Best Buy's Geek Squad

Mystere said:

. But, there are a lot of people who really don't know what they're doing.

and some of them work in computer repair shops ... I now have a nice little 2 year old acer tower for free because of it ,,it had a bad hdd ,and they couldn't get it to boot to a new one because of bios setting ,and they didn't figure this out ,so I ended up with the tower .it was on its way to computer/electronic disposal site . I added new hdd and made setting changes to bios ,loaded win10 ,and I turned it into a nice little tv box running KODI,,,oh I almost forgot they sold the customer a new tower.

edit ,, guy's working at this show are self-taught ,never worked or studied the trade before working at this electronic/enteraiment store

strollin said:

Yep. Places like the Best Buy don't pay very well so they don't get good techs, they get entry level techs. Once their techs get some experience under their belt they leave to go someplace else that pays better.

What you encountered was an incompetent tech, not someone trying to rip you off. I'm not sure how you got away without paying the diagnosis fee since you caused the tech to put in at least some time looking at your machine. If I was the manager I would have insisted that you pay the diagnosis fee due to your prank since you essentially wasted the tech's time.

Thats certainly possible but so is the tech knowing exactly whats wrong but sticking it to the customer as well , could be either . Best Buy will do anything to make a buck , their really bad lol.

I would not let "The Geek Squad" fix my crystal Radio Set that I built about 55 years ago.

fredc said:

One time i wanted them to fix my computer because it was non responsive ( when i new nothing) , all they did was a system restore, charged $100.00 .

Another one i went to was because i was convinced i had a bad infection , all they did was use the system recovery partition , another $100.00 . It pays to know how to do this simple stuff yourself , i don't trust any of them.

Just like car mechanics, if they know you don't know anything , they will find a way to charge you a lot more than what is necessary.

I don't disagree with your basic premise but I don't think $100 for a system restore is unreasonable under the circumstances. I've done it myself-when the restore is due to a problem it's not a 'start it & forget it' situation IMO. Depending on the system it can take up to a couple of hours to do the restore and if the tech monitors it then he's spent a couple of hours fixing your PC. To some people it's worth it knowing that someone who knows how to respond to a problem is monitoring what might-or might not-be a simply operation.

pchelp said:

I don't disagree with your basic premise but I don't think $100 for a system restore is unreasonable under the circumstances. I've done it myself-when the restore is due to a problem it's not a 'start it & forget it' situation IMO. Depending on the system it can take up to a couple of hours to do the restore and if the tech monitors it then he's spent a couple of hours fixing your PC. To some people it's worth it knowing that someone who knows how to respond to a problem is monitoring what might-or might not-be a simply operation.

My computer to this day has virtually nothing on it , nothing to keep , nothing saved , nothing downloaded . In all honesty a system restore takes well under 5 minutes on this thing lol, i think around two minutes actually , very fast.

I don't know the going rates for computer repair , if $100.00 for a system restore is what it costs than i believe it . What i see these days is your paying $100.00 minimum regardless of how simple the fix may be .

Couple years ago I was considering a plug-in-hybrid Ford (car) till I learned you HAD to use the Geek Squad if you wanted a home charging unit ...http://www.ford.com/cars/fusion/trim/seenergi/

rfruth said:

Couple years ago I was considering a plug-in-hybrid Ford (car) till I learned you HAD to use the Geek Squad if you wanted a home charging unit ...http://www.ford.com/cars/fusion/trim/seenergi/

Now that's just weird. I didn't see anything about using Geed Squad on that page but there's a lot of sub-pages I didn't go thru so I'll take your word for it. It sounds wrong to me (ethically, I mean, not that you have it wrong) unless Ford covers the installation cost. In that case they can use whoever they want.

fredc said:

My computer to this day has virtually nothing on it , nothing to keep , nothing saved , nothing downloaded . In all honesty a system restore takes well under 5 minutes on this thing lol, i think around two minutes actually , very fast.

I don't know the going rates for computer repair , if $100.00 for a system restore is what it costs than i believe it . What i see these days is your paying $100.00 minimum regardless of how simple the fix may be .

I'm retired now but when I was working I 'officially' charged $75/hour with a half-hour minimum. 5-minute fixes I generally didn't charge for at all. I say officially because I preferred to charge a flat rate for a job. I let the customer make the choice but as I explained it, if I blew the diagnosis I took the loss. Or they took the loss if it turned out to be simple but I rarely did work for strangers & people who knew me knew I was honest.

I don't recall ever working on a system that had 'nothing' on it though-maybe that's why I think system restores take longer.

Mystere said:

To be fair, that "expose" is deliberately creating a VERY difficult to diagnose problem. A bad stick of RAM can cause any number of symptoms. I know I've had bad memory cause symptoms that look like a lot of different things. And, an in-home diagnosis is not the ideal location to do this. But, there are a lot of people who really don't know what they're doing.

Diagnosing a RAM issue is difficult? Aren't these usually caught and reported by the POST?