Geek Squad Repair Service Story of the Day

Ouch! That's one reason I love HP's Business Notebook line. Their keyboards are under user-replaceable warranty because it's just 2 screws on the bottom of the laptop, and 4 latches on top of the keyboard, and it's off.

That's why, even with home products, my dad and I always contact their business support line. They actually take better care of you there. I've gotten a couple of printers replaced through them, and they were always top notch for support on pocket PCs. They took good care of me on the desktop side as well, at least until I started building my own. I suppose I've never had a laptop experience with them, as I've only owned one HP laptop, and I bought it used, then sold it to a family member. They've always been really good at replacing printers and other devices, or repairing them quickly for me. In fact, the last printer I just had replaced last month, and I actually just called the regular consumer support. It was a lot longer phone call than necessary, but I ended up with a brand new replacement, and a return shipping label at no cost to me. She kept asking me, "When the unit prints documents, are there lines?" I would say, "The unit will not print regardless of tray settings, ink volume, computer settings, etc. It simply says, 'out of paper' and refuses to print anything at all." She says, "What about when you print a photo? Does it print any lines or have any strange dots when you print photos?" "Well, it won't print ANYTHING, so I couldn't say." "So how do the prints look when you just print from a memory card?" "Ummm, ma'am, I tried that, and it still says 'out of paper'. It won't print anything from any source. I've tried all the troubleshooting, reset, and maintenance options and it won't even try. It just says it's out of paper."

Eventually she hooked me up with a replacement printer, but I was on the phone for over two hours. She wasn't a bit rude, though, so I didn't mind so much. Especially since they took care of me just fine in the end. The replacement works like a charm. I almost bought the extra year of warranty for $25 extra on the spot, but this unit sucks a little too much ink per print for my liking ...

The reason BB and other stores push extended warranties so much is because it's very profitable. Most people never use the extended warranty. When you pay $99 for an extended warranty that potentially covers say a $400 TV repair bill, the salesman gets a $20 spiff and BB pockets a nice profit, the economics of it are that only one out of 10 (or less) will actually use the warranty. If you pay this $99 for an extended warranty each time with the odds being 1 in 10 that you will use it, you generally come out on the losing side.

Anyways, most "2 year" extended warranties are a joke since the first year is often covered by the manufacturer and a second year is covered by many credit card "buyer's assurance" protections.

That depends on your credit card companies, but I've worked at Best Buy for over 5 years, mostly just part-time on the side because I enjoy tech stuff, and working with the local population. And I can tell you, it's worth it on laptops. Personally, I'm 3 for 3 on battery replacements on all the laptops I've purchased over the years. There's value in that there, and parts are a lot more pricey and harder to come by on laptops. I actually flat out tell customers I don't recommend it on a desktop, because they can buy replacement parts off the shelf for $40 or so for the most common repairs, or even cheaper online. And if they ask, I'll flat out show them. And I tell them if they're comfortable with a large philips screwdriver, simple repairs like that are no issue. They're rarely see even half their money back on an extended warranty on a desktop. But laptop people take advantage of that ALL THE TIME. New batteries, new power cables because of dirty power, of which we have plenty, worn out screen cables, keys that pop out of keyboards, worn out touch pads, etc. We had one guys laptop in FOUR TIMES for hard drive replacements. I think he probably listened to music on it and encoded DVDs at the same time with the lid shut or something, and was just frying things. But heat damage and normal wear and tear are covered. I personally helped do some of the repairs on his laptop. We did a good job for him, and he most certainly got his money's worth out of that plan, and as two of the hard drives were covered under warranty, the store didn't come out too badly upside down on it either.

But like I've pointed out, as long as the customers not Mr. Demanding Dick, we will do whatever we can to take care of people. Laptops move around. Desktops just sit there. Laptop parts are usually at least double their desktop counterparts, and usually proprietary. Desktop parts are almost always cheap and universal. I've never had to lie to my customers, and I thank the good Lord for managers that don't mind. And if I hear a sales associate spouting BS on the floor, I'll take the time to kindly explain to them the truth of things. For example, when an associate tried to sell that Dynex 400w PSU to the customer buying a new video card that required a 400w power supply. He was surprised when I informed him that it wasn't really a 400w power supply, and I suggested a different, slightly more expensive unit instead - but one that wouldn't start on fire when it hit 200w! I politely explained that it certainly wasn't the associate's fault so he wouldn't look bad to the customer, but that I have actually read over real world test results of this model, and had knowledge that perhaps he didn't know. Both the associate and the customer were grateful.
 
Best Buy keeps me in business.

They can't fix computers for crap around here.
 
The problem is some of the Techs at Geek Squad are actually real live techs that know how to fix stuff. I know a few of em and actually was a tech at BB back in the day way before Geek Squad ever existed. Best Buy used to offer pretty decent service, used to being the operative word there.

I had a monitor go bad, DVI port went out on it. Had to send it off for service. Went to Best Buy in the same shape that it came out of the box from the factory in. Perfect, no scratches, nicks, dents dings etc. No finger prints on the screen. It comes back finger prints all over the screen and somehow they managed to damage the Front Bezel. Big honking scratch on the front of it. They called me told me I could either pick it up as it is now fixed, but has cosmetic damage or I could trade it for an equal new monitor.

I had a 24" 1920 x 1200 LCD which of course BB doesn't sell anymore and paid 500 for it new less than 2 years previous. I decided on a 23 " Sammy PX 2370 LED monitor as it was the only thing on the shelf that even halfway interested me. I was expecting a 200 dollar store credit as this new monitor was only 300. They inform me that no you get equivalent technology not same dollar amount. Bullshit ! They changed their policy, bastards.

Used to be on an exchange you got equal dollar value item , now it's equivalent technology. They then inform me that since I'm taking a new monitor that my service plan will be finished, again Bullshit !

I stated you damaged the monitor, you don't have the equivalent technology available to me any longer so the only way I will be satisfied is if I get to keep the new monitor, and keep the remaining 2 years on the service plan. Thats what finally happened but that took a little over an hour of strongly discussing the only way I would leave happy.

Their "service" after the sale has gone way, way down from what it used to be back in the 90's.

I am amazed they even accommodated you at all. The last 2 times I dealt with BB customer service I was told by the employees and then finally even the store manager to leave when arguing about an issue. Note that while I was understandably upset (story too long to post, totally screwed on a monitor purchase, employee lied to my face about several things to make the sale and store refused to honor said employees word) but remained admirably polite, never yelled or cursed or anything like that.

Ofc I never buy warrantys from the stores cuz they are bs/scams 95% of the time. On the few occasions I have had friends with extended warranties, trying to actually get some use out of them always led to a disaster story. Good friends $2000 quad core laptop died a week after manufacturer warranty expired, had BB extended warranty; they couldn't fix it and had nothing near as powerful in stock anymore, told to accept their best equivalent item worth half the price or take the broken one back. I wasn't surprised but still,. amazing how people still shop at BB when we have newegg and enthusiasts like us all over the place willing to build you a good pc for a small fee (or free for family/friends perhaps!).

Im still amazed how some family members keep spending a fortune on total garbage store bought PCs despite my offers to build em a great box for cheaper and at n0 charge! People just are unable to believe how unbelievably bad store pc quality and service is. I pretty much stopped repairing store bought PCs for the last 2 years, it just became WAY to much of a hassle for what I was charging. Replace one part with something of good quality, and another component dies, then the people blame you and expect you to fix it for free. After half a dozen times of it happening I gave up. If I built it for you out of enthusiast parts im happy to fix it. No more replacing/upgrading mem or a vid card and having the no name unrated psu fry from the extra 2-10w load for me :p
 
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