Best Buy & Geek Squad Policies

[Complaint]

I recently purchased a Sony Vaio from Best buy (less than a year ago).  I've had no problems with it except for yesterday when I got the blue screen.  When I called the Best Buy national number, the person I spoke with diagnosed the problem, put it into the central system, and said the local best buy should not take more than 2 hours to fix it. After going to the best buy, I was met by a geek squad member. 

Here are the sequence of statements: 

"There is nothing in the system about your problem. Are you sure you called"

"The battery is not charged" - Completely wrong because its obvious the battery is fully charged

"The power cord doesn't work" - Wrong again since both the battery and power cord were brand new. Such genious

"We can try and fix it by 10 pm tonight if you put a rush order but its usually 5 to 7 days" First piece of good news"

Costs: 150 for rush, 200 for diagnose and repair, another 150 for rush for document backup, 100 for document backup" – that’s half the price of my computer 

The genius then talks to a coworker for a bit and comes back, rings me up and says (as an after thought) come pick up your laptop tomorrow.  I almost yelled "tomorrow? - you told me tonight".  His response - "I'm so sorry I made a mistake" 

Anyhow, I had wasted time and had no choice so I left the store feeling depressed because of all the money I spent. 

While in the cab, I tried to call Sony. They told me that this was a simple problem and that I should in no way pay 600 for it.  So I went back to best buy with the Sony guy on the line and he walked me through it.  

My computer turned on and started working in 35 minutes flat.  I will never shop at Best buy again. Such absurdity.  600$ for a 30 minute job.  Are you serious?  And the geek squad really really needs some revamping.

[jimmy1]

In a similar boat here. I recently purchased an Acer notebook from Best Buy, cost $600. I took it home, did a full backup to DVD, and disposed on Windows Vista by installing Ubuntu 8.10 64 bit edition. I was very pleasantly surprised when everything worked right away, usually when I install linux on a laptop I have to fiddle with drivers for a while to get everything working, not with the Acer I bought. Every last piece of hardware worked flawlessly right after the install was finished. So far so good right??

On day 16 of owning the laptop it refused to boot up, it wouldn't boot from an install disc either, nor the recovery discs that I had made on day one. Every third or fourth attempt at booting the screen would freeze on the splash screen and a "white wash" sort of effect would slowly creep across the lcd. I took it in to best buy and the geek squad. Of course since it was beyond the 14 day return period they wouldn't just give me a new one. They wanted to charge me $160 to do a data backup of my hard drive. The rep did witness the "white wash" effect and felt it must be hardware related. So he advised me that they would have to send the laptop in to Acer for repairs. I would have my brand new machine I had only owned for 16 days back in 2 1/2 weeks at best, longer than I have owned it. I asked for them to have the Acer tech give me a call before making any changes to the machine. Of course I never recieved a call. I have had to call several times just to find out where the laptop was since the geek squad website doesn't update what's happening with your service order. After it had been gone for a week and a half it still said recieved in store and awaiting shipment. I called yesterday to once again try and find out where my laptop was and was informed that it was on it's way back from Acer, it should arrive either Thursday or Friday of this week, I never recieved a call or email from Acer. I asked what had been done to the laptop. The geek squad employee informed me that they had done nothing to it as they could not get it to duplicate the problem.

I informed the geek squad rep that if it didn't boot up when I picked it up this week they would be refunding me the entire purchase price or getting me a new laptop off the shelf.

I will never buy another item of any kind from Best Buy or bring anything to a Geek Squad rep for repairs, your people couldn't diagnose their way out of a paper bag.

Message Edited by jimmy1 on 12-10-2008 03:10 PM

Message Edited by jimmy1 on 12-10-2008 03:13 PM

[POIUYTAEN]

That is standard operating procedure for the geeks at BB.  Demand money, do nothing or damage the system, tell the customer it is ready, and start over again. 

[woaikonglong]

I had a similar experience two years ago. My computer was plugged in, but still not receiving power, yet the little light on the power cord was lit. How can this be? The people at geek squad probably will know the answer. I take it there and after three hours they deduce that my motherboard has slipped and needs to be replaced. My response is why not slip it back? Well, they say that it doesn't work like that. I know a bit about computers and know that sometimes that is the case. They then tell me that it will be $600 for the replacement, $50 for diagnosis, and $150 for installation. I quickly do the math and ask the person to walk with me, which they did. I took them to the laptop isle, and point to a computer and say that a new one is 3/4s the cost of the repair and if they were insane. I go back to the counter with the moron, and ask for my computer back, they say I still need to pay the $50 for diagnosis and whether it would be cash or charge. I did not carry that kind of cash around with me back then, still don't and didn't own a credit card then. What to do? I fess up- no money. The guy goes and gets the boss, who asks how old I was and since I was under 18 at the time which is the required age to seek the geek they let me off the hook since the diagnosis only took a matter of minutes and the rest of that time was the guy f***ing around playing Halo. I needed my laptop so I went to a Toshiba technician three hours away, and while it took a month for the $40 new power cord (you see the power was getting to the adapter, but not from the adapter to the computer) to arrive, I was a much happier person (less fuel charges).

Earlier this year I had a problem where my RAM was failing and my 250 was down to 90 and dropping fast. they charged me $350 for a 2 gig stick and installation since they said I would not be able to do it myself, upon seeing them snap it in within15 seconds I wanted to throttle them! $350 for a 15 second snap? Okay, I'll be nice, he also spent 5 minutes virus scanning my computer, a further minute to read which type of RAM I needed and 1 and a half minutes to go and grab it off the shelf. Get real! The guy was lucky vehicular homicide is a crime!

Now I am having a similar experience to my first trip to geeksquad. I have not gone and since the toshiba support center is now seven hours from where I currently live, I feel my options are running low. However, my fear is not the fact that I may have to disuade the geeky morons from making money in favor of fixing the simpler and cheaper problem, my fear is the fact that my motherboard really has slipped this time, and I am running out of patience. I will never trust the geeks unless I have to, and will almost always go to the second opinion people first!

[Richard]

I am curious as to the training the geek squad gets. I was on the phone because in the middle of my new machine's OS setup the keyboard stopped working. I pulled the keyboard out and tried the other usb ports, all worked with the mouse, none with the keyboard. I plugged the keyboard into another machine and no luck...so I called. I explained the situation and was told that I needed to power down and bring it in. I told the young lady that it has a big NOTICE-> in the manual not to do that and she told me that if I hard shutdown and then shutdown the monitor there will be no issues. I get this alot with non-geeky types who think the monitor is the computer. I explained to her that because I was in OS setup that would be the only way to shut down the machine and is that what she really wants me to do. She said yes if I shut down by holding the button in the front of the desktop and then shutting down the monitor there will be no damage. I then asked if the OS gets hosed due to this action will they reload. She said that my other option is to not shutdown and just bring it in. I explained that unless I wanted to lug my ups with me that will be difficult because it is a desktop...and at that point I ended the call, will pick up a usb keyboard when I go to the office tomorrow, finish the OS install and take the keyboard in. I shudder to think of the cost my mother would incur by following their direction...we will see what the odds are of me getting another keyboard. Unfortunately I do not have usb keyboards laying around...

[Darkrai]

The Geek Squad are nothing more than promoted sales people.  Most of the time, they know nothing about computers at all.  It's the sad truth, everybody/

[Complaint]

Does BB DO anything to solve these problems?  

[FrustratedinNJ]

Without rehashing ALL of the issues since purchasing my HP desktop in January 08....I'll say that I agree with horrible service and always asking for money for a repair - even when the product is still under manufacturer warranty! 

In July, the motherboard went...in early Dec, the hard drive went...we still don't have our computer or our hard drive or any data...and everyone we talk to gives us a different answer. 

It is hands down the most horrendous company when it comes to customer service, policies and communication procedures.  I will not purchase another item from Best Buy and will encourage others to not shop there as well.  Absolutely shameful....

[bby_gs1234]

to the original post: The phone support agents' diagnosis info is not available for the in-store agents to access. What was the diagnosis results? The phone agent misinformed you on the length of time for repairs, although it's possible that repair might only take 2 hours, the store deals with customers on a first come/first served basis. That particular store, like mine, might have anywhere between 20 and 50 computers in their queue at any given time. Your computer would go to the back of the line and be repaired usually within a few days. We do offer the 911 service for additional fees, which is what you opted for, but that service only guarantees that all work will be completed within 24 hours of when you are checked in. If your computer was having issues caused by a virus infection, someone might tell you that it's an easy fix and should only take a couple hours, should be cheap, etc...but have you ever performed this type of service? Running an anti-virus program is never the solution either.

[Matthew-GS Retired: Community Advocate]

Hello, FrustratedinNJ!

Certainly sounds frustrating, but I just wanted to let you know many people every day are reaching out to help in the Forums and through other channels such as 888-BestBuy.  Very sorry you feel misinformed and I would welcome the chance to work with you towards a resolution.  Please click on the "Messages" envelope near the top right to view my Private Message request.  I just need some more information, which we do not collect in the public forums, in order to assist you.

Message Edited by Matthew-GS on 12-22-2008 06:43 PM