How To Cancel Best Buy Totaltech And Request A Refund

Canceling a Best Buy Totaltech subscription is easy, but the refund situation is a tad confusing based on how far down the road a membership stands.

BestBuy, one of the last online marketplaces where buying the latest-gen graphics cards doesn’t cost a limb, has given in to the temptation and is pushing the sale of NVIDIA RTX 3000-series GPUs behind a $199 paywall called Totaltech. The company launched its Totaltech subscription service last year, following Amazon Prime’s footsteps, but with a significantly shorter list of benefits compared to Amazon’s offering.

For about two hundred dollars a year, Best Buy Totaltech offers perks such as priority tech support, up to two years of product protection for active subscribers, free 2-day shipping, extended returns for up to two months and access to exclusive pricing for specific products. The lengthy Terms of Services page also mentions “access to exclusive, member-priced offers and limited supply items.” Speaking of limited supply items, the first product that comes to mind is GPUs, thanks in no part to an industry-wide crunch and over-enthusiastic scalpers.

Related: Buy These Tiny GPU Keycaps To Remind You That You Still Need An Actual GPU

However, Best Buy is now forcing its Totaltech subscription on folks planning to buy an RTX 3000 series NVIDIA GPU. The process is easy for those willing to shell out $200 on the subscription to score the latest-gen NVIDIA GPU. Consumers can purchase the membership in-store or online, but it requires customers to provide credit card details since it’s an auto-renewing service. As for cancellation, it’s a tad more complex. Users can cancel a Totaltech membership by calling the 1-888-BEST-BUY (1-888-237-8289) helpline or visiting a Best Buy store. Online cancelation can be done by visiting the service page here.

Refunds Are Harsh

Best Buy will refund the entire amount if the Totaltech subscription is canceled within 60 days of the purchase. However, the company will deduct the discount on a product purchased when the membership was active. Essentially, the benefit of an exclusive deal for Totaltech members will be deducted from the refund amount. Additionally, repair and replacement costs will also be subtracted. The same will happen if a membership is canceled after 60 days. Except, Bust Buy will now calculate the refund amount based on days remaining in the billing year beyond the cancellation date.

Oddly, Best Buy’s FAQ page says full refunds are offered within 30 days, while the January version of the support document puts the deadline at 60 days, as described above. It is unclear which of the terms are the latest one. Therefore, it is advised to directly call the support number mentioned above and confirm the terms before cancelation. Another caveat is that a Totaltech membership covers only one address. Customers who want to take advantage of the benefits at two service addresses need to purchase the Total Tech Support Second Residence Membership for $350.

Worsening The GPU Woes For Buyers

The opportunity to push GPUs behind a subscription wall was too good to resist for Best Buy, it seems. As spotted by Cameron Ritz, who keeps an eye on GPU and console restocks, Best Buy is now restricting sales of NVIDIA RTX 3000-series GPUs to members of its Totaltech program. For buyers patiently waiting in line for the latest graphics cards to drop on Best Buy, they were greeted with an “Exclusive Access Event” page where a pop-up made it clear that buying one of NVIDIA’s latest GPUs is limited to Totaltech subscribers.

Best Buy’s decision is disheartening and sucks for a few reasons. First, graphics cards are in short supply. And that means the scalping business is booming in places like eBay. And, of course, prices have gone up. A quick look at third-party GPU sellers like EVGA and Gigabyte reveals a considerable gap in pricing between the Founders Edition graphics cards and those offered by partner brands. For example, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (10GB) is listed at $700 for its Founders Edition, but EVGA charges a minimum of $870, and the cheapest Gigabyte model of the same GPU goes for $1,030 on Best Buy. Founders Edition NVIDIA GPUs are the most affordable, but the problem is NVIDIA doesn’t sell them directly in the U.S. And in what qualifies as a cruel twist of fate, the only store that stocks Founders Edition NVIDIA GPUs is Best Buy.

One might argue that getting a Totaltech subscription to buy a Founders Edition graphics card would still be a cheaper deal given the current state of GPU pricing in the market. And as buyers climb up the ladder to the beastly RTX 3090, the price gap widens, and the price hike is astronomical. So, of course, not many are happy about Best Buy’s move. But there’s also a silver lining here. A Totaltech subscription paywall might keep bots from scoring all the GPUs when the restocks are in place. However, it won’t be much of a roadblock for scalpers, who can take a $200 hit on their wallet and recoup more than that amount by flipping just one GPU on Etsy or eBay.

Next: NVIDIA’s Cryptomining CMP 170HX GPU Just Launched For An Astronomical Price

Sources: Best Buy (1, 2), NVIDIA, @CameronRitz / Twitter

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About The Author

Nadeem Sarwar
(596 Articles Published)

Nadeem has been writing about consumer technology for over three years now, having worked with names such as NDTV and Pocketnow in the past. Aside from covering the latest news, he also has experience testing out the latest phones and laptops.
When he’s not writing, you can find him failing at Doom eternal.

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