Why Geek Squad, Best Buy, and Compaq all suck.
We all know I despise Compaq and Best Buy and we all know that I now despise myself for going to them not that one time, but now a secondtime. For background info, in 2001, we bought a Compaq desktop and had nothing but trouble with it. The first time it crashed good, I called Best Buy because we had bought the 3 year extended warranty where they’re supposed to come to our house to fix it. They told us - for some unknown reason - it was not their problem, call Compaq. They in turn told us it wasn’t their problem to call Best Buy. This went back and forth a couple of times before I decided I was going to have to fix it myself.
All that was before HP acquired Compaq so even though I still dislike Best Buy, I went there again and ended up buying m laptop there the beginning of November.
A month and a half later, I go to use the cd rom and it’s gone. Not listed in My Computer, the device manager says there’s a problem with it, and I can’t reinstall the driver, a system roll back did nothing - so I took it into Best Buy. Again, I have the three year extended warranty, this one for bring in service. Note that nothing else was wrong with the system. Just the cd rom was gone.
On Wednesday, December 14, I drop off the laptop. They tell me they are extremely backed up and give me a projected date of being done as Thursday, December 22.
Fast forward to Sunday, December 18, I’m at church and Steve’s home with Elijah who’s sick. He calls me afterward and tells me that Best Buy called and said the computer was ready, I could pick it up at any time.
So on Monday the 19th, I travel an hour south to pick it up.
One of the first things the guy tells me is that the computer system of the all mighty Geek Squad is down and has been down/slow for the better part of the day (this was about 11am). So he can’t pull my info. But I’ve got my paper so he finds my laptop by that.
He brings it out and says, “did they call to authorize a charge for reinstalling your operating system?”
“Uh, what? No. I just got a call that said it was ready, come to get it. Why would they need to reinstall the operating system?”
“Because Windows got corrupted.”
“Uhhh, okay… no, I didn’t get a call for that.”
“Oh okay then.”
After some more meaningless conversation, I am looking at the papers and I say something like, “so do I have to pay for that?”
“Oh, no, if they didn’t call to authorize it, then you don’t have to pay for it.” I ask him, out of curiosity, how much would it cost. He gives me a figure just short of $60.
Something tells me to, so I try to turn on the laptop. When I open the computer up, I notice that my screen is extremely dusty, much dustier than it has ever been. He says something about the battery being dead and asks if he should plug it in. Um, hello, YES. He plugs it in and I turn it on.
Immediately we are greeted with a nice blue screen and some errors. He begins tapping on it and pressing keys and saying things like, “Hmmm, I wonder why it’s doing that.” And, “Strange.”
He pops out a cd that is an obvious burned copy that reads “Windows XP Service Pack 2″ in black marker. He pops it back in and messes with the computer some more. Next thing I know, he’s saying things again about how the system is down and so he can’t find out who worked on the computer, blah blah blah. Basically telling me to leave and wait for their call.
By now, I’m really ticked off. I tell him how I brought it in only for the cd rom, I got a call that it was ready to go home with me, that I drove an hour to pick it up because of that, no one else called me other than that call, and that I needed this computer for business purposes. So he starts scribbling notes down and takes my cell phone number, in case it’s ready while I’m still in that stupid town.
We go to do the only other thing in that town that we were there for, which is another story all in its own. Basically we stood at the Cingular store for literally an hour and 15 minutes before we were helped (some guy who arrived after us was helped first) and then another 15 or so minutes while she “took care” of us. And then left while my mother-in-law and sister-in-law stayed for another 20 minutes to handle their business. The woman was completely incompetent, I swear.
Anyway, after a late lunch around 2pm, I decide to go back to Best Buy.
I wait in line again and then talk to someone else. He was the same guy that took my RAM from me when I dropped the computer off. Oh, yeah, I had them add in 512 ram instead of the 256 it had - that, as far as I can tell, is the only thing the all mighty Geek Squad has done correctly.* So anyway, I tell him what was going on and that I was there to check on it.
The computer is sitting right there on the counter where I left it earlier. There’s a note on it to finish it asap and call my cell phone. No one knows what’s going on though, and he goes in the back to find out.
He returns with a “yeah, your operating system was corrupted and we have to reinstall it, that’s why the cd rom wasn’t working.” Some other guy comes up behind him and confirms this. They open the cd rom and there’s that burned cd again, “yeah, see?” (Like that shows me that the operating system was indeed corrupted, or something.) He says that it’s completely operating system stuff that stopped my cd rom and that no diagnostics turned up anything hardware related. He tells me that many things can cause this, and he strongly stresses viruses and adware. I know this is not the case. It was clean. I’m good and keeping my stuff clean. He tries to tell me that Internet Explorer was messed up, too. I know this is not true, as well.
He then feeds me some bull about them trying to contact me about the reinstall but that the phone number I gave them was bad. That is complete bull crap and without using so many words, I tell him this. I say that I got a phone call on Sunday morning telling me that the computer was finished. And furthermore, this I did not mention, if they had tried to call me and I was not home or the phone did not get answered, they would have been on the callerID, which they weren’t except for that Sunday morning call. So right there, I know I am being lied to and I wonder what other crap they’re trying to feed me.
What I ended up doing then, was not paying for them to reinstall anything and I take the computer home. I do the reinstall myself. Of course, this was after some trouble as I don’t know what the heck they did to the computer, but it didn’t want to do anything at first for me. I then spend several hours on this and trying to get it back into my home network.
What I want to know is this:
1. If they knew the problem was corrupted files in the Operating System and they “could not” get a hold of me to authorize the reinstall - WHY did they wipe out my operating system in the first place? You’d think they’d want to really get a hold of me to authorize that and try to talk me into allowing them to back up my data for their “so very low” price of $89.
2. Why did they call me to tell me the computer is finished if it so obviously wasn’t??
3. And most importantly, who’s copy of Windows XP were they trying to install on my computer?
And this is why I am kicking myself very hard for buying another computer not just from Best Buy but a Compaq. I swear, any more problems with this thing and they’re going to fix it, then I’m going to sell it and get another Dell. So there. Haha.
The best thing out of all of this? My Geek Squad casefile came a sheet of those little word magnets. Now I can spell out “I hate Geek Squad” on my refrigerator. :-P
* - actually, at the time I wrote this post I guess I was so wrapped up in reinstalling everything that I did not realize the RAM was not installed correctly. I purchased 512 MB but I was only running 512MB meaning I got screwed out of another 256MB. I took it back in and, they claim, the package I purchased was incorrectly labeled and was actually 256MB. Whatever it was, they traded it out and I am now running 760MB.
MORE UPDATES:
Yesssss, thank you very much, I understand about the Windows CD. This has been explained time and time again. Of course, I will never know if you all are right if I cannot test it out myself. But don’t bother bringing it up over and over again as it has already been done.
Secondly, after getting my system running again and posting this post, it was less than a week later when the CD rom pulled the same disappearing act. The solution? Two measly lines in the registry. Amazing how four guys at Geek Squad could not figure this out and had to corrupt my operating system instead. Quick fix guys, not a permanent solution… or a trained one, for that matter.
More Interesting Articles (added to as I find them):
Compute Repair Fraud on YouTube
Best Buy’s ‘Geek Squad’ Accused of Pirating Software - April 13, 2006
Couple’s Supposedly Destroyed Hard Drive Purchased In Chicago - June 1, 2006
My Best Buy Nightmare - October 26, 2005
Finally, I’m tired of putting up with idiots, morons, imbeciles, etc. If you can’t leave a comment in a respectful manner and present yourself in a reasonable and respectable way, you can bet your comment will be deleted without question. This includes any comments that attempt to attack me as a person or are from someone who obviously has not read the whole post or other comments. All comments posted here are automatically held for moderation due to the “statute of limitations on commenting” on this post. To those who can express themselves intelligently… I thank you, and please do leave your comments whether you agree with me or not. Just don’t be a moron. :)
And now from here (Feb. 28, 2007) on out, comments on this post will not be accepted/approved from people who leave no name, leave Anonymous for their name, or leave an obviously fake name. If you don’t want to leave a real name, at least make it look real. It’s too confusing otherwise and it fakes out some parts of my site. Thanks.
