Best Buy & Geek Squad Policies

[Snowtrax]

I currently have two laptops at the Geek Squad.  The first one they have had for five weeks and they have replaced just about everything on it.  It is only one year old.  But that is another story.  My laptop is 3 years old and I had the protection plan on it.  I took it in to have the fan replaced as it was not working.  It had passed every test they ran on it.  They fixed the fan  and when I brought it home it had been put together wrong as the LCD made a noise everytime I opened and closed it.  I took it back in and they sent it out.  After dropping it off I called and told them to just fix the hinges - I did not want any tests run or anything else done to it because of the nightmare I have been going through with the other laptop.  I checked the repair status today and find out it is being exchanged.  I called the store to inform them that I wanted my hard drive back and was told this was impossible - that it had been junked.  Needless to say I am very upset over the handling of my laptops by the Geek Squad Repair Center.  A hard drive should be returned to the owner because of all the valuable information on it.  I feel they had no right to just junk my laptop without my consent and I also feel that a hard drive should be returned. 

[kodave]

Wow that is awful.

I'd never leave my laptop with an organization that would junk my harddrive without telling me, or without backing it up to a new harddrive first, ESPECIALLY when the problem was with the LCD SCREEN.

Think of all the highly sensitive and confidential work they may have junked for you. Or all the memories in terms of pictures of your children or something.

Simply awful.

Not only should Best Buy refund you the cost for this "service," they should give you a new hard drive for free and compensate you heavily for trashing all of your personal data without your permission. 

[Snowtrax]

Thanks - Just to clarify, I do have the 3 year warranty so it is not costing me anything.  I would gladly pay to have my data put on the new laptop but they aren't even willing to listen.  According to them (at the store) there is no way to retrieve the hard drive which I know is not true.  Never would I have ever envisioned that this would have occurred when all it had was broken hinges (broken by them on the previous repair).

[Elizabeth-BBY Community Supervisor]

Hi snowtrax,

I've asked Matthew, one of our Geek Squad Community Connectors, to look into this and follow up with you.  You should hear from him shortly.

Thanks for your patience,

[Matthew-GS Retired: Community Advocate]

Welcome, Snowtrax!

I regret your service experience was anything less than inspiring. I imagine that hearing the term "junk out" (a now antiquated phrase) is enough to make most people panic a bit.  Others have reacted similarly in cases where a product exchange is the unexpected outcome. When customers view their service request to be an "easy repair" or not related to their hard drive, they often may not consider that the cost of repair could outweigh replacement and connect that with a need to backup data.  I apologize for any confusion or frustration that may have resulted; I welcome your input.  What do you feel we should do differently for customers, especially if a data backup is declined at the time of drop off?

Thank you for also reaching out to me in a private message. Please check for my reply to learn about the partnership with your local store for a possible data backup resolution. You should be able to process the exchange normally and without delay. I hope you enjoy your new computer and will continue to participate in the forums.  Feel free to keep us updated on your progress.

[Snowtrax]

Matthew,

Thank you so very much for your prompt reply to my message and my posting.  I have not heard from the store yet but hopefully they will call today.  Perhaps a more detailed explanation when people drop off their computers would be in order.  In my case it was just the hinges that were broken so I would never have envisioned they would toss the whole laptop and not return the hard drive.  Maybe  a policy should be made to give people the option of having their hard drive returned should it be replaced - possibly a fee up front to have this done.  However, it should be made clear when the computer is dropped off.  If the agent had told me any of this when I dropped it off, I would have taken it back home to back everything up.  Also more communication is needed.  My other laptop was at the Geek Squad for almost six weeks and nothing was posted from 6/18/09 to 7/15/09.  Between the two it was quite a frustrating experience.  I do think some sort of policy should be put in place in regard to hard drives.  Again thank you so much for your help.  It was a pleasure dealing with you.  I will let you know how I make out with our local store.

[Snowtrax · Accepted solution]

Just wanted to let Matthew know that I finally got my hard drive back from the store today.  It is nice to have a forum like this to help with problems one is having - in my case with the Geek Squad.  Again thank you so much.

[Nokia]

In the future, you should always have everything backed up at all times. When you eventually need your backup, you won't be able to make one!