A man bought a TV from Best Buy and picked it up in-store. Then he opened it at home to find it smashed with holes: ‘Refused my return’

A man in the United States says Best Buy refused to accept a return after he found his newly purchased TV covered in holes and cracks when he opened it at home. The customer, who posts on Reddit under the username hollowespada, shared photos of the damaged television in a post on the r/mildlyinfuriating forum.

According to the post, the man bought the TV and chose in-store pickup. He said he picked it up the night before discovering the damage and was a member of Best Buy’s Total membership program. The photos posted by the man show a large glass or screen panel with multiple holes and cracks scattered across its surface. The panel appears to still be wrapped in plastic packaging in some of the images.

He returned to the store to ask for a refund or exchange, but says a Geek Squad employee turned him down. “Went back to Best Buy and the geek squad member refused my return and told me to get a hold of the manufacturer,” he wrote in his post.

Best Buy’s policy allows returns for items damaged in shipping

Best Buy’s official policy for damaged or defective items states that customers who receive a product that is “damaged in shipping, defective or that is not the product you ordered” can use self-service options in their order history on BestBuy.com to start a return. The policy also says that if a Best Buy purchase is returned to a store, the company “can arrange for a replacement.” 

The company’s general return and exchange policy states that the return period begins on the day a customer receives their product. For most products, standard members get 15 days to return an item, while My Best Buy Plus and My Best Buy Total members get 60 days. Activatable devices have a shorter window of 14 days for all members, regardless of membership tier.

The Reddit post drew thousands of reactions, with many commenters questioning whether the damage looked accidental. One commenter wrote, “Looks like someone LITERALLY took a hammer to it based on the shape of the holes.” In another purchase-gone-wrong incident, one man bought an RTX 5070 Ti but opened the box to find a two-liter bottle of water instead. 

Another argued that if the damage happened during shipping, “the box would have the same amount of holes in it.” 

Several commenters suggested the TV may have been swapped or damaged by a previous customer before being resold as new. One wrote, “Someone put their tv in the box and treturned it. Credit card dispute 100 percent.” 

Another offered a similar theory: “Someone busted their TV, so they bought a new one. Then, they returned the old TV in the new box.” Best Buy has made headlines for non-customer incidents as well, like the time they lost their famous employee to GameStop. 

Some commenters who said they had worked in retail described past experiences with returns being accepted without proper inspection. One, who said they worked at Best Buy in the late 1990s, wrote that customers would sometimes return boxes containing “newspapers, rocks, and all kinds of crazy shit in place of the product,” and that the phrase “Rocks in the box!” became commonly used at the company as a result.

Other users pointed to serial number mismatches as a possible explanation. One wrote, “And that’s why there’s serial numbers. As long as they match the serial number on the box, receipt, and TV, shouldn’t be an issue.” Another responded that in this case, “no one checked the return,” suggesting the TV the man received may not match the original listing, which could explain why the store treated the return request with suspicion.

Multiple commenters advised the man to escalate the issue by speaking with a store manager or by disputing the charge with his credit card company if the store did not resolve the problem. One wrote, “Ask for a manager, if that doesn’t work, call a bestbuy representative. If that doesn’t work, then do a charge back and leave it there.” Another added, “Yep. This is a chargeback situation. Let the credit card company deal with them.”

It is not clear from the post whether the man has since resolved the issue with Best Buy or received a refund or replacement.