Bye, Bye CompUSA

I can't say that I was surprised at all to hear that CompUSA was going away real soon. I've had one near me for years, but the last time I was there was probably a decade ago, and they were a nightmare. Here's my CompUSA tale.

I was looking for some dirt cheap rebate item I had seen in the circular. You know, one of their "loss leaders" just to get ya in the store. It was August, and the store was mobbed with back to school sales going on. After wandering around the quite crowded store twice, I couldn't find the item I came for, and asked someone with a name tag. Turned out he was the Intel rep that was promoting his company's desktops talking trash that only a Genuine Intel chip could run Windows (ha!) and such nonsense.

Anyway, when I went up to customer service, they informed me that they never had the item, but were getting it in "real soon." I was told to write my name and address into this spiral notebook, and they would let me know when the item arrived. I never did find out if I would still get it at the rebate price or not. The notebook was stuffed with page after page of names. I wrote mine down, and left the store.

In the parking lot, I decided that when I never heard from them, I wasn't coming back, and I would find another place to leave my cash at. Needless to say, CompUSA never contacted me. A few weeks later, I got my first (of many) Microcenter circulars, and the rest is history.

Am I sorry to see CompUSA go? Not at all.

--Jonas