I have had two potentially horrific experiences with our local Best But (Geek Squad) computer service. On two separate occasions I have had friends call me to see if I could fix their computers after they had been taken to best buy for repair. On both occasions the technician that handled the diagnostics and subsequent repair estimates either failed to, choose not to or didn't know how to actually diagnose the problem.
Problem one was a simple matter of password recovery on an XP home computer. My friend was asked to pay approx $400.00 to backup data, reformat the drive and reload all software. I was able to boot the computer in safe mode, access the system under the admin account and reset the password in less than five minutes. This would have been a $50.00 service call had I charged them the current rate from my company.
Problem two concerned two cd/dvd drives that Windows XP Pro would detect but not load all the drivers for. Best Buy stated the problem was a "security issue" and that the drives had been "compromised". They offered to backup, reformat and reload for a price of $350.00. The actual problem was caused by filter drivers that pertain to windows own cd burning software and the registry fix took 15 minutes on the internet to track down and all of 5 seconds to perform. Again only a $50.00 service fee.
The folks running the Geek Squad have no interest in how to diagnose and repair computers. All they seem to care about is making up a BS story the consumer will accept and then separating them from their money.
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