Batteries Plus

What an absolutely BRUTAL experience I had with the Batteries Plus branch on Williams St. in Fredericksburg, VA!

I called ahead and spoke with two people, one the manager, about programming an automotive FOB I had purchased.

The Manager told me she could program it and to come in. So I make the 30 minute drive to the store, give he my master key FOB and the new blank OEM Fob to program. She looks up the car programming information, confirms they can program it, and rings up a $75 programming charge, which I think at the time is reasonable.

The exchange is very quick and she sets out to program the car...

About 30 minutes later she comes back inside and says,

"I can't get the FOB to accept the programming."

And proceeds to hand me back my Fob. I ask her if she intends to refund the programming charge which she only now tells me,

"That is not refundable since we are programming your Fob.

But we can program the Fob we sell for this car, but its not in stock."

[Thanks for sharing your policy UPFRONT on your policy of 'no guarantees on programming third party Fobs (which most all are btw)'!]

SO I order a new Fob from them for ANOTHER $75 and drive 30 minutes back home to wait a week until the new Fob shows up. When I get home I discover that a slew of electronic systems in the car have been reset, no doubt to some programming gaff. I am able to straighten them all out and figure I would bring this up when the new Fob arrives...

A week later, the new Fob comes in and another individual phones to tell me the Fob is in. Before I drive down I ask him, "If this Fob does not accept your programming, will you refund the money spent on the programming which I had paid previously?"

He goes away and huddles with his Manager and says that since the programming was paid for the other Fob, they would not refund the programming then either - and this is the Fob I just ordered from them!

But he says, "If it the new Fob does not accept programming they will refund the money on the new Fob, but not the programming."

I explain that makes no sense and that perhaps its best they just refund the money on the Fob so I can save the hour long round trip since my risk remained the same that this was a continued dead end to program a viable Fob. The counter guy on the phone then tells me that I have to come back in anyways to run the card to return the new Fob charge.

I then tell him that since I have to drive back down there now they might as well try and program it since there is nothing to lose at this point. I tell him I will be in in about an hour...

So back I go, and 30 minutes later I walk in the door only to be immediately told that they will not attempt to program the new Fob and will only refund my money for the Fob! Seems they had reservations that they could program the car after all - even with their own Fob.

They could have said that in the first place.

Scam! alert!!

What an absolute waste of time and money believing anything that comes out of the mouths of this bunch. It is simply incredible the level of incompetence surrounding this store.

I have been to other Battery pus branches over the years and this is easily the WORST I have ever been to.

My advise to all reading this review is to:

1.) Ask (many, many) questions upfront because they will not be forthright or upfront with you.

2.) Believe nothing they say, and fact check everything they tell you.

3.) Save your time and money and find an honest vendor that actually gives a damn. These folks absolutely could not care any less - though they do work at that.

Hard, hard, hard PASS!!!

I took my wife's iPhone 13 Pro Max to the Batteries Plus on 41st Street in Tulsa for a screen replacement. The phone was fully functional other than the white screen condition.

On the day of scheduled pickup, they called and said that they screwed up the installation and shorted out the new screen and that they would have to order another screen. The next day I picked it up and it had a completely dead battery. When I charged it and tried to boot it up, it went into a boot loop. I took the phone back to have them correct the problem and they asked me to pay another $95 to replace the charge port.

There was nothing wrong with the charging system when I brought it in, so I told them to forget it and give me the phone back.

I took the phone to Phone Doctors and paid them $40 to look at it only for them to tell me that the phone was beyond repair. Batteries Plus ruined my wife's $1300 phone.

Terrible store, terrible policy. We have been making business purchases with this store for years.

We recently made an online purchase and received notes to pick up. I went to the store to pick up the purchase we paid for online, had to show ID, and was refused my order because the name did not match. Again, it is for a business. How is a business able to obtain an ID if it is not physically an individual?

The manager, Alec, lacks any customer service or people skills. He is absolutely rude and unprofessional. It is better to just order on Amazon than go into this store.

He is too busy texting on his phone to focus on proper customer service. This store will no longer have our business!

The interaction my girlfriend had at this store left me feeling I should report it. I saw the five-star review and asked my girlfriend to go pick up some batteries.

I should have read the reviews and told her who to ask for, because the person she got was not any of the people mentioned in the previous reviews. She believes his name was Shawn; she doesn't remember him introducing himself but someone else said his name, so that's why she believes that's what it is. He didn't seem to have patience for the questions my girlfriend was asking, and it seemed that if she indicated she wasn't going to purchase something, he kept looking away from her. She finally just said 'Thanks for your help,' and he walked away.

She ended up putting everything back and walked out of the store. He went back to talk to a gentleman and, after hearing an inappropriate joke, she was done. Very unprofessional.

Did the manager even interview this person before handing him a job? The store is located at 12700 SW 122nd Ave., Miami, FL.

I called my local Batteries Plus to inquire about screen repair for my iPhone. The person I spoke to told me they would be able to fix my screen.

I said I would be over shortly. When I arrived, the customer service agent said they did not have that screen in stock but would bring one over from the other store on the following day (Sunday). On Sunday, I arrived and completed the paperwork to have the repair. When I returned, I was told that the phone with the new screen was dropped and broken so they put the old screen back on and had ordered another screen to be delivered overnight.

I was to return on Monday for the repair. When I arrived on Monday, I was told by the customer service agent that it was overnighted but overnight didn't apply to Sunday to Monday. I asked why he hadn't called me to explain the delay and he just shrugged. I asked when I should return to be sure that the screen would be there.

He said he wasn't sure but would call me. I inquired about whether I could expect it to be in by Thursday (several days later for an overnight delivery). He said he would call me. I made four round trips to the store and still no fix.

Additionally, I have not received a call from the customer service agent.

This seems fishy to me. How can a company survive with this type of customer service?

Kelly Stout

Calling about an item I purchased at $129.99, I was treated disrespectfully in a way that showed they could not care less about my question or the help needed. Never have I experienced such inefficient and discourteous service.

They lied when they put on a person they said was the store manager, Wil. When I called back a few minutes later to clarify, they said the manager was off that day. The next day I went to the store, asked for Wil (who said his last name was Smith), he said they were just probably having fun. What kind of manager is he?

Wil was totally belligerent, rude and obnoxious. I have happily shopped there for many years. When I told him that, he said the prior manager was in jail.

I can go on and on. The bottom line is that I need to find another store.