Complaint Review: Best Buy - Overland Park Kansas

as a former agent. geek squad is designed to take as much $$ from customers as humanly possible. for a case like this an agent would want to charge $199 for "adv diagnostic & repair" basically what this would cover is removing the spyware & cookies on your PC. it also covers (in theory) finding out why IE is crashing and resolve the problem. installing windows updates etc. The reality is that no geek agent is trained on how to troubleshoot blue screen errors or crashes on windows. and the tools they use are automated scripts on a fancy geek squad CD. so in this case they would run some memory scanning utilities, a DFT disk utility (telling them if the Hard drive was physically ok or not) and some stress tests. at this point if everything "passed" you would get a phone call that "must be a windows problem" we need to do an OS reinstall. bring in your OS disks (this reinstall is included in the price above) but you really should backup your data for $159 more. let's say you say "ok" you get back a basic Clean XP install and your data on a backup CD. two week later you reinstall all your apps data etc and the problem reoccurs. after spending close to $400 good luck trying to get a refund as labor is non refundable. if you thought you were smart and tried to checkin a PC for the basic $69 diagnostic because windows was running slow. they would place it on the shelf for a day. then call you back and say.. it needs a tune up $39 or an additional $129 security service. either way your not getting out without at least a $130 bill. unfortunately it gets worse. I have been told by a current employee at my old store. due to labor cuts nationwide (my opinion an attempt to fool wallstreet on earnings reports soon to be released) -nobody in geek squad is actually working on your PC When it's left in. it sits on a shelf for literally days. he is so busy checking in new PC's & collecting your $$$. no agent at the store has time to actually work on your unit. it now gets hooks it up to a private VPN, where a "geek agent" (actually an outsourced company hired by best buy - in a 3rd world county.. works on your PC. (although they are bond by best buy corporate policy on protecting your privacy this 3rd world country, are there actually any laws in that country if they decide to steal your data, nor does the disclaimer you sign state work maybe done by people outside of the USA) ***WARNING: to Girls using geek squad -protect yourself. if your a college girl or have a teen daughter be Warned.. I can't tell you how many times as the only female in my precinct I caught guys offering "free data backups" on Girls PC's. they were kind enough to backup all the photos of you & your friends hanging out at the beach or cheer camp etc onto their own personal USB devices. although probably a violation of company policy. I reported it and nobody was fired simply. a manager saying at a meeting. if it is happening. it needs to stop." Geek Agents are NOT trained best buy will claim they offer training to geek agents & they have passed tests on windows Vista. the reality is it's not classroom training. it's sitting in the middle of the store sales floor on a PC doing e-learning while both customers and managers interrupt you. one day (2 years ago) I had 10 lessons to take which The offical training said it would take 5 hours to complete. when I brought this to the attention of my store service manager. he handed me a list of answers to the test and said just complete the tests it should take you 30mins. when I explained I need time to actually learn the material he said "do it on your own time" the store does offer "morning meetings" where they claim training occurs. but it's mostly watching a video produced by the best buy corporate of some employee dressed up like superman (best buy man) talking about destroying the evil shrink monster if you asked a manager to pay for Microsoft certification classes as part of your job. (say a $300 class or full $1600) you would get laughted out the door. tuition re-embursement programs only cover "college credit" courses and you have to be a "full time" student and a "full time" employee and of course your classes can't interfere with your work availability. while there are a few good techs (as individuals) working for geek squad. overall the company structure & stupid managers have turned it into sales people hired as techs. and geek "seniors" telling you to push more services to meet "sales numbers" for service. I would avoid them at all costs.

as a former agent. geek squad is designed to take as much $$ from customers as humanly possible. for a case like this an agent would want to charge $199 for "adv diagnostic & repair" basically what this would cover is removing the spyware & cookies on your PC. it also covers (in theory) finding out why IE is crashing and resolve the problem. installing windows updates etc. The reality is that no geek agent is trained on how to troubleshoot blue screen errors or crashes on windows. and the tools they use are automated scripts on a fancy geek squad CD. so in this case they would run some memory scanning utilities, a DFT disk utility (telling them if the Hard drive was physically ok or not) and some stress tests. at this point if everything "passed" you would get a phone call that "must be a windows problem" we need to do an OS reinstall. bring in your OS disks (this reinstall is included in the price above) but you really should backup your data for $159 more. let's say you say "ok" you get back a basic Clean XP install and your data on a backup CD. two week later you reinstall all your apps data etc and the problem reoccurs. after spending close to $400 good luck trying to get a refund as labor is non refundable. if you thought you were smart and tried to checkin a PC for the basic $69 diagnostic because windows was running slow. they would place it on the shelf for a day. then call you back and say.. it needs a tune up $39 or an additional $129 security service. either way your not getting out without at least a $130 bill. unfortunately it gets worse. I have been told by a current employee at my old store. due to labor cuts nationwide (my opinion an attempt to fool wallstreet on earnings reports soon to be released) -nobody in geek squad is actually working on your PC When it's left in. it sits on a shelf for literally days. he is so busy checking in new PC's & collecting your $$$. no agent at the store has time to actually work on your unit. it now gets hooks it up to a private VPN, where a "geek agent" (actually an outsourced company hired by best buy - in a 3rd world county.. works on your PC. (although they are bond by best buy corporate policy on protecting your privacy this 3rd world country, are there actually any laws in that country if they decide to steal your data, nor does the disclaimer you sign state work maybe done by people outside of the USA) ***WARNING: to Girls using geek squad -protect yourself. if your a college girl or have a teen daughter be Warned.. I can't tell you how many times as the only female in my precinct I caught guys offering "free data backups" on Girls PC's. they were kind enough to backup all the photos of you & your friends hanging out at the beach or cheer camp etc onto their own personal USB devices. although probably a violation of company policy. I reported it and nobody was fired simply. a manager saying at a meeting. if it is happening. it needs to stop." Geek Agents are NOT trained best buy will claim they offer training to geek agents & they have passed tests on windows Vista. the reality is it's not classroom training. it's sitting in the middle of the store sales floor on a PC doing e-learning while both customers and managers interrupt you. one day (2 years ago) I had 10 lessons to take which The offical training said it would take 5 hours to complete. when I brought this to the attention of my store service manager. he handed me a list of answers to the test and said just complete the tests it should take you 30mins. when I explained I need time to actually learn the material he said "do it on your own time" the store does offer "morning meetings" where they claim training occurs. but it's mostly watching a video produced by the best buy corporate of some employee dressed up like superman (best buy man) talking about destroying the evil shrink monster if you asked a manager to pay for Microsoft certification classes as part of your job. (say a $300 class or full $1600) you would get laughted out the door. tuition re-embursement programs only cover "college credit" courses and you have to be a "full time" student and a "full time" employee and of course your classes can't interfere with your work availability. while there are a few good techs (as individuals) working for geek squad. overall the company structure & stupid managers have turned it into sales people hired as techs. and geek "seniors" telling you to push more services to meet "sales numbers" for service. I would avoid them at all costs.

as a former agent. geek squad is designed to take as much $$ from customers as humanly possible. for a case like this an agent would want to charge $199 for "adv diagnostic & repair" basically what this would cover is removing the spyware & cookies on your PC. it also covers (in theory) finding out why IE is crashing and resolve the problem. installing windows updates etc. The reality is that no geek agent is trained on how to troubleshoot blue screen errors or crashes on windows. and the tools they use are automated scripts on a fancy geek squad CD. so in this case they would run some memory scanning utilities, a DFT disk utility (telling them if the Hard drive was physically ok or not) and some stress tests. at this point if everything "passed" you would get a phone call that "must be a windows problem" we need to do an OS reinstall. bring in your OS disks (this reinstall is included in the price above) but you really should backup your data for $159 more. let's say you say "ok" you get back a basic Clean XP install and your data on a backup CD. two week later you reinstall all your apps data etc and the problem reoccurs. after spending close to $400 good luck trying to get a refund as labor is non refundable. if you thought you were smart and tried to checkin a PC for the basic $69 diagnostic because windows was running slow. they would place it on the shelf for a day. then call you back and say.. it needs a tune up $39 or an additional $129 security service. either way your not getting out without at least a $130 bill. unfortunately it gets worse. I have been told by a current employee at my old store. due to labor cuts nationwide (my opinion an attempt to fool wallstreet on earnings reports soon to be released) -nobody in geek squad is actually working on your PC When it's left in. it sits on a shelf for literally days. he is so busy checking in new PC's & collecting your $$$. no agent at the store has time to actually work on your unit. it now gets hooks it up to a private VPN, where a "geek agent" (actually an outsourced company hired by best buy - in a 3rd world county.. works on your PC. (although they are bond by best buy corporate policy on protecting your privacy this 3rd world country, are there actually any laws in that country if they decide to steal your data, nor does the disclaimer you sign state work maybe done by people outside of the USA) ***WARNING: to Girls using geek squad -protect yourself. if your a college girl or have a teen daughter be Warned.. I can't tell you how many times as the only female in my precinct I caught guys offering "free data backups" on Girls PC's. they were kind enough to backup all the photos of you & your friends hanging out at the beach or cheer camp etc onto their own personal USB devices. although probably a violation of company policy. I reported it and nobody was fired simply. a manager saying at a meeting. if it is happening. it needs to stop." Geek Agents are NOT trained best buy will claim they offer training to geek agents & they have passed tests on windows Vista. the reality is it's not classroom training. it's sitting in the middle of the store sales floor on a PC doing e-learning while both customers and managers interrupt you. one day (2 years ago) I had 10 lessons to take which The offical training said it would take 5 hours to complete. when I brought this to the attention of my store service manager. he handed me a list of answers to the test and said just complete the tests it should take you 30mins. when I explained I need time to actually learn the material he said "do it on your own time" the store does offer "morning meetings" where they claim training occurs. but it's mostly watching a video produced by the best buy corporate of some employee dressed up like superman (best buy man) talking about destroying the evil shrink monster if you asked a manager to pay for Microsoft certification classes as part of your job. (say a $300 class or full $1600) you would get laughted out the door. tuition re-embursement programs only cover "college credit" courses and you have to be a "full time" student and a "full time" employee and of course your classes can't interfere with your work availability. while there are a few good techs (as individuals) working for geek squad. overall the company structure & stupid managers have turned it into sales people hired as techs. and geek "seniors" telling you to push more services to meet "sales numbers" for service. I would avoid them at all costs.

as a former agent. geek squad is designed to take as much $$ from customers as humanly possible. for a case like this an agent would want to charge $199 for "adv diagnostic & repair" basically what this would cover is removing the spyware & cookies on your PC. it also covers (in theory) finding out why IE is crashing and resolve the problem. installing windows updates etc. The reality is that no geek agent is trained on how to troubleshoot blue screen errors or crashes on windows. and the tools they use are automated scripts on a fancy geek squad CD. so in this case they would run some memory scanning utilities, a DFT disk utility (telling them if the Hard drive was physically ok or not) and some stress tests. at this point if everything "passed" you would get a phone call that "must be a windows problem" we need to do an OS reinstall. bring in your OS disks (this reinstall is included in the price above) but you really should backup your data for $159 more. let's say you say "ok" you get back a basic Clean XP install and your data on a backup CD. two week later you reinstall all your apps data etc and the problem reoccurs. after spending close to $400 good luck trying to get a refund as labor is non refundable. if you thought you were smart and tried to checkin a PC for the basic $69 diagnostic because windows was running slow. they would place it on the shelf for a day. then call you back and say.. it needs a tune up $39 or an additional $129 security service. either way your not getting out without at least a $130 bill. unfortunately it gets worse. I have been told by a current employee at my old store. due to labor cuts nationwide (my opinion an attempt to fool wallstreet on earnings reports soon to be released) -nobody in geek squad is actually working on your PC When it's left in. it sits on a shelf for literally days. he is so busy checking in new PC's & collecting your $$$. no agent at the store has time to actually work on your unit. it now gets hooks it up to a private VPN, where a "geek agent" (actually an outsourced company hired by best buy - in a 3rd world county.. works on your PC. (although they are bond by best buy corporate policy on protecting your privacy this 3rd world country, are there actually any laws in that country if they decide to steal your data, nor does the disclaimer you sign state work maybe done by people outside of the USA) ***WARNING: to Girls using geek squad -protect yourself. if your a college girl or have a teen daughter be Warned.. I can't tell you how many times as the only female in my precinct I caught guys offering "free data backups" on Girls PC's. they were kind enough to backup all the photos of you & your friends hanging out at the beach or cheer camp etc onto their own personal USB devices. although probably a violation of company policy. I reported it and nobody was fired simply. a manager saying at a meeting. if it is happening. it needs to stop." Geek Agents are NOT trained best buy will claim they offer training to geek agents & they have passed tests on windows Vista. the reality is it's not classroom training. it's sitting in the middle of the store sales floor on a PC doing e-learning while both customers and managers interrupt you. one day (2 years ago) I had 10 lessons to take which The offical training said it would take 5 hours to complete. when I brought this to the attention of my store service manager. he handed me a list of answers to the test and said just complete the tests it should take you 30mins. when I explained I need time to actually learn the material he said "do it on your own time" the store does offer "morning meetings" where they claim training occurs. but it's mostly watching a video produced by the best buy corporate of some employee dressed up like superman (best buy man) talking about destroying the evil shrink monster if you asked a manager to pay for Microsoft certification classes as part of your job. (say a $300 class or full $1600) you would get laughted out the door. tuition re-embursement programs only cover "college credit" courses and you have to be a "full time" student and a "full time" employee and of course your classes can't interfere with your work availability. while there are a few good techs (as individuals) working for geek squad. overall the company structure & stupid managers have turned it into sales people hired as techs. and geek "seniors" telling you to push more services to meet "sales numbers" for service. I would avoid them at all costs.

I am a former Geek Squad employee. They do NOT guarantee their work for 30 days. The only time they do that is when you get the ADRP which is $299 Here is a tip for everyone. No matter where you go, TURN ON THE COMPUTER BEFORE YOU LEAVE. If you haven't payed, then they definitely have to fix it. BTW the 129 was not for Virus Removal. The Geek hosed you. Best Buy now hires salesmen, and can train them to be techs later.

They guarentee their work for 30 days. All you had to do was bring it back to them.