In the era of youtube why would you go to repair shops, my washer broke and I am not mechanically inclined at all. Looked up a video on washer repairs and how it should work, figured it out, part cost like 12.00, Sears wanted like 175....
LOL at the ironic of this thread and your stupid post in got em COACH's thread. Talking about a double standard.
Also goes to show you that you can't trust the BBB anymore. They sold their soul (and their ratings) a long time ago.
i remember paying bestbuy $40 to install RAM because i didn't know any better. i was infuriated after eventually learning about PCs and that it takes 2 minutes to do that job.
I wouldn't say there is no way a District Manager would not say that. He might phrase it in a friendly way like "disciplinary action has been taken against the employees involved". The problem I have with his statement was it was generic and just one of those "blow smoke" statements basically saying "we strive for the utmost quality and excellence...blah blah blah". It gave me no real assurances as a customer that the situation was dealt with and I wouldn't be taking my PC there to find out should it need repair (of course, I wouldn't have to cause I'm a computer nerd who can fix my own PC problems...lol). Basically, the statement left me to believe what I want to believe. As far as I know, they are still working there and this was nothing but pure, complete dishonesty on their part. Otherwise, they would have to be mentally challenged and have no business doing PC repair. They obviously lied about the virus. I feel this was a concerted effort, maybe even on some type of compensation program, to lure the customer into buying new gear. Why else would someone working for Geek Squad at Best Buy of all places attempt to scam a customer? What's in it for the low level employee? Seems to be a "more business you bring in...more rewards you get" type deal for the employee. But, those are just my opinions. I don't like it. And, I'm surprised it would happen at Best Buy's Geek Squad of all places. Clearly, something made a low level employee nobody into a devious bunghole and there must have been incentive involved...which implies it goes up the chain. I would be shocked if this was just an employee lying for no reason just because he feels he is in a position of power given the measily amount of money he is making and working for Geek Squad. But, could be... . There are plenty of dumb people in the world.
Yep. Just like auto maintenance. Paying $30 to have your cabin air filter changed on your car is the about the equivalent of the RAM installation. It takes about a minute and requires no effort at all.
I doubt Best Buy lawyers would let him do anything of the sort. Standard corporate policy is going to be to never admit fault because it opens you up to all sorts of lawsuits. I agree his statement was generic and useless - my only point was that what happens behind the scenes and in public are very different things, and we don't know what happened behind the scenes. Plus, throwing an employee under the bus publicly just makes it more likely that he tries to throw Best Buy under the bus as well. Lawsuits of his own, publicly exposing other fraud, etc. Good for us, but no corporation is going to put themselves in that position. This is just a guess, but I suspect the problem is that they get some kind of incentive / commission pay. When not structured and supervised properly, that screws up all the proper compensation systems and invites fraud. Bad incentive systems are what caused the financial crisis and ACORN scandals.
2009 report* May have been true when this report first aired.* May be true now, still, I'm afraid. I hear stories of friends who go there and are charged an arm and a leg, sadly, when you or I could just plug that cable back in for them at no charge at all.
I do this all the time also, but sometimes you need specialized tools/equipment especially in auto repair. In those cases, gotta bite the bullet or look for alternatives.
My wife used to work at Best Buy years ago...technically while they don't work on commission, they had to sell a certain number of magazine subscriptions and performance service plans. If she didn't reach her quotas, she wouldn't get as many hours. I could easily see that happening for the Geek Squad guys. I still find it laughable they wanted to charge something like 150 dollars to set up your game system!
Car manufacturers only seem to make it harder to do it yourself. My freaking cabin filter changing instructions in the owner's manual? Take it to your local Honda Dealer or repair shop.
When busted by a news agency, BB has to feign more urgency then that! Especially since one of two stores did well. Their PR people dropped this one -- (in 2009!). My mom uses Geeksquad a fair bit. I don't think she's been ripped off yet -- but the $40-$50 to have a quick look or install software is well worth it to her. The BB she goes to has yet to upsell her. Thankfully.
Having worked for Geek Squad (only a month, fortunately), I can confirm this. A lot of the folks there know mostly how to back stuff up off a hard drive, format it, and reinstall Windows and other software packages. Hardware debugging? Not so much experience there. However, if it were just ineptitude, why would they blatantly lie about a bad hard drive or a virus? You can't say you found a specific problem without evidence and NOT be lying...
It still sucks. All of these services industries are "rip offs". but it exists...to do the work people either don't know how to do, or don't care to learn / do themselves. Staples is the only place I'd ever take something if I was dumb with computers. It's like paying for your grass to get cut....
lol, this is timely. I took my BMW into the shop last week to have the brakes worked on, and they said my cabin filters needed to be changed and they charge $140 . I told them no thanks, even though I work in IT and know absolutely nothing about cars. At that moment I realized how most people feel when they have computer issues, and resort to paying those idiots at the Geek Squad to help them out. I found a walk through on youtube, bought the filters at O'Reilly's, and switched them out myself...saving $100 in the process .
