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BestBuy Charges $1,700 for CD Drive Replacement?
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Xaero_toast
Limp Gawd
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We've all done that at some point in time. It's whether or not we had a backup at that time that separates the competent from the otherwise.
ivesceneenough
Limp Gawd
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You either don't know how computer service actually works or you aren't much of a criminal are you?
Firstly: most peoples computer they bring in will have small slow old OEM hard disks. 40 to 250 gigs. Some people do come in with newer machines, the nicer drives you will actually see on a day to day basis are usually 500GB 7200 RPM drives. Given how low prices are on NEW drives with warranty, you can't make a lot of money off of these things. what would you pay for one? $10-20? Not a good rate of return especially when i bring up point 2
Secondly: Taking old customer parts is the same as stealing a new item off of the shelf. If you are going to commit crimes that can get you fired and arrested you work in a computer store, which one will you take? the new GTX285 or Velociraptor or a dusty 250GB 5400RPM drive?
I completely feel where you are coming from. Here are 2 things I do not think you are taking into consideration.
(if you haven't figured this out before, I have worked at Geek Squad before)
1: Cost. If you start doing data backups for all warrantied computers that come in, it is going to cost you. The store I was familiar with was a smaller store, but still they would get 3 to 10 computers in a day that would qualify under a "back up everything under warranty plan". Say 25% of those now will pay for data backup, where the others decline. Thats a HUGE increase in the amount of work that needs done at the same time DECREASING income. So already, this is off to a bad start. Next, what do you back it up to? Do you charge the customer for an external Harddisk? Do you burn it to DVD? Do you invest in massive amounts of RAID storage? Lets look at the choices:
A: charging for harddisks, well then its no longer a free service. So given that people are already declining $100 for data backup, they will probably say no to a $100 external HD. this puts us back to square 1.
B: burning to DVDs. how many dvds does some one get? 2, 5, 19,? You could allow for unlimited amounts of DVDs, but when you start doing 35 computers a week with 40 gigs of data on each, thats a lot of money to spend on DVDs. But that's not the real cost. The real budget drain would be the increase you would need in labor to do such work. Honestly, copying HDs, then burning DVDs would be another full time spot. Thats $20,000 a year per store in labor. And you might say, there's no way it could take that much work. Yes, it would. When you have that many HDs and DVDs floating around, you would need someone to manage all of them. All of them are client data. If you accidentally give the wrong discs to the wrong person, that will cost you A LOT of money. People get VERY pissy when their info is given to other people. So between taking apart computers, copying data, making sure everything is labeled and sorted correctly, thats easily 40 hours a week.
C: Storing it locally, well it would be faster than burning DVDs, but its still a huge labor sink. But think about the amount of storage you would need. Several terabytes per store would be a minimum. (just throwing out numbers, if a store had 50 computers in a week, each with 50 gigs of back up, thats 250 gigs a week. say all of those computers are at service for 4 weeks, thats a minimum of 1 terabyte) And of course, it probably needs to be redundant. Because, how liable are you by doing this? What if a computer gets wiped and your backup fails? Thats going to make a situation like this seem tame. And keep in mind, with this setup, you also take on the huge liability of storing that much customer info locally. So you still have to make sure that the right people get the right info. Not quite as bad as with DVDs, but still a huge pain.
And lets not forget the type of customers that go to places like this. If someone told me, your hard disk was blank, you have to reinstall all of your programs, I wouldn't think its a big deal. I like a new fresh install of Windows. Its snappy, its quick, it doesn't have 9 programs installed by 9 different digital cameras that are doing weird things to my file associations. These are people, that if you wipe their computers and they work 50 times BETTER (better meaning quicker) but their old ways of doing things are changed, they will complain to NO END. So do you need to reinstall ALL of their programs as well? Its a slippery slope. And what about the customers with accidental damage warranties on their laptops. What if they bring in a smashed drive, do they get free data recovery?
As cold as it sounds, Best Buy realistically has to draw the line on the short side. OR charge more on their warranties, which most people here would already tell you are over priced.
Sorry for the rant.
cheers
I see where you're coming from, too, but if you read my entire post you'll see that I never suggested that we offer FREE data backup, but that we only wipe a drive as a last resort. You CAN do a clean install with any modern OS and the old files are safely stored away in a new "old" folder where the customer will be able to access them with their now functioning OS, assuming the drive is not physically bad.
ivesceneenough
Limp Gawd
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Reread the original story, they replaced the HD. I dont think this wasn't a case of formatting.
Atherton213
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actually... since i work there i know... when a drive is bad they get the new drive installed, the data back up if the chose and the old drive back. Even if they bring a computer in the be "recycled" we are required to take the HDD out and give it back the the customer to destroy.
Atherton213
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why not test everything?... they have the computer and they are a service center, they have the form showing the customer didnt want data backup... which would imply there isnt really anything important on the computer... so they replace the CD drive then a week later its back for a HDD... mean while the customer is bitching that they have to send the computer out for a 2nd time and be without it for another 2 weeks....
bestbuy did nothing wrong here...
I mentioned this story to someone who used to work at a BB Geek Squad. She said the customer was stupid for not having their data backed up. I said what about the bogus $1,700 charge. She agreed it's ridiculous, but the lesson is to always back up the data.
I interpret that as never let Geek Squad do anything (and don't bother w/ buying their extended warranty). If someone isn't computer savvy enough to do something as simple as replace a CD burner, hopefully s/he has a relative or friend who is.
I interpret that as never let Geek Squad do anything (and don't bother w/ buying their extended warranty). If someone isn't computer savvy enough to do something as simple as replace a CD burner, hopefully s/he has a relative or friend who is.
michael.pa2
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I had no idea so many people here worked for BB.
Come on,people,how can you defend a simple CD replacement resulting in a $1,700 charge? Sure,the lady should have know better than to let those hacks on the Geek Squad even touch her PC,but the ignorance of the average user doesn't excuse the screwing they get.Let's face it,this is hardly an isolated incident,visit any consumer forum and you'll find plenty of horror stories like this one.
Come on,people,how can you defend a simple CD replacement resulting in a $1,700 charge? Sure,the lady should have know better than to let those hacks on the Geek Squad even touch her PC,but the ignorance of the average user doesn't excuse the screwing they get.Let's face it,this is hardly an isolated incident,visit any consumer forum and you'll find plenty of horror stories like this one.Atherton213
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I had no idea so many people here worked for BB.
all computers sent out the people are told there is always a chance of data being lost and are offered a backup, which she declined... if the people at the geeksquad were doing there job she was aware of the chance stuff would be lost... and that 1700 charge is cause the drive was destroyed and thats the standard level 3 data recovery... which would cost anyone that much...even if they didnt go through bestbuy... the $1700 wasnt from bestbuy but a data recovery center that bestbuy happens to use...
Yep, and same thing with cars too.
swatbat
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I had no idea so many people here worked for BB.
Because we read the article which said the repair didn't cost her anything. She got the computer back in working order. The 1700 dollar quote was for data recovery off the drive which they replaced because she didn't backup her data and then declined to have them do it. Call drive savers one day or any of the other big recovery places and get a quote. In many cases it starts at a grand. I've seen quite a few people send in drives to them in the past too.
We don't know if the drive got damaged by the customer bringing the computer in, if best buy did something to cause it to fail, or if it failed if best buy shipped the computer to a repair depo. We also don't know if they original problem(cdrom not reading disks right) was a hardware or software problem. Could have been related.
this
dnphamus13
Limp Gawd
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Cerulean
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This needs to go on Slashdot, Digg, Reddit, and on all corners of the Internet so that we, the Internet, can wage war against BestBuy.
Internet vs Corrupt Businesses = Internet always wins.
Internet vs Corrupt Businesses = Internet always wins.
Not really. I think the customer is in there wrong here. They didn't back up their data when they were told to back it up.
YeuEmMaiMai
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failure to notify customer that their hdd was bad and they need to replace it and back up their data is where they went wrong.
hdd was replaced without customer knowledge.
YeuEmMaiMai
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so when you have a bad CD rom drive, do you back up your data before you replace it or do you just open the case and replace the defective drive?
There was absolutely no reason the customer should not have been contacted the moment that they determined that the hdd was bad and needed to be replaced.
replacing a defective CD-Rom drive does not require a data backup......
knothead34
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i find both parties at fault here imho. customer as others have stated
1 should not of given computer to kids with "sensitive date"
2 not backing up this said important data
3 all warranty work sent to kentucky depot center? meaning if it comes from california all the way to kentucky? anything can go wrong at that point.
4 best buy needs more depot centers so computers coming from long distances dont have to travel as far to possibly get more computer problems ie ups mishandling the box.
5 customer should be told if they decline 100 back up fee and the computer gets to kentucky depot center and the hard drive is bad for whatever reason it will be replaced and they should be getting a phone call saying so. also told if they want to attempt to get the data off there old hard drive they would send it back to them or they use a company to retrieve data off hd and it can cost 1700 dollars.
ps i laughed hard at the post above where a customer brought in a monitor and wanted the ram replaced. lol.
1 should not of given computer to kids with "sensitive date"
2 not backing up this said important data
3 all warranty work sent to kentucky depot center? meaning if it comes from california all the way to kentucky? anything can go wrong at that point.
4 best buy needs more depot centers so computers coming from long distances dont have to travel as far to possibly get more computer problems ie ups mishandling the box.
5 customer should be told if they decline 100 back up fee and the computer gets to kentucky depot center and the hard drive is bad for whatever reason it will be replaced and they should be getting a phone call saying so. also told if they want to attempt to get the data off there old hard drive they would send it back to them or they use a company to retrieve data off hd and it can cost 1700 dollars.
ps i laughed hard at the post above where a customer brought in a monitor and wanted the ram replaced. lol.
Exactly. No customer would expect the HDD to be touched when the CD drive was the problem. BB didn't have the authority to mess w/ the HDD if they didn't get permission first.
Atherton213
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the service tag signed by the customer im pretty sure states they will fix any and all issues found under warranty
regardless of whether or not there is fine print language that legally exculpates Best Buy, there is no denying that it is a terrible deal and a terrible business practice. It's extended warranty is overpriced and full of hooks to get people to spend more (like the $100 fee to back up the HDD for any and all repairs), and service is substandard and impersonal.
YeuEmMaiMai
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Uh, even the local dealer has enough common sense to call you or come into the service area and tell you "we found this additional problem that is covered under warranty, would you like us to fix it now or at a later date? (if it is not a recall)"
this whole mess could have been avoided with one very simple phone call. That was not done and therefore BB screwed up.
On a side note, that warranty paper may not hold up in court signed or not......
swatbat
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Big reason is time. Playing phone tag with a customer can take day(I know this from experience). If you send off any electronics for warranty repair they will fix everything they see that is covered under warranty and send it back. Hell sony tells you to backup your data on a playstation.
If the local dealer expects a delay in the repair because they find extra issues then maybe. If not generally they will fix the car and tell you when you come back in "hey we found this issue and fixed it under warranty while the car was in the shop).
As others have said what best buy did is standard industry practice for a warranty repair. Hell they could have sent back a replacement computer instead. Wouldn't have mattered.
Given the huge profit margins, that is really not much to ask. And many other warranty services (Ive already given nikon as an example) ask for permission first. No need to play phone tag. Send an email, letter or call asking for authorization. That is simple.
ivesceneenough
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When my wife's car was in at a dealership to get a fuel filter replaced they fixed 2
other things that were under "recall" without any further confirmation.
Adidas4275
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i worked at compUSA for about a year and I can say that I hated the way we did service... i would always help the customer out and advise them at the service desk of what I would do to save they money...
many times instead of a customer paying $100 for a data backup for a laptop before service I would advise them to buy a sub $100 external HDD or flash drive, backup the data at the service couter and then we would do the warranty work with out cost.
at least this way the customer would have their own backup and they got a external HDD for their money rather than 4 DVDs that cost them $100
BestBuys service ability BLOWS..... the fact that they dont fix any PCs inhouse is stupid... Before CompUSA closed we were fixing about 50-100 PCs a week and it was a good part time college job... people would buy their PCs at BestBuys (lower Prices) an then come over with their recept and get an extended service warranty from us becuase we were the only big box to do service in house...
PC service is a JOKE...... everyone in my family and most of my friends come to me for PC and Apple repairs..... I love TEAMVIEWER.... saves me SOOOO much time.
I just fixed a laptops wireless network settings by having the owner run teamveiwers portable app, and connecting the laptop via CAT5..... it worked great and i didnt haveto leave my house....
many times instead of a customer paying $100 for a data backup for a laptop before service I would advise them to buy a sub $100 external HDD or flash drive, backup the data at the service couter and then we would do the warranty work with out cost.
at least this way the customer would have their own backup and they got a external HDD for their money rather than 4 DVDs that cost them $100
BestBuys service ability BLOWS..... the fact that they dont fix any PCs inhouse is stupid... Before CompUSA closed we were fixing about 50-100 PCs a week and it was a good part time college job... people would buy their PCs at BestBuys (lower Prices) an then come over with their recept and get an extended service warranty from us becuase we were the only big box to do service in house...
PC service is a JOKE...... everyone in my family and most of my friends come to me for PC and Apple repairs..... I love TEAMVIEWER.... saves me SOOOO much time.
I just fixed a laptops wireless network settings by having the owner run teamveiwers portable app, and connecting the laptop via CAT5..... it worked great and i didnt haveto leave my house....
That's part of my issue as a Best Buy employee. We are actually a lucky store and have two geek squad guys that really, truly know their shiz. They all have home built PC's and really love computer technology. But corporate completely restricts anything we can do. If we try and fix something in house we're technically not supposed to fix we can get fired, even if we do it to help out the customer. Almost everything requires sending it off to a service center - especially with laptops. If they would just SEND US THE BLITHERIN' PART we would put the new CD-ROM in RIGHT THERE. The repair would be done locally, it would be done much more quickly, and we wouldn't TOUCH the stupid hard drive. CD drives have this magical ability in Windows XP or later called "plug and play."
It seems like they get stricter every year. Maybe they're trying to prevent inept Geek Squad agents from botching up repair jobs, but the blokes at the service center are much worse. We send things in for repair all the time, only to have them return with the same defective part still in place, and the equipment still out of order. And even though it's the service center's fault for being IDIOTS and not fixing anything, our local store has to front the shipping cost again to send it back in for a return repair attempt. It's a completely screwed up way to operate a computer repair business, and even if it's designed to save best buy money, it's horrible for the local stores and it's horrible for the customers.
I could have replaced that customer's drive in 30 min or less, and they'd have their computer back in 2-3 days instead of two weeks. And they wouldn't be wondering where all their personal files disappeared to.
bigdogchris
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Wouldn't it of shown BB was committed to CS if they would of just called the customer and reminded them that the data was going to be lost and recommended a back up?
When the system was dropped off, no data loss was expected for a CD Rom swap. At the point BB decided that under the warranty they are going to replace the HDD, something the customer did not expect, thus the reason to decline the backup, they least they could of done was called and reminded them the data should be backed up.
When the system was dropped off, no data loss was expected for a CD Rom swap. At the point BB decided that under the warranty they are going to replace the HDD, something the customer did not expect, thus the reason to decline the backup, they least they could of done was called and reminded them the data should be backed up.
swatbat
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Email wouldn't really work if you have their computer. A letter would take days and extend the amount of time it was out of the customer's hands. The no need to play phone tag comment is a little off when you mention giving them a call. I can't tell you how many times we would have to call people 2 or 3 times to get a response on something. In the repair depo's they are trying to get it out the door and returned as fast as possible.
Yep
Why didn't you just sell them the 100 dollar backup that included a hard drive? Most peoples data would fit on the drives. We would sell them them that plan that came with a 30, 40, or 80 gig drive(drives kept getting bigger over time) and a 30 dollar enclosure. That way they had their shit backed up and had a drive for backups in the future. We would then get the extra stuff people didn't know how to get like outlook data files.
Those are all lame excuses for a place that has to ship all items to a central location for repairs.
knothead34
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you can still call and leave a message cant you? hey we found your hard drive bad to gonna replace it as well as cd rom drive. if i delete whats on this drive and for some reason you want the files off of here might cost 1700 dollars to get it. give me a call back as soon as possible.
or something of that nature im pretty sure you would get a call back promptly.
or something of that nature im pretty sure you would get a call back promptly.
stop!theradio
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So, wait - it looks to me like you're sitting here defending the things Best Buy does. Seriously, WTF? You say "yep" to the car repair thing - but what if it happened to you? What if you just wanted an oil change and then you find out that they "had to" rebuild your transmission because they found a problem they deemed "hazardous"? So, instead of $40-80, you now owe $1,200 or more.
Yeah - no. You wouldn't be all "yep!" about it. You'd be fucking fuming. Just like you would be if you went to Best Buy, expecting to pay $40-80 for CD-ROM drive replacement job, but you get a $1,700 bill because they decided to fix everything else they *say* was 'broken'.
stop!theradio
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The point is that you bring in "something" to get a specific part fixed on it that you expect to be very cheap, but end up coming back spending tens of times what you expected for shit you never even wanted done. How is that not a good analogy? Same damn idea, different issue. What makes it worse is that there's a great chance you'd actually spend LESS at the repair shop getting your transmission completely rebuilt than what the duoches at Best Buy are trying to charge these people who just wanted their CD drive replaced. How's that for an analogy?
swatbat
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So, wait - it looks to me like you're sitting here defending the things Best Buy does. Seriously, WTF? You say "yep" to the car repair thing - but what if it happened to you? What if you just wanted an oil change and then you find out that they "had to" rebuild your transmission because they found a problem they deemed "hazardous"? So, instead of $40-80, you now owe $1,200 or more.
Yeah - no. You wouldn't be all "yep!" about it. You'd be fucking fuming. Just like you would be if you went to Best Buy, expecting to pay $40-80 for CD-ROM drive replacement job, but you get a $1,700 bill because they decided to fix everything else they *say* was 'broken'.
Ok here it is one more time for the people who didn't read the article. They fixed the computer for free. Per the warranty agreement they are not responsible for data, just responsible to returning the computer back to factory specs. They offered a data backup, the client refused it.
Put it this way, why would best buy repair the parts if they didn't think they were bad? It is costing them money to do it. The data recovery came up when the customer asked about getting the data back. Data that they didn't care much about since they left their only copy in the hands of their kids when they handed it over.
For your above statement though. If I dropped my car off for the oil change and when I came to pick it up they said hey we replaced your transmission under warranty(since this was a warranty issue) because it wasn't acting right I would be like great it is fixed.
swatbat
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The point is that you bring in "something" to get a specific part fixed on it that you expect to be very cheap, but end up coming back spending tens of times what you expected for shit you never even wanted done. How is that not a good analogy? Same damn idea, different issue. What makes it worse is that there's a great chance you'd actually spend LESS at the repair shop getting your transmission completely rebuilt than what the duoches at Best Buy are trying to charge these people who just wanted their CD drive replaced. How's that for an analogy?
Lets put it this way, Best buy didn't even need to offer the option of sending the drive out to a recovery shop. They could have said sorry, should have had a backup. I've had to put the call into vendors like hp before to try to get drives back they replaced in peoples notebooks because they didn't think the drive was the issue when it was. Generally I was told their was nothing they would do about it.