Complaint Review: Fry's Electronics - Anaheim California

Here's the details: I had technical problems with a laptop that was purchased from Fry's about one year ago. I ran into an error while attempting a factory restore to the laptop purchased from Fry's with a 3 year extended warranty. I decided to take the computer in to Fry's since it's under warranty for two more years. 

I got to the computer customer service area in the Fry's Electronics store and was greeted by a man named Henry Nguyen who asked me how he could help. I told him my scenario. He immediately said "not under warranty." He said that SSD never fails and its software related that is not part of my warranty. He said he can fix it but it would cost $149.00 but he wants to help me and can do it right now for $99.00

I explained that there is a partition on the computer for restoring the software back to factory specs. Henry said "That is broken on all Windows 8 systems." "You have to buy a new Windows license and that costs $149.00 but I can do it for you for $99.00

Before I gave my credit card over to the Fry's cashier, I said to Henry, can we at least look at the built in recovery on the laptop together to confirm it does not work? He resisted but I started up the recovery and went through the process. It started to work this time. Henry said this is normal when it fails but he can fix it. Like an idiot I agreed to let him proceed. 

I went and paid the $99.00 and then returned to Henry. He took my receipt and then said come back in two hours and it will be ready. I said to Henry, "It looks like its still running the internal recovery feature" "Did I just pay $99.00 to Fry's for something I could have done myself at home?" 

Henry, lost his sh*t. He raised his voice and accused me of calling him a liar and a cheat. I said. "I did not say you lied or cheated," "I simply asked you if you are doing something I can do myself at home and charged me $99 for that service?"

Henry started a very loud and incredibly rude tirade about how he never lied and that he had to use his own USB device to start the computer restore. He said something about Google Chrome that made no sense to me about why my computer cannot be restored by the internal restore function and then grabbed my laptop and killed the power to stop the restore. He then went to the cashier and had her refund my $99.00 (which was awesome but I hadn't even asked for that). 

I asked him very nicely at this point if I can speak to the supervisor. After waiting a few minutes, another technician who witnessed everything that transpired came up to me and asked if I would like him to get the supervisor. I said yes please. The supervisor came over and asked me what happened. Before I could get a word out of my mouth, Henry cut in and went on a rant about how I said he lied and tried to cheat me. The supervisor listened to everything Henry said and then turned to me and said, "Do you want to tell me your version?" 

I explained to him what actually occurred. He just looked at me and nodded and said, "I apologize for the experience and I am sure that you will be able to get the computer fixed at some point. Sorry.' He then offered me a hand shake. 

Now a different Manger by the name of Donald Robertson came over and asked me what happened. I explained to Donald, again. Henry was selling a customer a $70 restore fee on their Toshiba laptop at this point so he could not interject his nonsense.

Donald assured me that he would take care of it and get the laptop restored/fixed for me. In the course of the next 15 minutes or so he kept getting a reboot loop. (this happened because Henry abruptly shut down the laptop while the computer was restoring). *the abrupt shut down lost all of my computer data by the way.

Donald asked Henry to help him restore the computer, and Henry told him it cannot because it has a corrupt operating system. Donald told me he is sorry but they cannot help.

At this point I was pissed because the BS was staked so high. I said, "Don, unless Henry has a time machine, went into the future and saw the restore fail, then came back and changed history by abruptly ending the restore, that is not true." Donald said he was sorry and told me they cannot fix it at this point but I can call Sony and explain that I have a bad partition and Sony can issue me a new key to restore. 

I left very pissed off. After two hours of wasted time, driving around and dealing with idiots.

I got home and tried the restore one more time and what do you know.... it worked just fine! Fry's business practices are completely unethical and everything Henry said to me was untrue and I feel it was a scam. Unfortunately most people get taken, like that woman with the Toshiba laptop I mentioned above. Don't get scammed by Henry or other Fry's employees, like I almost was!