1. To provide the appearance of service. (“How can you say we have lousy service? Look at all the convenient locations we offer!”) Sort of like banks.

2. To provide employment to the otherwise unemployable, i.e., Literature majors laid off by Starbuck’s, and Social Science majors fired by McDonald’s.

Having taken a number and waited to be called, I requested a replacement phone. Now the phone is listed in my husband’s name, for obvious reasons. But I am the person who pays for it, and the only person who uses it. They told me the person whose name is listed had to come in for the new phone, no exceptions.

I went to best Buy and got a replacement phone. No problem.

Why do they have those stores? Clearly not to sell products or services.

It hasn’t worked in the past because the right people weren’t in charge, not like this time. This time, they’ll really really try harder and turn the volume up to eleventy, so you just watch, it’s gonna work.

More recently we went back to the store (now AT&T, of course) where we’d bought our LGs and spoke with a rep who had previously worked for the franchisee where we’d gotten what can only be described as unhelp with our service problem (long and complicated story, Charles has already read the details several times), and had quit there and gotten hired by this other franchise.

In the end though, we wound up buying new phones at Best Buy, on a whim, because we’d gone in with soon-to-expire rewards points looking for a whim to strike, and that’s where it struck.

So, the Princess might try going back, finding out what other stores the same owner operates, and then find one that’s not on that list.