo. Or just didn't like you buying a loss leading item so soon after another.
 
Yeah, never use email to contact a company with a complaint. If you want immediate action you have to call them. If you don't like confrontation like that, find a friend or better yet a bitchy wife to call them and you will get quicker results.

As far as MC, I bet it has to be either a mistake or a mistaken manager. Hell I have purchased like 9 cpu's from the Minneapolis store at one time and the guy at the register just made me do all single purchases.
 
Microcenter is crap and I don't know why any of you give them money.

I bought a POS Gigabyte Z68XP board there when I killed my Asus (my fault, though I fixed it with a hardware flasher that I used to fix the bad BIOS flash) on the salesperson's recommendation (why I took a salesperson's recommendation is another matter.. dumb me.. I don't need their recommendations really). First board DOA. Brought it back, asked to get an Asus which cost more; said I'd pay the difference. Was told no returns on the Gigabyte. Was told I was told that when I bought it (this was by the service manager, to whom I was being polite) which was simply not true. There was no sign and I was not notified. It did say it on the receipt (which I brought, but didn't look at) but by that point it had already been too late for me to know. Ended up just swapping the board for another one which did work but it was a buggy POS board which would not even keep my CPU settings in the BIOS; they reverted to default when I changed other settings. I HATED that Z68XP board.

Ended up telling the manager that if I'd ordered from Newegg like I would normally do, they'd have let me go to Asus. He said to order from Newegg in the future then. I did NOT bring that up at all until the very end of our 20-minute conversation.

I will never go back to Microcenter. They can take their stone-age BS no-return policy and stick it where the sun don't shine. The crap they pulled on OP seems even worse than the crap they pulled on me, too.

This was at the Cambridge, MA location.
 
lol thats the one I go to, I only have ever bought CPU's there though
 
^ IMHO, a company shouldn't put an email address up for contact if they don't monitor/reply to them. They're basically saying to consumers "If you want us to do anything about your comments, you need to call or come in and throw a fit, because we don't care otherwise".

And that's exactly the opposite of what they should teach consumers to do. Having spent 5 year in Geek Squad, I can tell you first hand that people need to learn how to respect the retail employees. Yelling at them is only going to make your case worse. I'd bend over backwards to the people who addressed a problem with respect, and those who just got upset I'd usually never budge on anything. Unless of course it was our mistake.
 
I agree with all the people who say the manager is a prick.
I live near Chicago and have bought probably a dozen or more cpus and combos in the last year alone. Always use my debit card and nobody has ever hassled me.
 
dandragonrage said:
Microcenter is crap and I don't know why any of you give them money.

I bought a POS Gigabyte Z68XP board there when I killed my Asus (my fault, though I fixed it with a hardware flasher that I used to fix the bad BIOS flash) on the salesperson's recommendation (why I took a salesperson's recommendation is another matter.. dumb me.. I don't need their recommendations really). First board DOA. Brought it back, asked to get an Asus which cost more; said I'd pay the difference. Was told no returns on the Gigabyte. Was told I was told that when I bought it (this was by the service manager, to whom I was being polite) which was simply not true. There was no sign and I was not notified. It did say it on the receipt (which I brought, but didn't look at) but by that point it had already been too late for me to know. Ended up just swapping the board for another one which did work but it was a buggy POS board which would not even keep my CPU settings in the BIOS; they reverted to default when I changed other settings. I HATED that Z68XP board.

Ended up telling the manager that if I'd ordered from Newegg like I would normally do, they'd have let me go to Asus. He said to order from Newegg in the future then. I did NOT bring that up at all until the very end of our 20-minute conversation.

I will never go back to Microcenter. They can take their stone-age BS no-return policy and stick it where the sun don't shine. The crap they pulled on OP seems even worse than the crap they pulled on me, too.

This was at the Cambridge, MA location.
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When was this? I had bought a defective Gigabyte board from them (Cambridge MC) about a year ago and they swapped it in store with no issue.
 
TO be honest, I think this in a way, because I'm tired of people picking them up cleaning out the shelves, then reselling them for a profit, sometimes I've gone to pick up a CPU and they are out of stock and get informed that someone bought a ton. So in a way it's good.
 
I want to love microcenter, because its a neat place to go look at cool hardware -- but honestly the closest store to me is a 2.5 hour drive one way and its no where near as nice as the tiger direct store by my parents.

The lines to check out are flat our retarded too. they had two cashiers and line that snaked through half the store both times i was there. except for the cpu/motherboard combo the deals arent that great anyway.
 
I had no issues getting a 2nd deal in Atlanta.

Also, Fry's will price match the non-combo deals. Again, in Atlanta.
 
Never had a problem with MC and from this thread it doesn't sound like its a standard thing yet. For the moment, I will continue to shop at MC as usual.
 
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