Best Buy's Geek Squad Swapping Beetles For The Toyota Prius

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Best Buy sent out a press release announcing the company's switch from the VW Beetle to the Toyota Prius. Oh yeah, they redesigned the Geek Squad logo too. No other updates announced. The company still makes employees wear that odd shirt, tie and badge combo though.

Best Buy announced today the dispatch of nearly 1,000 Toyota Prius c hybrids nationwide to serve as our new Geekmobile vehicles. The new Geekmobile, boldly bearing the updated logo, better reflects today’s new Geek Squad — the nationwide tech-support task force that is continually expanding its services to keep pace with ever-changing technology.
 
Ur_Mom said:
They seriously have a badge? Wow.

The Prius is a good idea for a lot of fleet cars like that. City, high mileage.. It works.

I'd never hire them (no need, as I can do it myself), nor would I recommend them to others.
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What? You don't want random people rummaging through your hard drive?
 
Ur_Mom said:
They seriously have a badge? Wow.

The Prius is a good idea for a lot of fleet cars like that. City, high mileage.. It works.
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I would think the Prius would be superior just due to how much extra crap you could store in it vs. a beetle by putting down the back seat and essentially having a station wagon level of room. But then again don't know what tools (if any) the Geeksquad brings with them to any particular appointment.
 
Domingo said:
Hopefully their solutions to everything still include defragging the HD, installing a paid anti-virus, deleting cookies, and then just giving up.
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I wouldn't let then near anything I own, even if they where free.

Still the bottom end Prius "C" > Beatle, especially when it comes to in town mileage and reliability.
 
Every time I see one of these vehicles around town I instinctively flip it off. :whistle:
 
nutzo said:
I wouldn't let then near anything I own, even if they where free.

Still the bottom end Prius "C" > Beatle, especially when it comes to in town mileage and reliability.
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Hahahah, this. It is almost guaranteed you'll get it back worse off than when you gave it to them to work on, and usually missing some personal data, conveniently covered under their standard disclaimer. (Not from personal experience, thankfully)
 
twonunpackmule said:
What? You don't want random people rummaging through your hard drive?
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gs.jpg
 
Domingo said:
Hopefully their solutions to everything still include defragging the HD, installing a paid anti-virus, deleting cookies, and then just giving up.
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...and charging $150 for a job that your average curious 5 year old can figure out by accident.

Geeksquad is quite literally a business model that's run by idiots and caters to morons. They only have to have 1 IQ point more than their average clientele and the business model has a chance to succeed.
 
mavrocket said:
I always knew Best Buy hated the Earth. PRIUS OUTDOES HUMMER IN ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE
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Maybe the environmental bit is true, but the lifetime of a Prius is ridiculous. The batteries are known to last more than 10 years (the warranty is 100 or 150k and 10 years), and they can be replaced for roughly $2600 bucks, which isn't exactly a deal killer, especially for Toyota's, whose motors typically last 300,000 miles or more.
 
I don't get it. Such a big vehicle for maybe 2 techs, some cds, an external HD, a few USB keys, a PC tool kit and maybe a few power tools? I can't comment on their service but what could it possibly entail to require that? I'm sure BB has dedicated delivery staff for big/numerous stuff.
 
When BB originally opened up their geek squad they didn't want to hire me because I was over qualified with A+ and Net+.

Blew my mind, the second BB wanted to hire me even though I didn't tell them about my certs.
 
ecktt said:
I don't get it. Such a big vehicle for maybe 2 techs, some cds, an external HD, a few USB keys, a PC tool kit and maybe a few power tools? I can't comment on their service but what could it possibly entail to require that? I'm sure BB has dedicated delivery staff for big/numerous stuff.
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Friend use to worked for Geek Squad, they had like 2 branded bugs but the rest were branded vans and cargo trucks. They needed larger vehicles because customers really paid for delivery and install of big screen TV's and speakers etc.

I'll leave comments on the actual service to others here, but as a business major I have to give them props on their company branding. Any "geek" tv show or movie that has a scene with a retail store tech support will be a knockoff of geek squad. The guys who founded the company sold it to BB and made off like a bandit.
 
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Trimlock said:
When BB originally opened up their geek squad they didn't want to hire me because I was over qualified with A+ and Net+.

Blew my mind, the second BB wanted to hire me even though I didn't tell them about my certs.
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They did PC repairs before geeks quad. Actually nothing changed when they first rolled out geek squad aside from the uniforms. Your story sounds made up.
 
Tweak42 said:
I'll leave comments on the actual service to others here, but as a business major I have to give them props on their company branding. Any "geek" tv show or movie that has a scene with a retail store tech support will be a knockoff of geek squad. The guys who founded the company sold it to BB and made off like a bandit.
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I was in college studying marketing when they made the switch. I told them their business model was stupid but the did t listen. Now stores employ 1/2 what they used too, oh well. My advice is t free these days.





Companies sell products in bestbuy, and continually strive to make them easier to use.

Bestbuy wants to drive margins, by performing services on products that are hard to use.

See the problem.
 
Wow.. you guys are jerks. I work in Geek Squad. It's a respectable job.




Said no one ever.
 
nutzo said:
I wouldn't let then near anything I own, even if they where free.

Still the bottom end Prius "C" > Beatle, especially when it comes to in town mileage and reliability.
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Those beatles are based on the golf platform, and turbo golfs are pretty decent.
 
I would assume that the vast majority of people here would never think of using a service like this... and think it's a stupid service to need or have since we can easily do it ourselves. But the vast majority of people (and even kids who now grow up with tech in their hands) only know how to operate stuff that they mess with on a daily basis (because they need to or are interested in it) - and significantly less of those know how to troubleshoot or fix this stuff. I also wouldn't doubt that the vast majority of people here also serve as a bit of tech support for family and friends (I know I am)... Not everybody is that fortunate - especially if you do it for free. :)

But yeah, making fun of a service like this is like making fun of car repair/maintenance and people that need the service - sure, there's bad shops and not all shops under the same company are equal. But as for computer repair, AV installation etc... they might just be the best bang-for-your-buck for everybody else.

That said...changing this vehicle type only makes sense if BB is saving money. Most of the vehicles I see around here are vans...
 
My grandfather, who is 90 years of age from minnesota, needed help with his pc. I fixed the issue and he complemented me by asking "Why don't you work at 'best buys' for that emm... 'goon squad'?...eh...nerd squad?" It made my day.
 
I am gonna go out on a limb here and say I speak for most of us here. I don't think any of us will see geek squad in our driveway anyways so who cares what they drive? :p
 
Willypants said:
My grandfather, who is 90 years of age from minnesota, needed help with his pc. I fixed the issue and he complemented me by asking "Why don't you work at 'best buys' for that emm... 'goon squad'?...eh...nerd squad?" It made my day.
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I'd hope your grandfather understands how much of an insult that is. Anything more than a high school education over-qualifies you to work for Geek Squad.

And of course none of us would hire them to do anything, why would we hire people less qualified than us to install things. It would be like an electrician hiring a handyman to install a power socket.
 
WangChung said:
Not true. Every Jiffy Lube in the country - any country - is complete shit. You hate both cars and money if you take a car to Jiffy Lube.
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Ha, I drove by a quick lube place the other day and had a good laugh that every car in line was a Pontiac or a Dodge Caravan. People that absolutely don't give a shit about cars tend to gravitate towards those :D
 
Verge said:
They did PC repairs before geeks quad. Actually nothing changed when they first rolled out geek squad aside from the uniforms. Your story sounds made up.
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They actually did not do PC repairs, they tagged them shipped them somewhere before geek squad came around.
 
Trimlock said:
They actually did not do PC repairs, they tagged them shipped them somewhere before geek squad came around.
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before geek squad I used to be able to take sdram modules to them and they had a benchtop integrity tester. Was a nice service at the time, much quicker and more accurate than running memory test programs.
 
Darunion said:
before geek squad I used to be able to take sdram modules to them and they had a benchtop integrity tester. Was a nice service at the time, much quicker and more accurate than running memory test programs.
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Yea I remember the bench, that was used for testing only. Our guy ran his in an open motherboard.
 
Domingo said:
Hopefully their solutions to everything still include defragging the HD, installing a paid anti-virus, deleting cookies, and then just giving up.
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This is absolutely priceless ^

You won the internets today
 
Verge said:
They did PC repairs before geeks quad. Actually nothing changed when they first rolled out geek squad aside from the uniforms. Your story sounds made up.
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I"m pretty sure geek squad was a separate company that BBY bought. I'm also pretty sure that they've had some high level people contracted out to work IT issues for major concert tours (which surprised me when I read that).
 
nilepez said:
Maybe the environmental bit is true, but the lifetime of a Prius is ridiculous. The batteries are known to last more than 10 years (the warranty is 100 or 150k and 10 years), and they can be replaced for roughly $2600 bucks, which isn't exactly a deal killer, especially for Toyota's, whose motors typically last 300,000 miles or more.
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In which case, you are actually causing even more damage to the environment. It's the batteries that are the deal killers in the first place!
 
Ur_Mom said:
They seriously have a badge? Wow.
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Yeah, that's part of the gimmick. The stores are precincts, the workers are agents, etc. I've known places that have techs dress up in Doctor's jackets, with propeller hats, etc. It's a throwback to the 90s when in home repair was all new.

mavrocket said:
I always knew Best Buy hated the Earth. PRIUS OUTDOES HUMMER IN ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE
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That's already been thoroughly debunked. Even down to replacing batteries. You'll likely will never have to replace the entire pack, there's plenty of places that will take them apart and replace the bad cells and refurbish them. The whole basis of the study hinges on the prius basically being disposable and lasting a decade.

Verge said:
They did PC repairs before geeks quad. Actually nothing changed when they first rolled out geek squad aside from the uniforms. Your story sounds made up.
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Unless its a simple cleanup or upgrade they ship everything out to get fixed now. Nowadays the people there are there because they are good at promoting services. They care that you can sell more than if you can take a computer apart.
 
nilepez said:
I"m pretty sure geek squad was a separate company that BBY bought. I'm also pretty sure that they've had some high level people contracted out to work IT issues for major concert tours (which surprised me when I read that).
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This^, I dont think they have always been owned by them
 
mavrocket said:
In which case, you are actually causing even more damage to the environment. It's the batteries that are the deal killers in the first place!
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Except that Prius is a Toyota, and will likely last 200,000+ miles with just normal maintenance.

That Hummer was made by GM, and will need lots of replacement parts just to get to 50,000 miles.
 
Trimlock said:
They actually did not do PC repairs, they tagged them shipped them somewhere before geek squad came around.
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Not correct. They did out of warranty repairs for $$$ since... who knows, i was 12?

They did in warranty repairs almost a year before geeksquad rollout. I'm trying to think of the stupid acronym in STAR that it was referred to but it slips my mind. Was a long time ago.(if you don't understand those last 2 sentences, you didn't work there, and don't know)
 
mavrocket said:
In which case, you are actually causing even more damage to the environment. It's the batteries that are the deal killers in the first place!
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So says the article, and it may be true, but I can't take that articles word for it, given that they blatantly lied about the life span of a Prius to make the hummer costs less number work
 
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