Complaint Review: Circuit City - Overland Park Kansas

This is a conclusion to my previous complaint. This was one of the most difficult encounters I've ever had in regards to extended warranties on laptop computers. I recommend for whomever has a problem with Circuit City GE Zurich, do not give up. Report them everywhere you can. Even with the State Attorney General, the BBB and their grandmother (if you have her telephone number). Finally this is what I did. I contacted the manager from their store and they declined my request and would not speak in my behalf. I then decided to take it up to the District Manager for my area and guess what? The District Manager of Circuit city gave a sweet little call to GE/Zurich and 2 days later I received a box to ship my laptop back in. I recieved it repaired about 45 days later. What the hell they repaired it with I don't know. However, I can tell you it works well (well at least up to now). My advise now though, don't give up. You paid good money for that warranty and they should honor it. If they don't, it's like a slap on the face telling you your money "ain't worth it". Report, Report, Report, Do not give up!!!! Report

Ok coming from someone rather far up in the company before i left for personal reasons. I worked as a tach, and trust me we were VERY limited on what we could or could not do. we had to flat out LIE to customers to avoid reparing their system. it was encouraged and you got in alot of trouble if you did not lie to avoid doing service. now why is this?!? well might have to be that to just send a tach out to have them even LOOK at a system was on avg about $200 to $300 per trip. you paid what about $500 for your contract? well there goes half the profit right there. then it cost on avg about $10 PER MIN your on the phone with a tach so after a 20 min talk thats $200 right there so there you go to talk to a CSR on the phone and then to have a tach go out ONCE your contract of about $500 was spent. the ONLY reason this compnay ever made a d**n penny was the 75% of you that TOTALLY forgot you bought a contract and NEVER CALLED. now for what i did for GE-Zurich well i cannot tell it all cuz anyone would know who i was if i did. the fact is i worked in the top lvl of the company doing nothing but looking over the dumb a*s crap techs told custmers and the flat out lies Circut City would tell customers to get them to buy the contracts. these warrinties are a FLAT OUT RIP OFF UNLESS you just buy them for your monitors, printers, etc 90% of they time we didnt worry about stuff like this and just replaced the "broken" item. but to buy one for a system and worse yet a laptop was flat out not worth it. to ex and current employess of GE-Zurich (non CSRs) you guys forgot that this is a service for customers and you really need to give a d**n about them and stop trying to pass the buck. the issues that caused why we had to lie and cheat to save moeny was NEVER on your end it was mgmt writing bad contracts with servicers and their unwillingness to do their jobs and making sure the bottom line was their job and not the CSRs. i actually found a 10 million dollar mistake in the back end that had been going on for well over 3 years before i even had access to see the problems, and what did i get for finding this? nothing but a huge headache and not even one single gee nice job. to anyone that is thinking about buying this contract dont bother its not worth the headache or the money save your money and just fix the d**n thing yourself. i would suggest bying one for items like printers, monitors, and other such items. to anyone that has bought one and is having issues. stop taking it out on the poor people that answer the phone they can actually lose their jobs if they dont do exactly what they are told yes they are lies yes it screws you over but its NOT THEIR FAULT. oh and if anyone tells you to write a letter all i can say is OMG dont even waste the stamp 90% of the time no one even read them(yes i worked in the dept that was supose to read and address those issues), and if we did we more or less filed them and went on to the next letter and ever even could address or help the issue addressed in the letter. also dont ever bother asking to talk to a manager they are NOT managers they are just other techs. they really cannot do anything for you. to anyone that works for Circuit City STOP LYING TO YOUR CUSTOMERS to make a few dollars. YES shocking enough the guy that lied to you to get you to buy your contract made money off of it so never really trust them or take anything they say as fact they lie and caused more issues then anything else we faced. i have actually listned into calls and heard a Circuit City Rep tell a customer to LIE to the tech to get service. you people should be ashaed of yourselves and should actually read a contract once. i actually was the one that when Circuit City would service the systems and you submitted a bill to us to pay you. i flat out rejected 80% of your bills cuz you were too d**n dumb to read those contracts and know what where actually covered and what was not. and sorry i had issues with you replacing a $10 mouse with a $75 dollar one i mean come on my god. this is another area i caught Circuit City trying to cheat and lie to get money and the sad thing is we paid stuff we shoudl not have just cuz they were Circuit City and everyone had to kiss their a*s.

Yup you're right Mike. That's one thing that I forgot to mention in my original rebuttal. The TEAM LEADERS, who were hired to make sure that the technicians were doing the right jobs, they were NOT REQUIRED to be technically knowledgable about the products that they serviced. In fact, SUE K told me plenty of times that she doesn't care to have any technically qualified team leaders so this way they do not concentrate on the technical aspects and only concentrate on the MANAGING part. Which is pretty funny to me because the TEAM LEADER is NEVER EVER referred to by upper management as "managers". Yet we go through all of this management training and management workshops. Oh well, Mike, it's obvious from your list of TL's that you don't know who the last poster was, and I can assure you that he never stabbed anyone in the back. I don't think you worked there before he was fired. But you're right, most of the TL's did just that, they would be all buddy buddy with another TL and then run to Brandi as soon as they got some dirt. It was pretty embarassing. So yes, there's another thing that the "managers" are busy doing instead of making sure that your case is getting handled properly. And if they did want to handle your case properly, they couldn't because like SUE said, she didn't care whether or not they understood the technical aspect of the job. And I have seen your escalation e-mails get deleted by many TL's who didn't care if your upset customer was called back or not. You know, there was a database which tracked how many calls were escalated by which technicians, and it also listed the TL involved, but it never EVER tracked how many times the TL actually called back the customer. But seeing that the TL rarely knows the issue that the customer needs help with, well, who cares if the TL talks to them or not, right? Anyways mike it seems that you need to get something off of your chest and I'd rather that this rebuttal stays true to what it is, a rip off report. I don't want much trash talking involved because it would be bad if this thread ever got deleted. People need to know the truth, not all this gossip. If you'd like to talk you can e-mail me at [email protected] . In the mean time, like i said before, do NOT ever buy a GE ZURICH computer warranty. They are trash and are run by trashy people.

First of all. The only weak person there was YOU. A poor excuse for a supervisor. All you guys were guilty was well. Broken promises to call customers back. The funny thing I noticed there. Was all the TL's were fake. Pretending to be friends and then back stabbing eachothers backs to make yourselves look good in front of Brandi. I guess the company was filled with WEAK bosses. Also,the TL's there did not know first hand how to even turn on a computer. I thought the TL was to know more than the tech not the other way around.

Man, let me take y'all way back in the history of this jizzoint. This place started out doing third party tech support (aka OUTSOURCING, albeit in the U.S.) for a then-mojor player in the modem/networking industry. It was formerly known as GE Tech Team. Any of you who ever called tech support for your modem, NIC, or cable-modem probably talked to some moron at who didn't have a clue and could care less. That tradition carried on when Zurich came in. The company basic game plan was to hire people (I use that term loosely) who either were nearly brain dead, were socially inept and had no where else to go, or just simply didn't give a fiuch. After 6 weeks of extensive and EXPENSIVE training, they were released to the phones to make consumer's lives as difficult as possible. Seriously, some of the people who worked there, and thrived were: Methedone junkies Pedophiles Mildly retarded (seriously) Members of Islamic Jihad Immigrants who never used a computer and barely spoke english Big headed, back stabbing, fake-arse losers (Mike, read that sentence again, think about it, and try to do something with yourself) The saddest thing about this place, aside from the horrible disservice done to consumer's and Circuit City, was that the best, most intelligent, most talented people were the biggest goof off's and slackers there were. That's what happen's when you fire talented people or stop them from advancing because they don't hang up on enough people. If you ever called on a Saturday morning about your cable modem, sorry we couldn't talk, we were at Burger King. Mike, you better check your list, it's a bit short. And instead of wussing out and talking about agreeing with everything D said, why don't you admit that you were a weak tech who was guilty of all of this and that you were promoted because of all the retards available to fill the spot you were the only one who could actually count past 4 (good job douchy). Jeff DaVannon and Chone Figgins

Possible former Team Lead?? Farhan John Bill Shak Jerry Mark Hmmmmmm... I wonder who wrote the truth about GE-Zurich. Dont get me wrong, I agree what he said its all true

Possible former Team Lead?? Farhan John Bill Shak Jerry Mark Hmmmmmm... I wonder who wrote the truth about GE-Zurich. Dont get me wrong, I agree what he said its all true

Possible former Team Lead?? Farhan John Bill Shak Jerry Mark Hmmmmmm... I wonder who wrote the truth about GE-Zurich. Dont get me wrong, I agree what he said its all true

Possible former Team Lead?? Farhan John Bill Shak Jerry Mark Hmmmmmm... I wonder who wrote the truth about GE-Zurich. Dont get me wrong, I agree what he said its all true

Yo! First off, i want to commend anyone who actually complains to websites like this one. A lot of people get mad and don't do anything. Of course posting to this site isn't really doing much, but it's something. Anyway... Yes, i used to work at GE ZURICH call center in Hoffman Estates. I was a TEAM LEADER and I can tell you that friendly customer service and customer satisfaction was not our first priority. Yes, I was a TEAM LEADER, which to upper management, meant, "someone who doesn't do anything but make sure that the help desk technicians are giving our customers as many problems as possible so that they get frustrated and stop calling". Our main goal was to pay the least amount of claims as possible, even if it means having one of our technicians stay on the phone with a customer for 2 hours a time, sometimes 5-6 times. Sometimes more! This equals to around 10-12 hours of phone time per customer who we tried to scam. If you think that most of our employees got paid around 11-12 dollars an hour, some much more, that can be a $144 phone call that we pay for just to try our best to make the customer believe that their issue was a "software problem" or "pre-existing condition" sheeit, most of the people who worked for me couldn't even spell pre-existing. Ya, that's $144 and that's not even counting the phone bill or any overhead costs like electricity, computer maintenance, office supplies, or whatever. What a waste of money, huh? Now we all wonder why the office in Hoffman Estates is no longer there, don't we? Our office manager and fake HR representative who also stepped in as office manager when she went on vacation (yes i know it's pretty lame, huh? how can we go to HR about stuff when she's also subbing in as our boss) ... well, they did their best to make us all believe that the most important part in running a call center is LOW WRAP UP TIME, which is the amount of time it takes for our technicians to enter notes into the database. So while you're sitting on the phone with one of our technicians, their biggest concern is when they get off the phone with you, how fast can they enter their wrap up notes. This is why a lot of important notations regarding your cases are never entered into the database. Our management thought that 1 minute was waaaay too much time for the help desk technicains to spend typing in critical notes regarding your computers. If they did not meet their goals of 1 minute or less, the TEAM LEADER (me) suffered the consequences. Also, some technicians were fired for not maintaining this fake goal. All these goals were presented to us... .Low talk times, low wrap times, low IDLE time (which we were limited to 15 minutes a day but were never given guidelines on how to use this time). Yes, calls were monitored. I think 4 a month. 4 A MONTH!!! You can take around 20 a day. So at 5 days a week, that's 100 a week, 400 a month. So only 1% of calls are monitored, and that's if the Team Leaders meet their goal. Some don't meet that goal and a lot don't even listen to the calls. And yes, technicians ARE given prizes for 100% call monitors, but god forbid you took OVER A MINUTE to put in those notes, and well, you can guess what happens next. You get this prize but then are made to feel stupid because that 1 minute goal is not reached. And if you are getting 100% on all of your call monitors, all of a sudden these wrap time rules don't apply to you anymore. You still only have a 1 minute wrap time limit, but you won't get in trouble for it anymore because you're such a great technician, so you deserve the ability to type slower than everyone else. Well guess what, this kind of favoritism makes all of the technicians hate each other and causes HR issues. Since the HR person also subs in for the boss at times, this makes the HR and boss lady very close individuals, so these HR issues are then relayed right past you and to your boss. The team leader doesn't ever get a say in what happens to their employees when they do something wrong. They are like managers with no control, looked at upon others like a joke because the others know that the person they report to can't do anything without say from his boss. Then HR gets word from the technicians that their TEAM LEADER is not controlling the team, which must be a problem, but hey, we've already shown that the TEAM LEADER isn't expected to lead the team, just take orders from HR and big boss. Of course the Team Leader can never ask for pity from the technicians below the him because the team leader still wants to feel like he has some power, so the technicains still blame the TL, which causes the TL to be the scape goat and get fired for a decision that was not his in the first place to make.. And they do Employee Appreciation days like every other week. Nothing for the managers, and jack s**t for the customers. Just for the employees. So every other week, there are higher hold times because the guys who are supposed to be answering your phone calls are actually outside on a trampoline, throwing balls into a dunk tank, eating bbq, or winning raffle prizes. We look up at your hold queues and laugh because we know that the longer you're on hold, the less likely you're gonna stick around and wait for us to answer. Because maybe, if you're LUCKY and we find no good excuses, we'll have to send a technician to your house to do the actual work. All of this happens while you are on hold, or on one of your 2 hour phone calls, or doing your software restore, your 'software issues', your 'OEM PRE-EXISTING ISSUE', or whatever other excuses they've come up recently. I feel sorry for anyone who has bought this plan. I went to dinner with our VP one night while I still worked there and told him that my girlfriend bought one of the plans and he and his claims buddies laughed at me. HOW EMBARRASING!!! To summarize, this warranty is crap because of the people who run the thing. There are other warranties that are written just the same, but the people in charge of them actually take the customer into consideration, knowing that the customer really doesn't read all the fine print before they buy the thing, and most of the companies decide to do what's write. All GE-Zurich does is follow EACH AND EVERY letter in the fine print and finds every excuse possible not to help you out. It's a big waste of time, and I have to agree with someone else on this site who stated that you would be better off burning the money that you spent on this warranty, because hey, burning stuff is fun and is a lot more fun than going through this hassle. Anyone who's been ripped off by this warranty, I urge you to get other people like you together and file some kind of lawsuit or at least take your claim to the BBB. We used to get BBB claims every day and in those cases, the customer is sometimes even given money or a new (not refurbished) computer. And to those of you from GE-ZURICH reading this, (and i know you read this because we used to read this web site and talk about it in meetings) -- i don't miss you at all. Sue, you were a horrible boss and i'm sure you're still as horrible now as you were before. Mike, you're still a liar and i'm sure you're out somewhere supervising 300-400 people like you used to claim you did in the past. And Brandi, shave that lip of yours, k?

I purchased a laptop from these bottom-feeders a little over a year ago and politely refused to purchase the service contract, knowing that CC has such a terrible reputation for repairs. These people claim that the service contracts are not commission-driven or being pushed out of the salesperson's fear of losing his/her job. But the reaction my salesperson had (glaring at me, arguing with me, then stomping off) betrays the truth. They push these warranties and God help you if you're smart enough to decline. Just use common sense when buying any major ticket item ... chances are it won't need servicing with normal use, unless it's defective in the first place (in which case, the manufacturer's warranty will usually cover you for at least a year, sometimes much longer!) My laptop has worked like a charm for over a year - never a problem. In another year or so, I'll probably be ready to upgrade anyway. At $800 or so for a new machine, what's the use of keeping a dinosaur around after 2 or 3 years. In short : the service contract is money down the drain - don't fall for it.

This is the problem I have with circuit city/Ge-Zurich. I sent my laptop for service because it crashed, I followed their directions on how to troubleshoot the laptop. I couldn't do it so i went to a circuit city store for them to troubleshoot it( before that i'd like to state that the people working for Ge-Zurich employees treat me really bad and unprofessional they even yelled at me, HAD TO MENTION THAT). I spoke to a sales manager, two more employees in the computer department approached us and each one of them ckecked the laptop from top to bottom. They were able to find no problems with the laptop. They tried to troubleshoot it and they couldn't get it to work. The manager called Ge-Zurich to help him troubleshoot it at the end they gave up and told me to send it to the via fedex two day delivery. Seven days later after me calling them non-stop, I received a phone call from them claiming physical damage on the laptop. According to them USB port was damaged and that is what they said to crash the computer. Which i find it hard to believe because i never hooked any USB cables to the damaged port because that laptop was for internet use only which was kept on a desk in the master bedroom hooked to a phoneline and nothing else. I tried to explain that to them and also that i have a second computer in the extra room(loft) of my house which i have everything hooked up to that main computer. This is my belief that in order for them not to honor the warranty they purposly damaged the laptop to make it seem that i had caused physical damage to denied service. If there is any way to make them fix my laptop please let me know or file a claim against them.

As a Sales Counselor nothing makes me more angry than when my customer has to argue and fight with some jack a*s on the phone just to get their computer fixed. I'm telling you now Circuit City is really trying to correct these problems but things take time. For now when you call in for problems or repairs make sure to keep a log of the phone call including names... names are the most important. EXAMPLE 09/24/02 10:00am - first call spoke with Jack - after trouble shooting tells me possibly bad hard drive. 10:20am - put on hold disconnected??? (another call, unexpected visitors, whatever) 11:00 - second call tried to get back with jack but couldn't spoke with Jill - had to trouble shoot again... bad hard drive still!! 11:15 - put on hold 11:18 - Jill gets address and contact info to send a box for Laptop to be sent for repairs. NOW YOU HAVE DATES,TIMES AND NAMES this helps to hold someone responsible if they are rude and action can be taken to better train or get rid of people who are not doing their Jobs. And yes we can help you on a store level give us this info like in the example and we will do our best to find out what happened and why you were not taken care of. If the warranty company treats our customers badly that effects our business and my money. So we can help