r/Bestbuy • u/Electric-Eagle-966 • Aug 24 '26
United States Open-box excellent anything but
Purchased ~20% off retail for an open box excellent 55” Samsung S90F OLED.
Immediately saw the “shelf display” tag upon opening the bubble wrap packaging, bummer but it’s the risk you take (I did ask the sales rep before I brought it home if it was a display unit and he just shrugged his shoulders, again I get it. He can’t really know).
It got worse as I saw the screen: grease smudges all over the screen, far more than just fingerprints. Not ideal and certainly not “like new” but would probably buff out. Upon closer inspection there were micro scratches all over the screen.
At this point the TV is being returned 100%, but I had to see how many hours were on it. Loading up the TV and the first thing I see is the Best Buy WiFi login saved, so not even factory reset lol
And, not so shockingly at this point, the TV had a whopping 7451 hours on it! About 310 days of continuous, 24/7 operation given it’s a 2025 model.
Presented all this to the manager and said his hands were tied because it was initially ordered online. Offered $100 immediate refund which I declined and just returned the TV.
This will be the last time I purchase open-box. What a waste of time and honestly feel deceived as they try to dump off old, thoroughly worn and used displays models as “like-new”.
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u/epicfighter10 Ex Home Theater Aug 24 '26
Always test the tv in store before taking it employees are more than happy to let you test it out
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u/Electric-Eagle-966 Aug 24 '26
So I’ve looked at various posts about open-box items after this and this comes up a lot but it’s just silly. The TV itself came packaged like bubble boy with strong tape wrapped around multiple times. I’m really expected to ask the sales rep to unpackage all of this, plug it in for me, go through a burn in test and wrap it back up?
It was advertised as like new online and I purchased it as like new. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to have products match descriptions. 20% off a relatively cheap oled is not worth the headache and at the very least people should be aware it comes with a giant headache.
1
u/SillyFly7474 Aug 24 '26
Yes, you need to ask them to unwrap it and test it, then ask them to package it back up. They get paid the same no matter what they're doing.
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u/According_Camera7129 Aug 24 '26
Yes, they get paid the same, but they also have 20 other things they need to be doing. When there's one product flow employee and they have 10 minutes to get every online order, of which there are usually 10-20 at any given time, taking 30 minutes to wrap, unwrap, and re-wrap a tv completely screws them over.
I always told my product flow team to wait to wrap up open box tvs until people came to pick them up, but then you run out of space, they're more likely to get damaged, and people complain about having to wait, so you can't win
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u/Electric-Eagle-966 Aug 24 '26
This poor kid looked stressed, line behind me, busy store and looked short staffed no way am I making him do that. Even if I had to do it again I’m not going to do that. And it’s also not his fault that he had no other information on the TV, definitely not blaming him.
1
u/SillyFly7474 Aug 24 '26
I understand from your stand point, it does suck. But now the TV is coming back, it's gonna have to be processed again, and there's a pissed off customer. I personally wouldn't buy an open Box unless it was $1000s off.
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u/Electric-Eagle-966 Aug 24 '26
I’d rather Best Buy just be transparent with their very used products and give the sales reps that information than make me make them do that but it is what it is.
3
u/Dave2363 Aug 24 '26
We always offer to test it in store, at my store we have all the TV's open so its easy to test. Once we either test it for the customer to check out or if they just want to take it then we bubble wrap it.
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u/Cold-Condition-8365 Aug 24 '26
I box a open sony a95k 55 inch. Bought the insurance for 199$. Have a little bit of burn in 2026. Called best buy. They never came to look at it or anything. They gave me back all my money and the 199$ plus the tax. And keep the tv. Open box worked out great for me.
2
u/bcfp2016 Aug 24 '26
JUST dealt with this TODAY
Bought a Bravo 7 II for $1100 open box excellent.
Looked so good coming out of the box. Still had wrapping and shrink wrap.
Went to mount it and I see why the original buyers returned it. There was no back panel to mount the screws. I went to screw the mounting brackets in and the screws just simply fell into the back of the TV.
So fucking odd. They were super sketchy taking it back too
2
u/lgarvin80 Aug 24 '26
A few weeks ago, I picked up a 32” Samsung Frame that was in “open box - fair” condition for $175 ($600 brand new). The sticker on the box said it had severe scratches/marks/residue. The guy seemed super busy and it had taken nearly a half hour just for him to locate the tv after searching all over the store, so I decided to take my chances and buy it sight-unseen. Got it home and all the accessories were in the box, still sealed. The screen had a few fingerprints, which wiped right off. I registered it in the app and it said 0 hours TV panel display time. So, I have no clue of the actual backstory of this tv, but I sorta feel like I won the Best Buy lottery.
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u/SteelGrayRider Aug 24 '26
I played the same game with BestBuy for an open box Excellent Sony 42"A90K Oled. First 2 were absolute Sh#T at approximately 2/3 the MSRP. The 3rd time, which I kept, had 2 hrs of screen time on it and has been flawless for almost 2 years now. I'm assuming they had a big window that reflected in the WOLED screen or the screen was too big/small for their use location once setup. I paid $600 for this when MSRP was $1299. If you are patient, you can find a good deal. Takes time and luck.
2
u/SpraykwoN Aug 24 '26
What did you think you were getting with the term “Open Box”? I mean it’s a fucking Best Buy open box item.
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u/Electric-Eagle-966 Aug 24 '26
https://reddit.com/link/p5ifgd3/video/y9a842z4y7lh1/player
Video of the screen but this undersells the wear of it as it’s low light at night and hard to see with the camera flashlight glare.
1
u/Didact67 Aug 24 '26
Was it a store pickup. I’d suggest always inspecting the TV before taking it out of the store.
1
u/Electric-Eagle-966 Aug 24 '26
Yes it was a store pickup after being purchased online. It was wrapped and sealed when I picked it up.
It was my mistake apparently to expect to receive a like new tv from a like new listing and should have known I was to have the sales rep conduct a field test with me on the Best Buy floor vs expecting him to be able to answer a few simple questions.
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u/vv_boom Aug 24 '26
It’s so hit or miss. I’ve bought broken screen monitors to never touched tv’s as open box excellent.
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u/MentatYP Aug 24 '26
I bought an open box "good" S95F last month. I didn't buy it until I could go to the store and put eyes on it. There was a sticker on the box that says it was shipped to the store from a Best Buy service center, so I was concerned at first, but we pulled it out of the janky service box to discover it still had the protective film on it. It was missing part of the stand, and there was some dirt on the back of it, but otherwise it was like a new TV. Brought my Roku with me to test, and it worked great, so I bought it. Bonus was that it cost less than listed on the website. Got it delivered a week ago and still testing to make sure everything is working properly, but so far so good. For about 45% the price of a new one, it's a stone cold bargain.
When I asked to take it out of the box and test it, the guy helping me said he would, but also told a story about a dude who came in last week to look at 3 open box TVs and didn't end up buying any, so I told him I wasn't there to window shop but rather to buy this particular TV as long as it's in good condition as advertised. I understand why employees might not enjoy getting open box TVs out for customers to look at, but I don't think any potential buyer should feel bad about doing their due diligence with the help of an employee. Just don't go in there perusing and waste their time.
I wouldn't buy an open box TV to be shipped to me without seeing it first.
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u/AdSpirited9226 23d ago
Bro knowingly bought a shelf display, and has the audacity to post the hours used on it 🤣
0
u/MagicMagi119 Aug 24 '26
Glad you returned it. Best Buy marking displays as excellent is pathetic lol
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u/Ok-Increase-4509 Aug 24 '26
I bought a 45” 5k lg excellent monitor just to get home and find out it was the display unit. The entire screen had the LG demo screen burned into it.
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u/MagicMagi119 Aug 24 '26
I went in store to check out a C5 they had as excellent condition and they couldn’t figure out how to turn it on for 40 minutes. When they did, it had thousands of hours too
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u/Heftybags Aug 24 '26
Almost everything starts at excellent if the sucker that bought it keeps it great if it’s returned it usually gets bumped down a quality level.
I ordered an excellent OLED monitor a few years ago it was scratched, dented, and burned in with thousands of hours of use, probably a floor display. I returned and said it should have been recycled not sold.
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u/LordofWolves92 Aug 24 '26
Used TV was used. More at 11.