Best Buy Lees Summit

Had a terrible experience at this store. It’s the closest Best Buy to me and so I did frequent it fairly often. About a month ago while going through the open box section and speaking with my girlfriend while on the phone about purchasing a product Best Buy had in the open box section. I asked the manager if it was alright for me to check out the box of the product including going through the box to make sure all the contents that should be in the box were there, also that the serial number matched the box as tons of scams are happening all over on places like FB Market Place etc. I know this because I am an active member on Reddit for these 2 products specifically and see posts fairly often to verify the legitimacy for this particular item. The item I was looking at was about $500-$550 and is of a brand that I have put quite a bit of money into including other purchases at Best Buy. The manager gave me the approval to open and look inside since the two products I was looking at were indeed open boxes and within their dedicated section. While inspecting the two products a security guard by the name of Matt? I believe it was. Bum rushed me accusing me of attempting to steal? They also earlier acknowledged that another product I was already intending to purchase around the price of $150-200 had visibly been opened and torn up but was on the sales floor was a non open box. When I asked them about why it wouldn’t be an open box it is because “all of the contents of the package were in there?” How a product that has everything and has been opened, isn’t an open box and then accusing someone of trying to steal for checking the boxes in the open box section WITH manager APPROVAL is truly beyond me as I fail to comprehend a legitimate reason for behaving like that. As I plead to the manager to tell the security guard he gave me his approval to open the boxes and look inside the security guard snatched the two products from me and started to package them up while the manager began to defend his security guard saying “He see’s both sides and people come in here all the time to steal?”. As an African American Male I can’t but help feel that I was racially profiled. After an embarrassing exchange I was then practically escorted to the front to purchase my product as if to prove I wasn’t lying about buying the product and that I have the money to afford something is one of the most embarrassing and quite frankly racist and belittling of a situation I have ever been in. I will never return to this store again and I write this to warn any minorities that go in there what they may experience while shopping. I did end up purchasing the two products I was accused of stealing totaling about $750 spent and I am happy with them. I will continue to buy the brands of the items I bought. I just will never purchase them from Best Buy again. This happened about a month ago and it’s been weighing on my mind as if I should say something or not, as well as being on the Reddit communities for the two products that I purchased and other users describing being at Best Buy doing the same things I was doing it with the same products, same way as open boxes and none having an experience like mine is the reason for this review.

Staff member we talked to was very informative about the TV's. Very friendly and helpful.

They don’t have enough options for phone cases and screen protectors.

A lot more options in this store than independence location. Friendly staff