Best Buy wants to annoy you into a converter box, takes the DTV PSAs in-store

For the five percent of you who managed to miss the whole analog TV shutoff debacle, select Best Buy locations will be blaring out hourly PSA-style announcements in-store, just to bring you up to speed. Even if you can't hear the hourly chime of impending analog Armageddon over the din of everyday Best Buy activity, personnel milling about in "DTV Blackout Prevention" tees should clue you in to the fact that something is going on. That's your cue to ask what the big deal is, whereupon your salesperson will encourage you to act without delay to keep the OTA flowing into your eyeballs. If you've put things off this long, though, you'll be able to procrastinate another four months, right? Seriously -- just pick up a new converter box if there's one on the shelf, because we really don't want to postpone the switch again, mkay?

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 12th 2009 8:28PM]

Does Best Buy really think anyone shopping in their store would need a converter box? I highly doubt anyone is going into the store to buy an iPod touch to display next to their rabbit ear television.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 12th 2009 9:05PM]

Are you kidding? Best Buy sells tons of converter boxes. Not everybody that shops Best Buy already owns the latest and greatest.... that's why they're shopping there!

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 12th 2009 9:15PM]

OP = FAIL

Seriously people buy these every single day at the BB I work at....

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 13th 2009 12:13AM]

you would be surprised....i work at a bestbuy in "OC"(CA), where you would expect everyone to be caught up technologically, but i get at least 2 people everyday asking about DTV. Pretty sad if you ask me.....

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 12th 2009 8:41PM]

I wish they would place about 100 of these boxes on every corner of every street in the country. Just give them away....PLEASE! Then, maybe we can move on to some better technology instead of suckin' up to the chronically pre-historic.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 12th 2009 10:13PM]

They're shutting off the analog? Is wheel of fortune on the analog?

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 13th 2009 12:18AM]

Good. Announce it every five minutes. Tell every person who walks in the door. Beat the crap out of people with the boxes. Anything so that the ignorant procrastinators finally get off their asses and catch up with everyone else, so we don't have to go through all this yet again.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 13th 2009 9:47AM]

We sell more converter boxes at our store then any other item each day. We have signs up everywhere, converter boxes stacked in multiple places so they can easily be found and picked up, and the display tv's all play a public service message about them. All the work we have put into making sure everyone gets their hands on a converter box still hasn't slowed down the steady stream of customers looking for one, even less then a week till most of the local stations here at home switch over.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 13th 2009 3:14PM]

Shopping at best buy is already an annoying experience, mainly because of the misinformation constantly doled out to customers around me. The ugly necessity just got uglier.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 13th 2009 3:58PM]

I was born into middle class America 1960's, life was great! Now fast forward 2000's and it is a much different story, just barley making it week to week(just above poverty).

I worked for twenty years supporting my family until I was rear-ended in 2004. Wife had to go out and get a job, (I'm making 1/2 of what I was before 2004). While recovering I learned about DTV and prepared for the change with a very limited income.

27" CRT DTV - $350.oo
7.1 receiver - $250.oo
6.1 speakers - $100.oo
New antenna - $5.00
(built with my own hands, priceless)
Total spent over 3yrs. - $705.oo

I could have just gotten four converter boxes for under $200.oo but living in America, we all have a choice. Life is still GREAT!
(all of our TV's are CRT boob tubes)

hyghwayman

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 13th 2009 10:30PM]

Kinda like selling Hoes to Pimps. Just another reason to avoid the box. lol