Best Buy & Geek Squad Policies

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Hello,

My name is Art and I am writing on behalf of my eighty year old mother. She is very sharp and able to get around, but not savvy about tech equipment.

Her ten year old laptop died (CMOS battery or motheroard) so I sent her to Best Buy to buy a specific laptop model that would more than meet her needs.

When she spoke to the sales person he tried to convince her to buy a pricier model. She called me and I spoke to the sale person and told him that I want him to sell her that precise model. He said that it only had a single core Athlon X2, which is a dual core in reality. He was not very knowledgable.

At the time of purchase she was told that the store recommend a $160 service from the Geek Squad which is necessary to ensure that the computer does not get a virus when it boots up. This a complete falsehood. The firewall in the cable modem and Windows firewall were more than sufficient to protect the machine until I could download free antivirus and antispyware software (AVG 8.0 and Spybot).

She was frightened by this information. The Geeks also told her that they needed to create the restore disks for her, which is also a fabrication, because HP prompts the user to create the disks, usual 2 DVDs, and it's only a matter of loading and unloading the DVDs. So that again is an unethical business practice. They said it would be five hours (unbelievable gall) and cost $160. She also bought a $120 two year extended warranty which would have covered any problem she might have had. So the Geek service is completely redundant.

I complain to the store management, who were totally unhelpful, telling me untruths about computer issues that are non-existent, counting on me having a lack of knowledge.

I am sending my mother to cancel the extended service warranty. I've had a Compaq for three years and they are extremely helpful in debuggin problems over the phone, and voluntarily extending my warranty to correct any fault of theirs, completely free of charge.

This is fraud, unethical practices and taking advantage of seniors. I called headquarters to lodge my complaints over the phone and again was forced to speak to a totally unhelpful individual.

I want Best Buy to contact me to rectify this situation or I will complain to the Better Business Bureau and the Consumer Protection agency, as well as posting negative comments on every bulletin board I can find.

Thank you in advance for rectifying this situation 

[Elizabeth-BBY Community Supervisor · Accepted solution]

Good morning!

Art, I'm sorry to hear you and your mother have had such a tough time with this laptop purchase.  Our Geek Squad® does recommend optimization and recovery disk creation along with virus and spyware protection software to all of our customers when making a new computer purchase.  While it is true that these services can be performed by the owner themselves, many prefer to pay the Geek Squad® to have these performed.  Still, we don't ever want anyone to feel misled or forced into this second option. 

You said your mother is going to have the service plan cancelled - she can do that directly at the store with her purchase receipt at Customer Service.  I will send you a private message with more details in hopes of resolving the remaining issues of this matter for you satisfactorily.

Thank you for sharing your concerns, 

~Elizabeth

Community Supervisor

Best Buy® Corporate