[conspire] Acer 5420-5687

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Bruce Coston (jane_ikari at yahoo.com):

> If its literally a 5420-5687, return it FAST ! The power unit really
> is bad. I'm glad I got mine in but was shocked yet again when they
> refunded my purchase price to my card today.

Again, time to deploy the leverage you gain under Fair Credit
Billing Act, i.e., the right to refuse to pay for defective goods.  In
fact, you should give Best Buy one last chance to do the right thing:
Tell the store manager that he can either accept the return voluntarily,
and refund your purchase to your credit card, or you will be immediately 
denying the charge, such that his company will get charged back, anyway.

Then (if that doesn't suffice), telephone your bank's customer service
number for your credit card (written on the back), describe the
situation, and say you are seeking to deny payment for defective goods.
Ask them for pointers on how to handle this, including the return of
the laptop.

When you're done with that telephone call, you need to compose a brief
(dated, signed) letter to your bank, asserting your FCBA rights and
asserting that you're refusing to pay for this defective merchandise.
(It doesn't hurt to mention the FCBA explicitly.)  Just a telephone call
doesn't adequately protect your rights.  

Your bank is then supposed to investigate.  For most purposes, though,
they tend to just take your word for it and charge back the merchant.
At bare minimum, you won't get the purchase hit for the duration of 
the bank's investigation.

> The lack of both the traditional recovery cd and breakout dongle for
> the enhanced s-video tells me the sale was not sincere initially. Had
> they sold it sincerely, they would have included the dongle to make
> how good the product was more obvious to onlookers.

You're attributing _way_ too much intelligence and intention to Best
Buy.  They just move boxes.  That's what they do.