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best buy scam

Ickie

Ickie

SOH Administrator
My neighbor who was having a network problem with her computer took it to best buy to get it fixed, I looked at this machine a few days ago and told her i had no network card and she needed to go to a place which sold hardware for computers and buy one, and she took it to best buy and they told her that the computer is dead and sold her a new one, and it would cost $300 to get her pictures off the old drive.

well she bought the new computer but did not bite on the pictures.

she gave me the old computer and , the same day, (yesterday) and sure enough it would not run, then I noticed the little switch on the power supply set to 230 volts. They forgot to push it back to 115 volts after frying her power supply.

They killed her computer and told her it would cost about $300 to fix it to get her to buy a new one. what a scam they got going.

I removed her hard drive and placed it into my old backup box and in 10 minutes I had her pictures and docs on her new machine.

what a rip off company, I am sorry to bring this up but I have had my problems with best buy and their rip off policy, heck it took me over 6 months to get my money back once when the took it for a product they did not have at the price they sold it to me for and refused to ship it to me, then kept my money to boot.

I had to go to the BBB and complain to get my money back.

Again this needs to be on the internet so others who is looking can find it to read.
I am sorry once again
 
to top this off, the new computer came with nortons for 1 year and the talked her into buying kaspersky's
 
I just got off the phone with their attorney and they are going to give her a refund of $99 +

I had to talk to several people to get to him

he is going to look into this matter and maybe more money she will get back.
 
Well, good on you for being so proactive on her behalf! I wouldn't trust any of their so-called "technicians" to carry out my garbage...

On the other hand, my EE background has me wondering how one could "fry" a PSU by providing only one-half the input voltage?
 
how one could "fry" a PSU by providing only one-half the input voltage
Click to expand...

I once flicked the switch on a PS to 230 Volts to see what would happen and yes indeed it blew, I never did that again.
 
Sorry Ickie for your friend's loss, but live and learn, that is what you get from a department store chain instead of a dedicated computer shop. I expect you or I know more about computers, especially working on them, than any tech in any Best Buy store in the nation, these people are not ITT grads, promise. Their salesmen are savants and I never use Best Buy except for purchases of computer items, never get a computer from them, iPad or Galaxy maybe, but never a computer, for that got to Tiger Direct, CompUSA, or a dedicated computer store that will build you a computer with no bloatware and only the necessary tid-bits that "you" want.

Caz
 
n4gix said:
On the other hand, my EE background has me wondering how one could "fry" a PSU by providing only one-half the input voltage?
Click to expand...

Yup. Switch-mode power supplies do NOT like to be under-voltaged.
I've had more dead PSUs in computers from brown-outs than I have from lightning strikes.


That Worst Buy story stinks Ickie! I shop there as an absolute last resort and only if I'm in a bind.
I do gotta admit my current Dell Studio XPS machine came from there though.
I told em to get stuffed when they tried peddling the extra software and service plans. When they asked why not, I asked them to look in their system who their Dell warranty depots were and lo & behold I was still on file with em. (That was from long before the "Freak Squad" days when they didn't have "techs" in store.)
 
her computer was a desk model so a normal network card was too big, she needed a mini card about 1/2 the size, and I did not have one and I sent her there to buy a small one so she brought her computer to make sure she got the right one and they went too far on her, she never ask them to work on it just to look to see what size of card she needed, and all they would have had to done was look at the back, instead they pulled off the side/top and fiddled with it and told her the computer would not work. The $300 for a new power supply was excessive.
 
I do computer repairs as a side job (retired) to earn some toy money :)

One time I had surgery so I was out for a few weeks, one of my clients had to use their Geek Squad. They charged her two hours minimun at $80 per hour for a job that would have taken me about 30 minutes to fix. And I don't charge that much per hour.

On top of that they would not even tell her what was wrong and how it was fixed. I normally tell my clients what I have done and what not to do to have the same problem again.

Never been high on their service and customer support, just get stuff on sale and know what you get. And they keep pushing their extended warranty on hardware sales, which IMHO are not worth it.
 
BB use to not be that bad when we had a Circuit City but after CC left BB became worst than CC every was....
 
After all the stories I've heard on Best Buy, I don't even enter their parking lot.
 
I do the system repairs and updates and such within the family....and I love knowing that the Freak Squad is being left out in the cold. Not sure if this is true nationwide, but the Freak Squad at our local Beast Buy charges $150 just to come to your house, and that is before they even look at the computer. A few years ago, my bro-in-law had the Freak Squad come out and optimize and clean 2 systems.....the bill was just shy of $600! And the systems still didn't run right. Now that he knows that I am a semi-nerd capable of doing system repairs, updates and such, he calls me and saves a TON of money...and I tell him exactly what I am doing, why I am doing it, and how he can do it on his own to keep his systems working properly and smoothly.

OBIO
 
Ickie said:
I once flicked the switch on a PS to 230 Volts to see what would happen and yes indeed it blew, I never did that again.
Click to expand...

Well, that emphasizes how ancient and obsolete my EE background is... which just barely got past the introduction of transistors timewise...

I had quite forgotten that these newfangled devices use switching logic (SMPS) to generate voltage and current... :ernae:

That is not only a dirty trick, it is indeed actionable. Too bad pictures weren't taken!
 
I have the proof in my house and contacted our local ABC legal team which does these kind of stories, and I am willing to take a lie detector exam.

They need to fire this guy and come clean, like I told the ABC people his only mistake was forgetting to turn it back to 115 volts. and he never figured this old lady would give it away to a computer nerd like me as soon as she got home. lol
 
I'm going to have a bunch of bwork done on my DT In the near future. I was considering Best Buy as a possible doer of the work so I went in line to check them out. I googled Geek Squad and a number of sites - all of who's names escape me at this point - reviewing BB's maintenance practices showed up. of the 50 or so posts I read, all but two or three were entirely negative. Those few that were not negative were, by no means, positive. Needless to say I AM NOT GOING TO BEST BUY FOR MY COMPUTER REPAIRS!!!!! I found a luittle computershop near my house that has universally excellent reviews. After spending a little time talking to the owner I've decided to have them do the work. A little bit more expensive for parts but the labor is cheaper and they gaurantee their work. After reading this tread, along with personal experience, Best Buy is definitely in my rear view mirror.

LA
 
The guy that built this comp back in '02 has a little shop the next town over. If I can't handle it, it goes to him.
 
Cazzie said:
I expect you or I know more about computers, especially working on them, than any tech in any Best Buy store in the nation, these people are not ITT grads, promise.
Click to expand...

Though I agree with most of the thread, I really don't agree with this statement. I had several classmates in college that worked in the "Geek Squad". They definitely knew what they were doing and were always offering good advice to people at school. Just because Best Buy's policies are stupid doesn't necessarily mean everyone working there is.

ITT grads, lmao. That place is a total scam. Talk about overpaying... :mixedsmi:

Don't get me wrong, I can't stand Best Buy either. Save money by buying online and doing it yourself.
 
I heard back from ABC news,
Ron,</SPAN>

Thank you for watching and for writing. I will mention this to my producer and will get back to you if we decide to move forward.</SPAN>
Meanwhile your friend should file a case with Pinellas County Consumer Services at 727 464 6200.

also I am filling a claim with AARP and the above services named.</SPAN>
 
Remember your little run in with Worst Buy a couple of years ago Ron. Nice you got her photos for her and some money back too. I sure hope she and ABC persue compensaion back from BB.

I only go to CompUSA for any computer needs. It's where I got everything for this computer I'm running now. And they even made good on one screw up I did. I didn't realise I did it but I did.... I bent pins on the CPU and didn't know it. :redf:
 
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