Complaint Review: Best Buy/ GEEK SQUAD - Spartanburg South Carolina

Ignorance is no excuse sir! It is not the Geek Squads fault that you do not understand technology! He clearly wrote, by your own admission, that if a regular non-destructive restore was unsuccessful then they would need to format your hard drive and reload the operating system. You can not sue them, READ YOUR SERVICE CONTRACT. YOU are responsible for backing up ALL data before coming into the store, and geek squad and best buy are not responsible for data loss of any kind.

While I shudder at the thought of losing all the information stored on my pc, we can only blame ourselves if this happens. I work for a repair center for Geek Squad/Best Buy, not at a store. If your computer has to go to service for a part replacement, chances are it just might come to me. Now, if you have ever had a computer repaired by Geek Squad chances are you recieved all the documents about your visit in a lovely black and oranage or gray black and orange folder. Inside this folder there are many tips to help those who aren't quite as computer savvy take precautions. One of these tips is to back up your information completely and often, whether on a cd, dvd, or external hard drive of some sort. I personally use a 2 gig usb flash drive (branded with the geek squad logo) for my pictres and a 250 gig external hard drive for my pictures, movies, music, and so on. I bought my external hard drive about a year and a half ago with my employee discount which dropped the price to around $100. NOW you can buy an external Hard drive twice the size of mine (500 gig) for roughly the same price I paid for mine except you don't need the employee discount. If there was a fire at your house, and you lost all of your family photo albums and what not in the blaze because you didn't store them in a fire retardent/proof safe, would you blame the firemen because they didn't put the fire out fast enough?? There are precautions you must take if you wish to keep what you hold dear, safe from disaster. I will be the first to tell you that customer service at Best Buy is HORRIBLE. On a daily basis we must try to contact stores to verify issues they send in your pcs with. I have had to call one store as many as 5 times in a row to get someone to answer the phone so I can better serve the customer in fixing their reported issues. Best Buy does not underpay their employees, however lack of experience and knowledge is an issue with both the stores and the repair centers. I myself have NO technical background, NO certifiactions, and NO sort of schooling for computer repair or any other sort of IT service. I DO however have 2 years under my belt now of working on your laptops and pcs. I was hired on with no experience, making good money, and thrown out to either sink or swim. Best Buy/Geek Squad, is quickly becoming a monopoly. Most of the time, your experience will be pleasant, unfortunately at times things can go less than expected.

Best Buy as a corporation is a very shotty company as all of you have noticed by now i'm sure. I do apologize for what you had to go through with your computer and the Geek Squad, I was the Car Electronics Installation Senior/Supervisor *All labeled under 'Geek Squad' to combat Circuit City's Firedog* and I know many of times I was told by a manager to do something that was 'other than honorable' to say the least. Best Buy takes complete and utter advantage of their employees and of their 'faithful' customers. They offer the Reward Zone membership for free because they couldn't justify charging people $10 to hold a piece of plastic and give the already larger than life corporation free advertisement and pretty much bribe the consumer to come back into their store with pathetic pieces of paper giving you $5 - $10 off only CERTAIN items in the store that was in the absolute FINEST print on the back of the coupon. No offense to the employee of Best Buy, but not everyone is retarded and unable to read. The managers can do whatever they want for the customer all it takes is their employee number and a password OR the 'ok' to the G.S. associate or the Customer Service Rep aka Rep I and Rep II's. So don't try to use the 'Well, ya should've read the ultra FINE print on the back or very bottom of the carbon copy paper', oh you must mean the same carbon paper that you have a hard time reading what the hell the tech that helped you even wrote. A Proud EX-Employee of Best Buy #885 Port Richey, FL

Everytime you have Geek Squad perform a service on your electronics, you must sign a piece of paper with a legal service contract indicating that you authorize Geek Squad to perform services and outlines what they can and cannot do. One of the lines mentioned on the service contract is that Geek Squad CANNOT guarantee that all data can be retrieved. If you lost data on your computer due to a Geek Squad service, its unfortunately tough luck because you signed a contract that said you are aware that retrieval of everything is not guaranteed. Its unfortunately the risk you take when you hand over your computer to a tech support company, regardless of it being Geek Squad, Firedog or other computer repair center.

I am an industry professional. The techs at geek squad are NOT. They are former salespeople who run automated CDs and do not REPAIR or troubleshoot a system, using training and expertise that takes YEARS to achieve. And some of the work when the system can run is remotely connected to india outsource tech. Find a LOCAL independent consultant with a good repuation, and hire them. They are out there. Ask around. There is NO excuse for their poor incompent work, and complaints like this are way to common. Big box tech support at other big stores is also not very good. I would file a complaint with some local BBB and other consumer advocates such as local TV stations. Geek squad needs to be shut down. Good luck. And shop local mom and pop or local independent consultant.

I have no doubt that Geek Squad is a ripoff. All they have to offer is a bunch of underqualified underpaid geeks following troubleshooting flowcharts. If a problem isn't on the flowchart they can't do it. Data recovery from a failed hard drive is way out of their league. But I don't think it's their fault you lost your pictures. Best Buy is being sued for losing a woman's data. They didn't lose your data. When you turned on the computer and it failed to boot your pictures were already gone. You lost them yourself by not making backups. Hard drives are very delicate mechanical devices. They have moving parts with tight tolerances. A speck of dust can destroy them. They can also fail spontaneously for no apparent reason. Regular backups are essential, as the other writer said. Since you are a grandparent who is tech-savvy enough to be using a computer for 10 years and taking digital photographs of his grandchildren I don't believe you are as naive as you pretend. You knew you should have backed up your data. You knew your 10 year old computer was not economical to repair. It's very sad that you have lost pictures. I lost pictures once too. Luckily I wised up and make regular backups. A few months ago I had a hard drive fail. I lost nothing but the cost of a new drive. A data recovery company may be able to recover some data from your old drive if you still have it. If Geek Squad didn't keep it, that is. But that's VERY expensive and offers no guarantees. A backup is a much safer and cheaper bet.

This is a clear lesson in back up often and frequently. Yes Best Buy and Geek Squad may have been able to back up your information but sometimes it can't happen.

Monday, April 28th, 2007---my computer would not boot up. Instead I got a strange message apologizing for the inconvenience. I am 60 years old, and easily intimidated by computer "glitches". GEEK SQUAD seemed to offer some help. The man at the counter was friendly and patient......even when I asked him to repeat and explain, repeat and explain EXACTLY what he was going to do to my computer. The AGENT FINDINGS AND CURRENT STATE OF THE COMPUTER, in his own handwriting, reads as follows: Unit is missing Boot.INI file and NTLDR. Unit needs Repair using Partition. ATTEMPT To Clean system if unit is uncleanable needs destructive Restore notify customer for data Backup (Capitalization and punctuation are his, not mine) Under the heading AGENT RECOMMENDATIONS, he wrote: O/S Service. He explained again that they would run several "programs" that should restore my computer's operating system. This process would require a "couple of days" and cost $129. If this process was not successful, he repeatedly agreed and promised to contact me. The next step would be something called "data backup" and would cost an additional $99 to $159, depending on the amount of data to be recovered. I knew that we would come in at the upper end of that estimate. My desktop was literally filled with shortcuts to the many programs and projects that I have accumulated over the past 10 years, representing thousands of dollars of expense and as many thousands of hours. Jump ahead two days. Wednesday, May 1st, 2008 late afternoon. Caller ID identified the incoming call as the anxiously awaited GEEK SQUAD response. I held my breath, hoping for good news, but silently expecting to have to stretch an already tight budget to cover the $159 charge for data recovery. A friendly female voice informed me that my computer was ready for pickup; and that it was as good as new. "In fact, it was exactly as it had been the day I brought it home." My heart stopped. But, it was true. Somebody under the GEEK SQUAD roof had totally deleted all of my files, all of my programs, all of my business records, all of my wife's business records, all of our tax and banking records, and the list goes on. That same friendly female voice called back a little later to say that one of their technicians who wouldn't be in to work till Friday would be able to recover our pictures, movies, document files, etc. Friday came and went with no phone call. Saturday I was one of the first customers in the store. The department manager assured me that he would continue working all day to try to retrieve anything possible. The tech who took the original order would be in at 3pm and perhaps together they could make some progress. Any fireman will tell you that the one inanimate thing most likely to be carried out of a burning residence is FAMILY PHOTOS. People have died by going back into the flames to retrieve those irreplaceable photos. I could have been one of those people; but I'll never have the chance. All our recent photos went up in one unauthorized DESTRUCTIVE RESTORE. I'm 60. My wife is 64. Our grandkids are 13 and 8. Many hours and many dollars may recover some of what we lost on the business level. Nothing will ever replace what we lost from our personal lives. Saturday, May 3rd, 2008. The manager called to say that he was very sorry, but they had been unable to save anything. When I went to pick up my computer, the manager was no where in sight. Two techs, one the original order taker, presented me with my "good as new" unit, many apologies, a refund of my original $129 (in cash for some reason) and a "free" external hard drive. Last evening my son told me that he had seen a news flash on line about a woman who was suing Best Buy for $54 million. This morning in a pique I did a "google" for "sue Best Buy". The $54 million story made the top listing. Down the page I found THE RIP OFF REPORT. The first story was IDENTICAL to my situation. A lady from California reporting the same problem as mine and wondering if there were any others in the same boat. Please add my name to the list. Thanks for the catharsis. Fred ****, South Carolina