Radio Shack — the thrilling conclusion!

Part One: Radio Shack sucks
Part Two: Radio Shack, part two

And just like that, we have resolution.

Well, in a matter of speaking, we have a resolution that only Radio Shack could be truly happy with. Scott, the District Manager who sent me a letter just a few days ago, gave me a call hours after I had sent my email. This was a surprise – I had figured, in my pessimistic way, that he would sit on my number until Monday, when he would have a decent amount of time to come up with excuses.

“I don’t want to make any excuses,” he said – almost right off the bat. “I wanted to call and apologize in person.” Scott, in his effort to win me over, told me everything I wanted to hear; they handled my concerns in a most untimely matter, they should have done more in getting a docking station for me, and that Derrick and the store really dropped the ball in communicating with me and keeping me updated on what was happening in their search. He explained how, over Thanksgiving, the demand for the Orbiter was more than they had imagined and they had sold 40% of their holiday stock during that post-Thanksgiving rush.

“As a company, we really messed this one up.”

I’d agree.

Scott also explained that he understood where I was coming from. I said that the one thing that really burned me up was that we were never given any options at all on what to do to find one, aside from checking on ebay, where they were going for 80 dollars (and still are, I might add). I told him that I had to call Sirius themselves to get any information on it, and documented my quest to find a docking station. He then mentioned to me that, truth be told, he had never even realized that Flying J was selling the exact same item under the Streamer name. I then commented on my Streamer power cord.

I appreciated the call. I would be lying if I said I didn’t. Scott did everything he could to win me back, and, in all honesty, it’s just a grudge now. I say that I won’t shop there, but I’m sure that somewhere, years down the line, I’ll need an RCA adapter and I’ll end up darkening their doorstep again. It certainly won’t be by my choice, but it’ll happen.

Finally, just so I don’t get a lot of “why didn’t you buy the docking station and sell it on ebay” comments, my decision to leave it there was three fold: first, regardless of what I made on the item, I would still be giving Radio Shack $50; second, I would end up screwing possibly two people – both someone in town who needed a docking station and someone on the internet who was too stupid to go to Flying J; and third, selling things on ebay is too much trouble.

Anyway, I’m glad to say that Radio Shack and I have parted ways, amicably, and we’ll quite possibly never cross paths again.

Though, now where will I get my remote control cars?