Complaint Review: Circuit City

I have been working as a firedog for almost 6 months now. Going into the job i received little to no training. They gave me things called E-Learnings which were nothing more than audio informative things that often got skipped through just to get you out on the floor fast. So all in all i was quite dissappointed with the way my local store trained us in general. Right now there are just 2 firedog techs at my store including myself. The other firedog was there alot longer but has absolutely no certification. Most of the stuff he knows is self taught and a bit from school. He attends the same classes at my college.... fails the classes and CERTs, but Circuit City keeps him as a firedog. Infact they made him the "LEAD firedog which is now called the MASTER firedog". I find it quite annoying that they do stuff like that... but oh well i dont own the store so i have about as much say so in it as you do. I currently have the following CERTIFICATIONS and i'm still a normal firedog. A+, Network+, Security+, SCNS, and Novel's CNA cert. I'm still not done with college and am considered to be top in my class by all the teachers in the tech division. Anyways... enough ranting... and on to my reply to this guys post.

Not all firedogs are wolves. in fact many of us actually do care about helping customers out and saving them as much money as possible. Unfortunately we arent the ones running the business... but then again business is business... and free services get businesses closed. Yeah you may have bad experiences with the techs at your local store but honestly did you even do your own homework? Did you ask who will be working on your machine? Did you ask for proof of certification? If you answered No to either of those then you cant really get upset over poor service.

When a customer comes in and asks to have work done. in my wallet i carry all my cards of CERTs other than my SCNS that doesnt come with one. If they ask to see if i'm certified i happily pull them out to show. If you let someone work on your machine that isnt certified then you in a way are to be blamed for taking the gamble in the first place.

Next the approved TOOLS we are stuck using due to legal issues, are severly limited. Using freeware, shareware, pirated, and even personally owned software is prohibited and a firedog can be fired if not prosecuted for using anything Corporate has not authorized.

Last but not least, about your issue. $60 to DIAGNOSE the problem is cheap. here where i live the competition charges anywhere between 75-120 to set the computer on the desk. You might ask why soooo much. well honestly if my job was so easy you wouldnt be bringing it to me and you would know what to do on your own. Also $60 covers the time a Tech takes to actually find out what all is wrong with the machine and not just the video card.

Some DIAGNOSIS actually take hours if not days to get completely right and the store loses money on it since it pays a firedog $9.75+ a hour so be glad if your issue only takes a few days. some places it takes weeks since they have non certified techs. (Most of the time long waits is simply due to the amount of services sold prior to your machine entering the system. YES there is a waiting line for services. especially during the holidays)

Ok so You had a bad video card. if its an internal video card then yes 1 option would be to replace the motherboard. Buying a different one can cause issues because boot files on the Hard Drive are configured to specific settings, and by changing hardware that alone can cause boot failures. Boot failures often require an Operating system reinstall in order to get things working again. and by doing that YES data will be lost.

In your case you just got lucky and no OS reinstall was needed. You could have also installed a new video card and hopefully your bios would auto switch to the new video card installed. THIS DOESNT ALWAYS HAPPEN. it just depends on the machine. its usually a 50/50 shot. Not to mention your onboard video would still be dead and the issue wouldnt have been fixed. just temporarily patched.

Now i dont agree with them charging the $129.99 OS reinstall if it was not performed. But i highly doubt that they did not perform something simular that takes the same amount of time which justified it. Usually replacing the motherboard like u did with a different type can corrupt the MBR like previously stated and they probably ran an OS repair to fix that. and thats why you didnt lose your data.

All in all, we dont break your stuff. we fix it. You are not the only one in the Que and we work on a first come first served basis. The only time that this does not apply is on computers that require more time to DIAGNOSIS, or computers that we have to WAIT on parts to do anything with. How can you expect us to fix your computer if we dont have the part required yet? We cant speed up the manufacturer in shipping. we cant force an overnight without charging you something. so be patient. The more you hound us about your machine the more time you take us away from fixing it.

All in all at my store we try to save you money, we try to get things done fast, and as painlessly as possible, but when it comes down to it. the problem isnt viruses, or faulty updates. but quite often sits between the keyboard and chair. I dont charge people for silly stuff like CD's left in the CDROM and getting boot failures. i dont charge people for them simply plugging things into the wrong color coded spots... I dont charge people to simply ask a question. I charge people when it requires more than 5 minutes of my time, and when i put it in the system. I will get to your machine as soon as i get to it. NOT right NOW cause i'm already working on someone elses machine. You are not the only person in the world. be patient.

If you rely sooooo much on a pc and need to have a computer RIGHT now then you should have been smart enough to have a backup. If you run a business you should know what i mean by having a Business Continuity Plan. if you dont have one then its safe to say after a major crash you can expect to go out of business within 5 years and yet again you have no one to blame but yourself.

I'm sure there will be plenty of people ranting back.. but any tech out there will tell you the same basic stuff. you break it. someone else fixes it. and they dont fix it for free unless they are new to fixing computers. I didnt spend thousands to go to school for this stuff to give you stuff for free. sorry it dont work that way.

After all the above problems, my computer has been back to Circuit City 3 times. They don't ever complete a job, I find. After traveling 30 miles to get to their store, we hook our computer up only to find major programs uninstalled.

A history search shows they were searching the internet to find instructions on how to install,but nevertheless they never installed important programs like the tv functionality on my media center computer. Then more trips, "urgent" installs that take 3 days and a "Don't know why it wasn't done." No apologies offered. They are charging top $$ for extremely inferior results.

just like you told that mexican the he had to pay 80 bucks to buy spybot search and destroy, a free program

Hello, For your situation it sounds like your Video card on your motherboard went out and they wanted you to get a new one [Motherboard] But they are dumb and dont know that
you can just buy a video card for like $20 brand new! and you can install it your self
its like plug it in start up the computer and it works! that saves you the installation
and the part price. im sorry to hear about what happend to you. I own a computer repair store and would never tell someone the wrong information to gain money.