Geek Squad Problems

I’ve experienced stupidity from Geek Squad guys firsthand…I walked into a store, asked if they had any Radeon X1600 cards(this is about a year ago). I got told that they only carried ATi cards(no joke!). The sheer ignorance of these guys is unbelievable…when a 17-year-old knows more about technology than the guys actually making money for knowing it(which they don’t), maybe a reversal of roles is in order..with somebody interested in helping OTHER people, instead of themselves, at the front of it.

I totally agree!!! I have never worked at BestBuy, but I have had so many bad experiences there as a customer that 6 years ago I became my family’s IT guy.
I have built 2 desktops, and I have fixed dozens of problems Windows is always throwing at you. I just graduated as a Mechanical Engineer, but my passion is still PCs.
Let’s forget about the GeekSquad and instead let’s support our local NERDS ON SITE!!!! Seriously, that might start the revolution!!!!
P.S. Thanks Chris, for all the suggestion and knowledge you have helped me develop and improve for the last 6 years… Call For Help is always in my mind!

I’ve worked at places like that. AT&T Wireless, Kirby, and (though I’m embarrassed to say it) AOL. May I suggest you get out before you get crushed under the weight of the beast.

I hope they catch that guy who is holding the gun to your head and forcing you to work at Best Buy. After all, there aren’t any more jobs in the Classifieds.

I don’t have many of those problems, as all my computers, and the ones at schools and charities that I service, run Mepis and are immune to the Microsoft virus/malware/trojan/exploits.

You don’t have to do anything to a computer in order to boot from a Live CDROM!

For the 5% of troubles due to bad capacitors, or hardware failures, testing by changing components with a spare bench testing system confirms the parts to order.

Huge savings, vs. overpriced techs., who are likely to steal private data, or otherwise just screw up and break other things!

Is it true what the Geeks told me, that they are prohibited from using any Open Source tools to troubleshoot? How stupid is that?
What could their Corporate Executives be thinking? Oh, wait, they work with Microsoft! What a Brain Trust! NOT!

There’s a reason I call the place “Best Borrow” … if there’s something I need _right away_, it’s a great place to go to borrow something … and return it when the cheaper version arrives from Amazon/NewEgg/wherever.

Hey Bro !
Hows it going ? I hope good ! Well i have old Px4 with damn Problem with PCI slots in t it ! Chris i cant get them to work ! i know they work some dude at my old house was god on fix it all time for me but he no longer around help me out so baseley on my own ! Message i am geting is code 12 ! And mobo via 266a with celron 2.0 ghz with agp 9550 se ati .I hope you can help out in this problem or anyone eles beouse sux not beable use computer online
Thank for you rime Chris be wait for reply

I purchased a computer several years ago at Best Buy and had more trouble with than anyone should ever expect to have with any PC, especially a brand new one. I made numerous calls to their tech support which was in a certain country where I found the dialect very difficult to understand if at all. They kept telling me it was the hard drive and walked me through hooking it up over the phone every time then I’d install XP yet once again to have the same problems. After waiting around for each hard drive to be delivered and replacing several of them over a period of several weeks, I got totally fed up, took the computer in and told them to fix it or give me my money back. Within twenty minutes the customer service supervisor had it fixed simply by using the hard drive jumpers that were supposed to be used instead of the ones the tech guys on the phone had instructed me to use. I asked him why the tech guys on the phone didn’t know those were the right jumpers to use but he didn’t have a concrete answer …… and maybe I had misunderstood their instructions! I couldn’t believe it and I refuse to shop for so much as a cheap mouse pad there now. But wait, there’s more! I still have the computer and still continue to have odd problems with it that have never been remedied. I wish the anonymous employee the best and respect his desire to disassociate himself with Best Buy. He sounds too responsible to work for an outfit like them.

As a pre-Geek Squad employee I can attest to the statements of the unknown Best Buy Employee. Management only cares about lining there pockets.

I use to work for Staples (a pathetic company) and had won a brand new Compac computer. The software vendors use to even give me free software. So when i went over to Best Buy to sell computers I asked the manger what the policy was towards winning prizes from company and accepting gifts? His reply was, “If i received something from a company I would but into a pot and draw out a name for one of our store employees.” There was a big push to sell Monster cables (another rip off), and our store won! Each of the mangers won a trip to San Fransisco for a weekend and use of high end sports car. Did any of the management put there prize into a pot and pull out the name of lucky employee? NO!

I once asked a phone repair guy that had come out to my house, “Would platting the ends of cables with gold improve anything?” His reply was, “No, If it did then we would be doing it!” So any cable with Gold platted tips is worthless and no better then a normal cable.

In computer stores the money is not in monitors, towers, ink cartridges, etc… the money is in cables! They pay 2 or 3 dollars and charge $20, $30 even $40 for it.

I finally broke down and bought something from Best Buy a month or so ago, it was the Babylon 5 DVDs (Great Series) on sale for $20. At the time they did not have the first season, so they took my name down and phone number down and said, “we will call you when it comes in.” I am still waiting for the call. I did go in before the sale and they had received it, so i bought it and left but the 2nd time never gave anyone there my name.

Now you tell me!!

I spent around $2500. at Best Buy in May this year for a laptop and a few of their overpriced peripherals. (The laptop was only around $1000). I also purchased the Geek Squad insurance and then had to pay an additional $50. for them to come to my house to set up a secure wireless connection, so altogether it came to over $300.00!

I am not totally computer illiterate and could have set it up myself, but had never done anything with the wireless and I was told it was kind of “complicated” in order to get a secure connection. I guess P.T. Barnum was right !

THE MOTHERLOAD OF ALL ISSUES WITH GEEK SQUAD……..
REGARDING THE STORE IN CHESAPEAKE,VA

I have had a hell of a time getting my laptop serviced from geek squad. First of all we live an hour and a half a way from the nearest best buy store. I work two jobs and my wife just had a baby so the only way that we could get our laptop shipped off for service was to have her drive up to the store in chesapeake with our new now four month old baby to get the laptop sent away for service.

We had to service it because it was not getting adequate power and shutting down all of a sudden. Plus it drained the battery. The first time my wife got up there and the “bright” technician basically looked at it and said, “well I don’t know what is going on with it so we will have to ship it off.” Basically wasting my wife’s time as well as having a screaming baby in the car. Doesnt make for a fun day. We get a call saying it was fixed so she drove back up there to pick it up the next week. They said that they replaced the motherboard. We get it back and it still isn’t working right because it is overheating causing the keystrokes to lag then to the point of being unsuable because it locked up. So my wife had to drive up there again to drop it off. They shipped it off and their response was “well the hardware passed all of our “stress test” so you will have to reload it”. They also told us that it was there in the store already. So my wife drove up there on Moday to go to pick it up to find out that it was not there yet. She asked them “well when we get it back and while we try to reload it and it locksup then what…?” The techs response was to call HP. Why would we call hp when our computer system is still in warranty with best buy and have to call hp when it is clearly a hardware issue..? At this point I started emailing the Geeksquad corporate basically saying that it is a joke that they can not make exceptions and arrange for a ups pickup label to be mailed to our house and then for it to be ship back to our house from the service center. I was also asking for a replacement at this point because it has been serviced multiple times. I first get a response from someone that said he was in the corporate office and said that they had a strict laptop replacement policy and it required a three time hardware replacement in order for there to be any kind of laptop replacement. I didnt like his response so I emailed the corporate headquaters again so they got me someone else. They arranged for it to be shipped to our house from the service center. I do have all of my industry certs and work in the IT field for one of my jobs so I know a thing or two. The technician that said he was a “senior tech” basically said that this was an issue with software and it needed to be reloaded. I told him that he was wrong and said that it was hardware but he was like well someone with industry certs would know to try to reload it. I wanted to say back to him at that point, well I WOULD IF IT WOULD STOP LOCKING UP EVEN ON REBOOT AT THE XP LOGO!!

We get the laptop back and find out that the problem was still there. However I did discover at this time that if you pressed against the memory area that the computer wa not locked anymore and allowed you to use it for a bit before it locked up again. So I called the person that emailed me the second time back from corporate. He sent out a 100 dollar gift card and said to call back for a replacement next week if it continues. Which it did and so I tried to call him all the following week however he did not respond to any of my calls or emails. I then get a call from the origional perdon who sent the first email to me, after I left a couple of messages politely about what was going on to robert stephens about how I felt I was being blown off. This guy has the nerve to tell me that they have a one for one policy where only one corporate person could help out on an issue. So I was like why didn’t the second person tell me that to begin with instead of making me act like an idiot trying to get in touch with him everyday like he said to.

Anyways, I told this origional guy what I discovered and he said that we would need to send it off again to service. So my wife and I get up there again and drop off the laptop to be serviced. We ship it off and they replace the motherboard again and something on the bottom of the chassis. The origional corporate guy said that he would have it arranged to be shipped from the service center directly to our house. So we wait for it yet we find out from the tracking that it was shipped to the store so we get a call from the store late friday afternoon. The corporate guy even called the store when he found out that it was being shipped to them and told them to ship it off to our house when they get it. He checked on monday or tuesday to see if it was shipped and he said that the store had told him that it was shipped but the person who had the tracking number information was not in. So we wait and wait and wait for it till Friday came around. Saw the ups truck drive by and did not stop.
The corporate best buy guy calls on Thursday when I was at work at night to see if we got it. My wife told him we did not and that he said he would email me and would check back in on saturday when he was in again. I wrote to him friday night telling him that we saw the ups truck drive by. He emailed me back the next day saying that they had it shipped out the day before on friday the 28th. He was pissed off about that part of it because the workers in the store lied to both him and to me. He did say that they did do a two day shipment on it this time so I guess we will see what happens with all of this. He did say he was going to ship out another 100 dollar gift card. I sent another email back saying that since they basically lied to the both of us that my wife and I should get more for our troubles..Have not heard back from him so we will see what happens on monday or tuesday of next week.

So pas it along, AVOID THE CHESAPEAKE, VA GEEK SQUAD COMPONENT OF BEST BUY AT ALL COST!!!! They are basically throwing their money away keeping those idiots employed!!!

Wow after reading these posts it simply makes me think. Here is a post that I made on another site and I would like your input and feedback, thank you.

Hello everyone. I recently moved and do not have a job yet. Please take this into your advice for me…. I am visually impaired (legally blind) and I can not drive period. I am being offered two jobs both are in store computer techs. One is with Geek Squad the other with FireDog. Geek Squad is part time permant and FireDog is either full or part time depending on which I want. What I am asking for is honest true advice here, no flaming. I know Geek Squad is not the brightest bunch so to speak but remember that I am visually impaired and do not have a drivers licence so jobs are hard to come by for me. I do not yet know about pay or benefits if any. Has anyone worked for these companies before? Thanks for the advice. I will get to work on the city bus and should be working in store, that is what I was told anyway, but you know how that can go. LOL

UPDATE:

ok I had my interview with the “smurf store”. I say that jokingly simply because of the blue shirts. OK, enough of that….here is what happened at the interview. The job was for a part time temp position in the Geek Squad behind the counter. I was placed in front of a pc to take a test that was at best skewed. What I mean is that I ran into 3 questions alone that simply were “wrong” in that the question asked did not match the answers….something like “If at Win2K machine has a corrupt registry what do you do? A. RJ-11, B. tcp/ip, C. serial port, D. set display to 800×600. Second I found out what Geek Squad is really there for: TO MAKE $$$ plain and simple. There answers to me in fixing a badly messed up PC was to reformat the hard drive….rather than actually fix the problem. They want me to “sell” services to customers such as “you pc will run faster if you add RAM” or “you should really backup your files so you will need an external hard drive $100 and well will charge you a fee to do so”, etc. I am not sure I got the job yet but I am not sure I can honestly rip people off rather than really fix their PC and truely care for the customer. I want to help them and educate them the best I can not rip them off. What should I do? Also I have an interview with Firedog tomorrow. Thanks for the advice and help.

I bought a new laptop from Best Buy, and the service plan with it. The hard crashed in about 8 months and I took it to Best Buy for repair. I told Geek Squad guys that it was a hard crash; it took Geek Squad 5 days to get back to me with the same diagnostic.

Left it there for hard replacement that could only be done in some other central location it took 3 weeks. Then when I got to the store to pick it up, not only that the power supply cord and the operating system disk were misplaced, but my brand new 17″ Gateway had the plastic cover of the screen cracked in one of the corners (along the back and forth traveling for repair, someone must have crushed it for real)! Still being under guarantee, they offered to replace it for free (duh!!), and send it back to their center with a rush service.

It is 4 weeks now, almost 2 months since I took it to Geek Squad and I do not have the laptop. I am a graduate student, so imagine my frustration.

My friends computer stopped working about a week ago. He wanted me (I work at Circuit City) and one of my friends (my friend works at best buy selling computers) to come over at take a look. We opened the case and the problem was beyond obvious. The heat sink over the integrated video card had come undone causing his computer to overheat. My friend (who works at best buy selling computers) said that it was the battery. A battery under a heat sink?!?!?!? I told him he was wrong but he just kept saying he was right. How could anyone be so stupid to think that the battery was under the heat sink. I ended up proving him wrong and my friend bought a new motherboard. Ready for the funny part…….

2 weeks later He got promoted to Geek Squad!!!!!!!

Its ridiculous how much he doesn’t know.

I am a current geek squad employee. Number one, i try my hardest to not to have to exploit customers by charging them 199 or 299 for the advanced diagnostic repair and prevention…but some situations that these fine people come into the store with, like 20 trojans, 15 assorted pieces of spyware and a whole host of windows problems and lost functionality, call for it. #2, i’m quick to tell people how to reload their operating system. #3 my management definately doesn’t force us to sell services…when we do our job correctly budget gets hit. #4. we cannot help the fact that when your laptop has to be serviced, or when your desktop gets serviced, for a hardware issue, like overheating and motherboard issues, we have no control over the eta because of the fact that the service center that we send it out to, which is geek squad owned, never gives us an accurate eta…so the only other thing that i can tell a customer is wait until we call you…don’t pop-up on the store and ask us 50 million times…is my laptop back. HP is notorious for keeping laptops forever…and we can’t change that…we can call with as many escelations that we can possibly call and it doesn’t change a damn thing. #5. it definately does depend on the locale of the geek squad that you visit. Speaking from a person that works at both the Bowie, MD (winter and summer breaks) and Salisbury, MD (home store) store i know first hand.

My mothers 3 year old laptop bought at best buy failed recently, that is the hard drive failed. She has a habit of buying extended warranties against my advice. I guess in the end it was worth it, she bought the 3 year extended.

I consider myself above average in terms of knowledge, I build my own PC’s.

I took it into a BB in Northern Illinois where we both live, the warranty was a month from expiring. It was obvious that this was a hdd failure. Just after the Gateway splash screen you would get a disk read error. I was once able to reformat/reinstall but just days after it failed completely. So the GS simply pulled a hdd off the shelf and installed it. They had it for two days, a fairly quick turnaround considering what I had heard of them, and they replaced it with an 80gb hdd, the original was 60gb. I was happy, she had her business laptop back, win-win.

That lasted for about 2 weeks, when the laptop started acting very odd. She was in the process of updating windows (windows update) and the PC froze. After that it would only boot occasionally, and when you were lucky to get it to boot, if you typed anything, it also locked up.

I said I would come by and reinstall windows, thinking something got corrupted during the update. When I got there I picked it up to move it to a back room and it locked up. Whenever you picked it up and turned it a bit on its side, it locked up. Whenever you touched a certain part of the frame while picking it up, it locked up. So obviously this is more than I can deal with.

I took it back in again, explained and demonstrated the exact issues we were having. The young kid wouldn’t even look me in the eye, I had to forcibly make eye contact with this kid to get an idea if we were on the same page. In the end they had to ship the laptop out.

This is really where things get ridiculous.

They called my mother to say it was fixed and being shipped back and it would take 2-3 days. She lives in a condo where delivery drivers are not allowed to leave packages, and of course my mother was out of town. They called on a Thursday, so I took off next Monday, and ended up taking off Tuesday and Wednesday too, because the laptop never showed up.

So I called the 800 number on Wednesday, spoke to a very rude woman who then told me to call the store after putting me on hold for 20 minutes. I call the store, go through he automated system and get connected to the GS, of course nobody answers, so I continue to call over the next hour, nobody answers. Finally later in the day a young woman answers, when I ask if this is the GS she says no, but she can help. So I explain that I need to find out where this laptop is as I am taking off work to wait for its delivery. She takes my number down and calls me back an hour later with a tracking number, she doesn’t bother to look up the shipping ETA herself.

So I call UPS and Im told that in fact the package was delivered to the BB on Monday at 10am, signed for by Stuart. I call BB again, get the same young woman and explain that UPS just told me that they had delivered the laptop that Monday, to her store, instead of my mothers house like we had been told. She puts me on hold, comes back and tells me she will have to call me back. Four hours go by and she finally calls back to tell me that in fact they found the laptop and I can now drive the 20 minutes to pick it up, how lovely. So I pick it up again, I’m told that all they did was replace the hard drive again. I’m less than optimistic.

On the way home I install XP, everything seems ok. I get it back upstairs, and notice that in fact it still locks up.

So I take it back for the 3rd time. I speak to a very attentive young woman, who seems to take what I am saying more seriously than the last kid. Before they ship it out again, they called to tell my mother they believed it was a hdd issue. I almost lost it.

Its been a week and they called my mother today to say they cant find what is causing the lockup, and that they will compensate her with a comparable replacement, not based on the value, but the specs of the laptop itself. This laptop is 3 years old, and was at best a budget laptop then. So I’m going over there with her tomorrow to see what they are going to try and stick her with.

In the end GS is its own worst enemy. They appear very disorganized, and appear to pass off everything as a hdd issue. Their associates are often rude, and overall the majority seem to almost be scared of human interaction. They ship out your $1000 PC and dont give you a tracking number, they just leave you in the dark, your PC out there somewhere.

Anyone even remotely ‘in the know’ wouldn’t take their PC to be serviced there unless they bought a warranty. They would take it to a small shop where that persons livelihood is based on the quality of their work and word of mouth business.

In the end, I’m out an unknown amount of gas, miles on my car, and 3 days wages, over $300. I’m really thinking of contacting corporate in an attempt to explain this, maybe I can get something back for the time and lost money that only they are responsible for.

My personal opinion unlike your guyses opinion is, not everyone is 1337 like you as pc tech or has more common sens than you do to go through the yellow pages and find a mom and pop shop with good pc techs. a buisness is a buisness and it will thrive just as long as there are people in need of some sort of service. its funny how people always complain about geek squad services or how geek squad employess steal customer data. or how crappy geeksquad techs are.

if it bugs you soo much about how geeksquad serves people then do something about it than just spitting words otherwise your constant moaning and groaning just turns to useless annoyance and eventually ends up wasting peoples time replying and responding. The tech service you get at Best Buy Geeksquad really does depend on management and the locations you go to. it also depends on how big of a scum bag the higher ups are. there are good techs out there who are really trying to make an honest living because they werent soo fortunate in life. people learn everyday and you might get a tech whos in training and yes might give you crappy service, but hey people have to start somewhere. did your parents ever yell at you for not being able to run while you were a baby? just becaus u 1337 people can fix a computer by looking at it doesent mean other people can.

best buy is world wide of course your gonna catch people stealing somthing people steal from work everyday you cant stop it, there are douch bags everywhere out there. there just happens to be alot of ignorant people who dont realize that and because they hate soo much on geeksquad they are willing to see and document the first wrong thing they do. it then boils back down to best buy management and them hiring the wrong type of people. there are good honest techs out there who work for geeksquad and are proud of what they do and it it sucks when other people ruin the image of geeksquad because people blow things up 10 fold due to personal vendettas of the unexplained type.

best buy is worldwide and with the ammount of stores there are and connected geeksquads or stand alone geeksquads yes there will be alot of people who wont get the service they want because people are impatiant and ignorant. there are alot of factors out there that affect the type of service you get at anystore it happens everywhere and in best buy. closing words ending my opinion is people who talk crap about best buy and geeksquad just go somewhere else or build your own store with godlike services and show em how its done otherwise take it for what it is because you will never be happy with anyother store you go to, unsatisfactory service is everywhere. a buisness is a buisness and it will thrive because there are still alot of people out there who are open minded patient and understanding.

I just FINALLY got the geek squad manager to agree to give me my money back for “work” they did on my pc…..I have in the last 4 months had to take my pc in 3 times for them to redo work on it .

they charge to much money and the people there really have no idea what they are doing and the customer service is terrible from the lowest employee to the top manager. go with a local company its cheaper and they seem to know what they are doing and if you have troubles at least you know who to talk to to get your money back!

I would just like to point out one fact regarding this hate list of a thread for people like me coming across it the first time. READERS, you have to realize that everyone does not hate Geek Squad. The problem here is evidently that several people do and choose to let out their frustration online. Therefore the thread is biased because the target writers are the ones were oppressed by Geek Squad. As for me, i’m an experienced tech who is looking for a stable job with geek squad. i can verify that i always do my best to satisfy the customer and turn his money into success or happiness. The thing that people need to remember is that technology did not come to us easily. We have been nurtured for many years in how computers work. By all means, if you can learn computers inside and out and have as much experience as we do, then more power to you. But on average, 80% of people are incapable of that. That is why Geek Squad charges so much. The employees are compensated very well for their knowledge and certifications. For every certification, employees receive $3 addition to their hourly wage (i.e $12 an hour becomes $15 an hour). Geek Squad fosters growth and learning, as a result, they come across very experienced techs. HOWEVER, management is faced with a seroius problem. There are not always enough of us out there to be hired for each Best Buy. As a result, less experienced people seeking the glory of being on geek squad get hired. some of them are not serious about GS and just want the title without knowledge or responsibilities. There are many good techs out there who are concerned with the well-being of customers as well as maintaining good work for the employer. Think about it, how else would GS establish the most crucial fundament of a growing business… RETURN BUSINESS. scams don’t hold up well enough to grow like that- unless you are Microsoft

I work at Geek Squad, and I really feel like a lot of you are hating on the wrong people. Most of the employees actually try very hard. Everyone I work with knows a good enough amount about computers to be on the stuff. Sure, we have 3-4 that only know mostly basics, and then we have the rest that know medium to a lot.

The thing is, it’s the way Best Buy has organized Geek Squad. Want to know why we never answer our phones? It’s because (at least at my store) we only have TWO phone lines, and we almost ALWAYS have a huge line of people (understaffed much?), so if you ask me, I’d rather help people who are right in front of me than be rude and ignore the line and answer the phone. Another thing to mention is that the phone is almost ALWAYS ringing. Everytime I DO answer it, the person wants to ask me too many questions, and I just can’t do that when I’m working with someone at the counter. They need to re-organize the phone system where there are one or two specific Geeks who just handle the phone, because it is FAR too much to ask of us to be able to constantly answer the phone and manage a huge line with only two employees working.

Also, like someone else said, we can’t help it if HP, or Gateway, or whoever takes forever to fix your computer and send it back. We’re actually doing YOU a favor by sending it off under the manufactor warranty.

I also don’t understand why some of you are pissed off when your computer is “repaired” 3 times in a row and the problem isn’t fixed, then they give you STORE CREDIT FOR A NEW ONE! I know if a company did that for me, I’d actually be pretty happy. It’s called the no-lemon policy and in most states it’s the law anyway.

Also, the reason the lines are always so big, is that, at least at my store, we only have TWO working machines that have all the applications we need in order to check someone in or out. All the rest only have the checkout system and no others. The ones we use are called STAR and STAR/Phoenix, and they are TERRIBLE! They freeze and crash a lot, and you always get error messages. That’s why it takes so fucking long to do anything, the programs are SHIT! PLUS, we are expected to not only diagnose/run scans on the counter for old computers, but ring out and check-in new computers for services! People coming in to simply buy a computer with no services still have to wait an hour in line to check out! Why? For some reason, management thought it’d be a good idea to force everyone to check out a computer at the Geek Squad precinct.

Don’t yell at the employees for the company’s bad design or decisions. Whenever someone yells at me, I don’t apologize, I say “I cannot control the system or change what I’ve been told to do, you are better off yelling at a manager than me”.

Jesus.

The power supply on my HP desktop fried during a thunderstorm last August. I took it to a Best Buy about 20 minutes from my house, arriving at 4:45. The tech looked at it right away and immediately diagnosed the problem. He said it would take an hour and about $100 to replace the power supply.

I wandered off to look at cell phones. 30 minutes later the tech sought me out to tell me that the power supply he had quoted me wouldn’t fit, and they would have to upgrade it to another model they had in stock AT NO EXTRA COST!

That was alright with me, and an hour later I left with a repaired computer and a fancy new cell phone. So be warned, waiting for a repair by the geek squad can be a satisfying experience, but otherwise hard on your wallet!

Geek Squad/ Best Buy are the worst! I went in there and asked for recommendations for a reliable laptop. I’m a graduate student and also work from my computer. I was told that if I purchased their warranty, it was the best in the business. The guy told me I could even spill coffee on it, being my fault, and they would replace it for me. He said they do their repairs right on site (pointing to Geek Squad) and if they can’t fix it in the store, they would replace it of similar value. Ok, sold. Sure enough, a couple months go by and bam, the computer no longer works. I had paid several hundred dollars for their warranty, anti spyware, anti viruse, and any other thing imaginable. I felt pretty good bringing it in since they said it would get replaced right therfe. NO! Not the case. They have to send it out 3 times and only on the forth time will they consider replacing it. Okay, this happened once, and I was left without a computer for six weeks. I get it back, and two months to the day, again it happens. I asked to speak to a manager there and was told he wasn’t available, but an assistant came out. I asked her why I was lied to as far as the warranty goes, and she just gave me an attitude and blamed it on Geek Squad. I told her it wasn’t Geek Squad, but a salesperson on the floor that told me that. She claimed that was still a Geek Squad employee. They play good cop/ bad cop and blame each other. I will never buy at Best Buy again. I asked about a loaner computer, or any other options and they told me to just go out and buy another computer. Right!

So I went to Frys, and what a difference that place is. There’s a reason why no one is at Best Buy, and at Frys you’re driving around looking for a parking spot. They have actual people that know what they’re talking about. And their warranty is in writing. If you purchase there, and have a problem where your PC needs to be shipped out, they have a loaner program to give you a computer to use in the meantime. What a differece. If you’re buying a computer, I would strongly urge you to look at Frys.

I’m sorry, but the few boo-hoo stories I see from GS employees and GS wannabes don’t cut it. Maybe Nick works at ONE store that has employees who care, but almost everytime I’ve gone to a BB for a computer issue the employees have not only been “unable” to do what we PAID them to do–simple stuff like copy files from a dying hard drive to DVD-Rs or install Windows XP on a new laptop I was buying rather than Windows Vista–but they also wouldn’t give refunds and DEFINITELY never offered any store credits. I have seriously felt like these people were either too lazy to do what we need, don’t have the knowledge and/or just want you to pony up $1000+ for an entirely new laptop rather than service your damn problem. Oh, and btw, the answer to every computer issue is NOT to reformat your hard drive, like GS seems to believe, at least in my area.

I’m trying to break into the IT field, and I have seen some of the job requirements to become an in-store repair person at GS. Their standards really don’t seem to be as high as they should…and I have a hard time believing that’s because there are not enough knowledgeable people in IT. There are more and more young people graduating with degrees in comp sci, computer networking, information technology and other related areas who need entry level jobs. Anyone and their mother can pass a CompTIA A+ exam. There are more than enough very experienced yet unemployed people in IT who could easily do a good job at GS except it probably just doesn’t pay enough money for these people’s satisfaction/skill level and experience. Still, desperate times…some of those people would swallow their pride and work for something like GS.

The only reason I haven’t applied yet as an entry level position is because I don’t feel comfortable enough with my hardware knowledge just yet…and I refuse to work any job in IT until I can do it well. I do not want people leaving GS or any other tech job I work talking about me like everyone here is about GS employees and managers. I want my customers’ problems to be solved when they leave me rather than feeling like I ripped them off. Furthermore, I wouldn’t be surprised if I applied with the knowledge to do the job and some horny manager hired a “hot girl” over me–that’s so how employers in the US work force are nowadays, and that’s one reason why this country is all f*cked up.

My hd crashed on my Toshiba laptop after 14mo. I went to geek Squad to see what it would cost me to replace that and make windows 7 my new os. The guy helping me explained to a “bodd” what I wanted and the boss said that a b-3 charge. Well that meant $200 labor, plus the new hd and Windows 7 disc. What is b-3? What code ischeaper?