Geek Squad strikes again!!!!

[mugs]

Best Buy really needs to hire people who know what they're doing if they're going to offer those services. In particular, they shouldn't have sold him a new drive if the old one was still functional. They should be able to tell the difference between a drive with a physical defect and one with a corrupted partition.

On the other hand, it doesn't surprise me that a misleading article like this comes from The Consumerist. The guy didn't pay for any data recovery service, he paid for data backup. If the partition is corrupted, they can't back up his files. It is misleading to say he paid $400+ for a new hard drive, when really he paid that for a new hard drive + installation of that hard drive + installation of Windows XP + failed data backup.

He deserves to be refunded for diagnosing the problem, because their diagnosis was WRONG.

 

[Superself]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob
The sad thing is that $415 doesn't sound all that bad for what the Geek Squad did IF they did their job correctly. If they really spent three days trying to recover data (which I highly doubt), the hourly rate comes out to about $17.30 an hour.

:disgust:

You truly believe they spent 3 full days on one person's computer???

 

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: Superself

Originally posted by: ultimatebob
The sad thing is that $415 doesn't sound all that bad for what the Geek Squad did IF they did their job correctly. If they really spent three days trying to recover data (which I highly doubt), the hourly rate comes out to about $17.30 an hour.

You truly believe they spent 3 full days on one person's computer???

:disgust:

Probably not, but you never know. That laptop might have been assigned to a newbie who didn't know what they were doing, and after working on it for a few days the boss might have said "Screw it, just tell them that they need a new hard drive and put one in".

That doesn't make it RIGHT, of course. I used to do deskside support, however, and ran into similar issues with new employees.

 

[Arcex]

A friend of mine took his laptop to the Geek Squad cause it wouldn't boot.

They told him the hard drive was bad and then recommended a new drive to replace it and said they could install it for a naturally too-high price. He bought the drive and decided to install it himself. He took it home, did everything right to install it but it still wouldn't work. He took it back to Best Buy to have them install it, they took a look at it and then told him they couldn't install it now.

This got him thinking. He gave it to me, I looked at it and saw the old drive really was bad, but the hard drive they sold him was incompatible with the laptop. The laptop was older and originally had a 30 GB 3200 RPM drive, they sold him an 80 GB 7200 RPM drive that the laptop couldn't even recognize. When he brought it back to have it installed they realized they sold him a drive that would never work in the laptop and that's why they refused to install it.

Now that's what I call service.

 

[markgm]

When I worked as a tech at Best Buy I used to do everything I could for free. They're such a rip off.

 

[markgm]

Originally posted by: Arcex
A friend of mine took his laptop to the Geek Squad cause it wouldn't boot.

They told him the hard drive was bad and then recommended a new drive to replace it and said they could install it for a naturally too-high price. He bought the drive and decided to install it himself. He took it home, did everything right to install it but it still wouldn't work. He took it back to Best Buy to have them install it, they took a look at it and then told him they couldn't install it now.

This got him thinking. He gave it to me, I looked at it and saw the old drive really was bad, but the hard drive they sold him was incompatible with the laptop. The laptop was older and originally had a 30 GB 3200 RPM drive, they sold him an 80 GB 7200 RPM drive that the laptop couldn't even recognize. When he brought it back to have it installed they realized they sold him a drive that would never work in the laptop and that's why they refused to install it.

Now that's what I call service.

30GB 3200 RPM drive

 

[Genx87]

Good old Geek Squad.

What a ripoff of a company. How many people want to bet they will be charging 80 bucks to change people DST settings?

 

[lobbyone]

I wanna hear some Fire Dog stories next! lol

 

[Injury]

As much as I hate to hear about crap like this... that's capitalism.

People will ask for recommendations from friends on where to get their hair cut, what dentists and doctors to use, where to get their oil changed, what places to eat at, but never where to take their computer.

Best Buy wouldn't waste their time doing repairs if it wasn't lucrative to do so.

 

[AndrewR]

I only step into Best Buy these days if I have an urgent need for some music or a small piece of electronics. Their prices are terrible; their clearance merchandise is full price with a "gift card" (thanks for that, idiots); their customer service is non-existent; and they rarely stock anything interesting anymore.

Shop online: save money, time, AND aggravation. For tech issues, find a friend or relative to help.

 

[Yreka]

Ahh yes Best Buy Geek Squad, the computer industries best imitation of Jiffy Lube.

 

[Arcex]

Originally posted by: markgm

Originally posted by: Arcex
A friend of mine took his laptop to the Geek Squad cause it wouldn't boot.

They told him the hard drive was bad and then recommended a new drive to replace it and said they could install it for a naturally too-high price. He bought the drive and decided to install it himself. He took it home, did everything right to install it but it still wouldn't work. He took it back to Best Buy to have them install it, they took a look at it and then told him they couldn't install it now.

This got him thinking. He gave it to me, I looked at it and saw the old drive really was bad, but the hard drive they sold him was incompatible with the laptop. The laptop was older and originally had a 30 GB 3200 RPM drive, they sold him an 80 GB 7200 RPM drive that the laptop couldn't even recognize. When he brought it back to have it installed they realized they sold him a drive that would never work in the laptop and that's why they refused to install it.

Now that's what I call service.

30GB 3200 RPM drive

Um, yeah?

A hard drive that is 30 GB in size and spins at a speed of 3200 RPM...

 

[Arcex]

Originally posted by: lobbyone
I wanna hear some Fire Dog stories next! lol

I worked at Circuit City for a short time before they changed the name to "Fire Dog" (back then we were the "IQ Crew", now that's sexy), we had an honestly good head tech there, I was never able to figure out why he worked there when he was obviously qualified to work as a SysAdmin somewhere that paid more.

 

[yllus]

I was a Best Buy salesperson in the computer department up here in Canada for about two years, and our people were good. Not the AnandTech level of good, which is likely 99th percentile, but extremely competent. Unfortunately I'm quite sure that we were the exception and not the rule. But that's retail for ya.

I thought they charged pretty fairly for what they did do competently, though. OS Install for $129 - from scratch with the disc in hand? A little high, but still pretty fair. I'd price a tech's time at about $60/hour, so that's two hours of work. In cases like this you plan and charge for the worst case scenario, which involves having to seek out every little driver manually on the Web and multiple reboots. You could approach that two hour mark pretty fast.

Diagnosis time is also something I'd defend in a heartbeat (again, when done competently). Too often in computers you can't tell the customer what's wrong unless you open the sucker up and do some in-depth exploration - so even if it turns out to be something tiny, you've still spent X amount of time discovering that. Time is precious - so charge like it.

 

[NFS4]

I worked for a computer repair show during high school and part of college. To fix this customer''s machine, we would have charged $50 an hour + parts. Or diagnostic fee was $25, but if you had us fix the problem, the $25 was included in the $50 charge for the first hour.

If it was on-site, price was $60 an hour. "IF" his hard drive wasn't borked, we're likely have him out the door for $100+ tax within the day if he brought it in the morning to the store.

 

[BatmanNate]

That's it, I'm raising my rates. I do stuff like this for my coworkers on average once a month or so, and I only charge a six pack of beer or lunch.

 

[HN]

Yes it is a rip-off, but the price was told up front right? At least this part "Price to diagnose was $69.00, OS Install $129.00, Back up transfer $99.00, NO Guarantee. Estimated repair time seven to ten days."

Why didn't he go to his friend at work at this point? Why go through the Geek Squad process first where he knew what he was going to pay, knew it was going to take time (yes, in reality it doesn't take that long but he was already given an estimate upfront about how long it might take), and knew there was no guarantee.

I do not endorse Geek Squad (and like the rest here would discourage people from using them) but I also do not sympathize for this O person. Actually, he sounds a bit haughty to me with his multiple quotations of Geek Squad's use of 'un-working' as if he was so perfect yet he writes "...they should of told me about..." :roll:

 

[markgm]

Originally posted by: Arcex

Originally posted by: markgm

Originally posted by: Arcex
A friend of mine took his laptop to the Geek Squad cause it wouldn't boot.

They told him the hard drive was bad and then recommended a new drive to replace it and said they could install it for a naturally too-high price. He bought the drive and decided to install it himself. He took it home, did everything right to install it but it still wouldn't work. He took it back to Best Buy to have them install it, they took a look at it and then told him they couldn't install it now.

This got him thinking. He gave it to me, I looked at it and saw the old drive really was bad, but the hard drive they sold him was incompatible with the laptop. The laptop was older and originally had a 30 GB 3200 RPM drive, they sold him an 80 GB 7200 RPM drive that the laptop couldn't even recognize. When he brought it back to have it installed they realized they sold him a drive that would never work in the laptop and that's why they refused to install it.

Now that's what I call service.

30GB 3200 RPM drive

Um, yeah?

A hard drive that is 30 GB in size and spins at a speed of 3200 RPM...

They should have sold him a new laptop instead of the hard drive! I couldn't imagine how slow that would be.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: rivan

Originally posted by: pontifex
is anyone here surprised?

I'd hope not.

nope not surprised either. i also do not have any sympathy for the guy either.

If anything, I feel sympathy for their office buddy who recovered the files. Best Buy got over $400 for their incomplete work, but I'll bet that the office guy got nothing more than a thank you and maybe a free lunch.

(I've been the "office buddy" more times than I care to remember)

Same here. That's why I charge 25 bucks an hour now for PC work. Usually it's stupid people who download too much porn via Kazaa or Limewire.

 

[shoRunner]

remember that story a few months back when geek squad got sued by winternals...why? because they were using winternals software so they could get data off corrupted drives, well now that they were sued they have cracked down on this and most geek squad's don't use it anymore, so they no longer have the tools to recover data from a corrupted drive at the store. which is why they told the guy they'd have to ship it off. i wouldn't blame the ppl working with this guy, blame best buy for being too cheap to provide the proper tools for its associates. they told they guy up front how long it would take and how much it would cost and that the back up had no guarantee...

 

[Geekbabe]

Originally posted by: yllus
I was a Best Buy salesperson in the computer department up here in Canada for about two years, and our people were good. Not the AnandTech level of good, which is likely 99th percentile, but extremely competent. Unfortunately I'm quite sure that we were the exception and not the rule. But that's retail for ya.

I thought they charged pretty fairly for what they did do competently, though. OS Install for $129 - from scratch with the disc in hand? A little high, but still pretty fair. I'd price a tech's time at about $60/hour, so that's two hours of work. In cases like this you plan and charge for the worst case scenario, which involves having to seek out every little driver manually on the Web and multiple reboots. You could approach that two hour mark pretty fast.

Diagnosis time is also something I'd defend in a heartbeat (again, when done competently). Too often in computers you can't tell the customer what's wrong unless you open the sucker up and do some in-depth exploration - so even if it turns out to be something tiny, you've still spent X amount of time discovering that. Time is precious - so charge like it.

Then there's always the thought that these same people would have likely balked bigtime if a local techie had offered to do the same job for $200.Better Geeksquad than me I say, 99% of home end users are a PITA.