Complaint Review: Best Buy Geek Squad - Richfield Minnesota

I used to work at a Best Buy in Texas and I can confirm this was a practice our store also did. 2 friends of mine working at stores in the LA & NY markets confirmed there stores do something similar. we typically brought in a local H.S. Drill or cheer team. They would perform before the store opened. And then would work as "crowd control" talking to people in line. Basic questions, they would wear uniforms as to not confuse themselves as "best buy employees" and they never sold service plans. As far as anything inappropiate our store manager flat out told the college guys (employees) not to hit on the girls or talk to them. A few weird customers asked the girls for there phone# etc. and few customers took photos of the whole team or individual girls. But a school teacher was there so nothing strange happened. Rregarding the "pre-loading" software. This was a common practice at our store. The tech bench actually had geeks work "overnight" shifts to clear out existing cases so they could spend all day tues/wed before thanksgiving pre-installing software (a forced extra) on about 50% of the doorbuster PC's - I've been told (since I no longer work at best buy) the employee newsletter had an article posted this year specifically telling store not to preload software anymore. Sso it should not be a problem this year. But by doing this Best Buy is confirming at a corporate level the practice used to take place. My big issue here is "slave labor" Best buy is a for profit corporation, each store brings in about $1 Million+ in sales the day after. You are now using teens under 18yrs old who are NOT being paid. To help make profit for a company.. so the company does not need to hire employees for that specific day. Why? To increase the bonus for store managers. While it is true the team does get a donation of $$$. (anywhere from $500 to $2000 which is nothing given 30 kids being there 10hrs in the day) the IRS Considers a Donation to be freely given. With no work done in return. To be tax deductable. But your correct since Best Buy's customer base is 90% men. It's a way to increase overall sales. (who wants to say NO to a pretty face) this is one of the many reasons I no longer work for the company. They are highly unethical in many areas

Cheerleading is a school-sponsored activity for which the members do not get paid. How does any of this constitute child labor? It sounds more like a fundraiser in which the cheerleaders donated their time in exchange for new uniforms that benefitted the ENTIRE TEAM. Remember, with a team, you are dealing with one group of people working together for a common benefit -- not a bunch of individuals each looking for their own cut of the cheese. If you feel that the cheerleaders' fundraising activity was "highly inappropriate," may I suggest that you make a monetary donation of a sufficient amount to cover new uniforms. If they already have the things they need, they do not have to donate their time and work hard to earn things on their own, since apparently this line of thinking is offensive to you.

First off, you state that they were using the cheerleaders as "child labor" and "unpaid labor". If Best Buy made a donation to their cheerleading fund, of course the girls themselves would not be paid personally. As far as the flirting, and trying to sell you the "extended warranty" I can't honestly see that happening. Why would they want someone who doesn't know anything about the product or the service plan to give information to customers? Doesn't really make sense. As far as the door buster deals, most of the time in the print you will see that the add-ons like the software and anti-virus are optional. They will give you the basic start up package and you can install it yourself. If they had pre-loaded it on to the computer, then the advertised price for the "door buster" should have included that information. I can't answer for that store specifically.. but the store that I used to work at, never had preloaded software on it. Most people chose to do that anyways, because they will mess up the computer trying to put it on themselves. Also, manufactures warranty does not cover the software crashing the computer. This way if you have the service plan through Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.. they are responsible for damages or anything like that.