I received an early Christmas gift this morning as I was quoted in the Wall Street Journal. Luckily it was not for fraud, embezzlement or insider trading...
Earlier in the week I helped creat a bit of a media firestorm here in the USA outlining my experiences with Best Buy, a US based electronics retailer.
My wife and I had made a purchase (we thought) on their website during the Black Friday (post Thanksgiving) sales period and beleived that our ordered goods would arrive before Christmas.
One week before Christmas we were notified that they were out of stock and that our order was being cancelled. This got me a bit unhappy and I wrote to Best Buy and also posted on their customer forum. I did not get any response from the company except an automatic e-mail telling me under their sites TOS that I was out of luck. This response made me angry.
I wrote about 10 e-mails to media outlets and reporters...on Monday a reporter picked up my story (The Street.com) and the Associated Press picked up the story and then things got a little crazy...Several papers, radio stations and even some TV stations picked up the story.
Best Buy contacted me and made a low ball offer which I rejected explaining that all I wanted was my original order at the original price...within 8 hours they agreed. But the media whipped into a Christmas shopping frenzy kept going. Best Buy then also offered me a gift card (which actually covered the cost of my item).
About this time, the WSJ called for an interview...so now I have been quoted in the WSJ (a bucket list thing of mine) and I won't have to do jail time either. A Christmas Miracle!
I am satisfied with the resolution, I was not happy to have to go to the media but in the end got more than I bargained for. I am still amazed at the speed and power od electronic communication.
Google (US version) my name and Best Buy and you will get the idea.
An important lessoned learned is be careful what you do electronically as it might lead to unintended and unexpected outcomes...in my case they were all good but for Best Buy it was not so good. All because of a handful,of e-mails.
Just kidding 
