A few years ago, I had a lady from Geek Squad help me restore a computer I had back to factory original condition. We did this over the phone. It cost me $79.99, but it was worth it at the time to fix it. Flash forward to this month. My new Dell was giving me some problems and the warranty was up, so I decided to again enlist the help of The Geek Squad. What was happening was that the computer would power down whenever it tried to bring up the desktop. I could tell you it was the video card. So on a Friday, I took my tower over to my local Best Buy and walked over to the Geek Squad booth. There was only one guy running the booth and four people ahead of me, so this took quite a while to get up to the front of the line. Forty-Five minutes later, I got my turn. I told the rep that it was the video card and just asked him to put in a new one. He plugged it into his monitor and agreed that that was the problem. I asked him when he thought the job would be done. It was 7:30 on a Friday night, so I didn't expect it to get it back the same night. He said Tuesday or Wednesday. He asked me for $69.99, which, I assumed was a labor charge and that I'd have to pay for the actual video card later.
Tuesday comes around and I happened to be in the neighborhood, so I called the store and used the automated phone menu to get in touch with the Geek Squad booth. I swear that phone rang for an eternity before the call got kicked over to the Best Buy operator. I asked her if she could check to see if my PC was done. She put me on hold and the line went dead after a few minutes. I can't honestly say she hung up on me, but I wouldn't put it past anyone at Best Buy. I called back, got the same girl, and this time she came back after a few minutes saying that they hadn't even started working on it. I wasn't mad about that because the first guy did say it might take until Wednesday.
On Wednesday, I decided that I probably could install a video card by myself, so I called the Geek Squad booth again and said that I'd prefer to install the card myself and that I'd be in the store after work to get my PC and a refund. I did promise to actually purchase a video card from the Best Buy store so they wouldn't feel gypped. The guy on the phone said, "Well, we'll discuss that when you show up." Smug, to say the least. Anyway, I show up at about 7:30 on Wednesday and there is a different guy in the booth this time; some brown-haired kid with glasses. He really wasn't doing anything as far as I could tell; just kind of sitting there. I explained who I was and what I wanted to do, but he just shot back with "We don't refund the $69.99 fee."
"Oh, so you guys are working on it now?"
"No, we haven't started on it yet."
"So, you haven't done any work on it yet, so what is that $69.99 for?"
I just got the evil eye. I looked behind the counter and there were five other guys back there and only four PC's, including mine, on their workbench. These guys were just standing around not working on anything, including my Dell. They were just talking.
Just to motivate the little demon, I lied to him and told him that this was my boss's PC and that I absolutely had to have it back by Friday evening for a work function. He said it would definitely be done by that time. On Friday at about 3 o'clock, I checked their website to see how far along they were. They STILL hadn't even started on it. I called them again and told the guy who answered the phone that I would be in that store on Saturday at 1 PM and it was either to be fixed, or I was to be refunded my money and given my PC to take somewhere else. Saturday, I called at noon and whoever answered the phones said that he wasn't sure if it was done or not, but there was my old video card laying on top of the tower and the jerk who was working on it didn't write down any notes to tell the other workers if it was done or not. He said that the guy who was working on it was named Drake and that he was due to show up for work at 12:30. At 12:31 I show up at the booth and find this Drake guy. He looked like he walked out of a graveyard. He was also wearing eyeliner. What a dress code. He said that he removed the old card and he'd show me some other cards to put into my PC. Drake, despite his Satanic look, was actually quite helpful and together we chose a good video card. He also said that I'd need a new power supply. He helped me choose that as well. He said he'd have it done in an hour.
"Ok, fine. I'll go to Burger King and get some lunch." I said.
Drake actually did make good on his promise and it was ready when I got back. I did get a bit mad at him because it turns out that the $69.99 was to test what was wrong with the computer. I already knew what was wrong with the computer, yet they still charged me to run diagnostic tests on it. At this point, I didn't even care, I just wanted my PC back. So, here's a breakdown of what this simple procedure ended up costing me. (Excluding tax.)
$69.99 Diagnostic Tests
$89.99 nVidia GeForce video card
$89.99 400 Watt Power Supply
$50.00 Installation of video card
$50.00 Installation of power source (not sure if he charged this honestly.)
$349.97
I'm not mad about the price of the parts. I'm also not mad that they charge an installation fee. What I am mad about is my PC sat untouched in that store for over a week before someone looked at it, they charged me a diagnostic fee when I told them what was wrong with it, and they even tried to sign me up with that dumb Rewards Card after all this went down.
Knowledgeable, but lacking in courtesy.
Jake
Chicago, Illinois
U.S.A.
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