Best Buy Caused Hardship to my Business

i do not think they threaten to kill you if you didnt buy the plan,
good thing you did or you would of been paying a min, of 89 for
shipping and then who knows how much to fix, also you should of asked
the agent if he needed your original packaging, which they do not.
Also if this was very important to you, YOU should have looked at the
paper the agent handed you and under where it says accessories you
should have noticed it said nothing about your box, and this is where
you would of told the agent about it and then the agent would of
handed your box back because they use thier own box's for
shipping.....

A couple of things I noticed...
I don't think pointing out that your business was greatly damaged
because your whole professional life is on one laptop. That may be the
case, but in a complaint letter it makes you look like a small
fly-by-the-seat of your pants operation, you could have left that out
for a stonger letter.
You also mention it was in perfect condition without any dings or
dents but then pointed out you knew the drive was not changed because
of the identifying scratch that was on the drive. Customer service
will notice this too and say you cannot prove they put any scratches
or marks on it, and you probably caused them when you put the scratch
on the CD drive. In fact, they may say you must have damaged the drive
yourself to begin with based on the scratch you admit to.
When you were 'coerced' into the extended warranty I am guessing they
did not put a gun to your head. Say, "No thanks, I don't need the
warranty." If they persist try saying, "No, thanks I don't need the
warranty." If that doesn't work try saying, "No thanks, I don't need
the warranty." One of those will work every time.
"I am their paycheck"- No you are not. If you never shop there again,
they will still get paid. You don't sign their checks, so don't claim
you do. If you are their paycheck, then you must owe them vacation and
benefits. Do you pay their vacation and benefits? That is a tired
cliche that will get your letter tossed faster than, "The customer is
always right." If you have a customer for your business that said,
"Listen buddy, I am your paycheck, you work for me. I am your boss, I
own you", you would tell them to go elsewhere if you had any self
respect and business sense. That is the customer that will bleed you
dry and refuse your invoices over petty things. Yes, good business do
fire customers.

" I meet over 50 people a day with the business I am in, wouldn't that
be something if I told them what happened, they would be cautious
about coming to BestBuy/GeekSquad"
Right, if you tell them the truth, who is going to want to work with a
business where the heart of the company is one laptop? My first
question would be, "Did you remove the hard drive before you gave it
to them?" My assumption after reading the story would be no, you left
critical personal data with a retail store. Right or wrong, it would
be my perception. Preaching about BB will probably cost you more
business than it would BB. When you try the whole word of mouth thing,
it does not scare many stores because 1.) It is not tangible to a
reatil store like BB and 2.) Every person has places they have had
good and bad experiences in and most people make up their own minds.
Big stores like Target and BB, Circuit City and Walmart all have 1000s
of complaints a day, but people have to shop somewhere and until they
have their own personal bad experience probably will chalk up your
experience to one store or one employee and be unaffected.

Next to the complaints about Targets return policies, Best Buy comes
in second for the most complaints on this site. I understand and
agree with Targets return policies. I don't find agreeable any of the
issues customers have had with Best Buy.

I've never set foot inside of their stores and certainly won't now.
There's always something wrong on the follow through and customer
service issues with them. Why bother.

Sorry about your problem. I'd be pissed too! Stop shopping there.
You have other choices.

There have been a lot of complaints lately about the "geek Squad".
They do half arsed work and then want to tell you the customer that
you do not know what you are talking about otherwise why would you
bring your problem to them.

The concept of Geek Squad was a good one...never should have been sold
to Best Buy.

What bothers me is in your first line that Best Buy FORCED you to
purchase a product insurance policy?
How did they do that...by telling you that you can bring it back to
them anytime for a problem?
Guess that did not work out well.

Keep us posted...I would like to see if Best Buy steps up to the plate
still at this late time.

i know it doesnt help much now, but whenever i need to send something
in for repair like this, i take several digital photos of the item all
around that way it if comes back worse,i have evidence, just a thought

Between the numerous complaints on here regarding warranty work, and
the run in that I had with a Geek Squad employee...I will NEVER
purchase a warranty through BB. I use them as a Walmart of sorts.

Spring, 2006 hubby and I went to BB to look into purchasing a lap top.
After looking at what they had and taking a few days to compare with
models available on the internet, we decided to return to BB. Hubby
knew exactly which model we were purchasing, and told the sales guy so
as soon as he approached (after we waited about 15 minutes). The
salesman proceeded to ask hubby what the lap top would be used for.
Hubby explained very politely that he was an IT manager and was used
to purchasing computers. He stated again which model of computer we
wanted. With that the salesman proceeded to try and sell us a bunch
of junk that was completely unnecessary. It wasn't that he tried
selling it to us that was the issue, but each time we would say no, he
would continue with "Are you sure, because...". He would not take no
for an answer. The last straw for me was when he asked if we needed a
lap top case. I said no. He proceeds to say "Ok, if you are just
going to carry it around in the box, but that's not the fashion
statement I'd want to make". This guy was not kidding, he was being
completely serious! I was seething, but hubby stuck with it until we
were going to the counters and the salesman again started in on trying
to sell us the same stuff we had already said no to twice before! As
we were storming out a manager approached us and asked that we explain
the situation to him. After doing so he gave us 10% off of the sale
and explained that they were short on salesmen so he had to send one
of the Geek Squad employees out onto the floor to help. I was just
appalled thinking about this guy making house calls to people that
have no clue what they are saying yes to.

Geek Squad are the fast food of the consumer electronics industry. I
wouldn't trust them to change a light bulb let alone service a laptop.


Look, it's like this. You bought a cheap consumer grade laptop. They
are usually designed to last the 1 year manufacturer's warranty. If
your business is so mission critical, you should have bought a
BUSINESS CLASS laptop from Lenovo, Dell or even a Panasonic ToughBook
(got a CF-29 I use at work. Would stop a bullet. Literally). You are
going to spend more but with it you get a longer warranty (usually 2
or 3 years), on-site or mail in (usually prepaid FedEX box right to
your door) service, real tech support, and a product that doesn't
crack and fall apart. It isn't going to be 499 dollars either. Expect
to drop 2 grand or more- but like everything else in life:

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.

good luck dealing with Best Buy/Crap Squad. They are the turds in a
punch bowl.

My mom is a wedding photographer and had a very similar situation with
Best Buy. The cooling fan on her laptop broke and they told her 2
weeks but after 4 weeks they told her that her warranty was void
because a liquid was spilled into the laptop which is ridiculous
because she treats her computer like a child (slight joke) and would
never spill anything into her computer. Every person she spoke to in
customer service was awful. She was lied to, yelled at, and even hung
up on. As a result, I don't shop at Best Buy and I know several
others who avoid shopping there because of hearing her story. I would
strongly urge anybody who buys a computer there to NOT buy their store
warranty. Trust me, you're better off paying more and getting actual
service from somewhere instead of having to deal with these morons,
especially if you need your computer for work as my mom does and the
OP does as well.

In the beginning of your letter you stated "and it does not have any
scratches or dings or dents!" and then later you stated "I had a small
scratch in the plastic and noticed the scratch was still there".
Forgive me if I am missing something, but that doesen't seem to add
up.

Are you sure you weren't at the Great Northern Best Buy in North
Olmsted, OH?

I had a very similar experience there. I purchased a new Gateway
Notebook & after two weeks the hard drive died. I took it into Best
Buy & they sent it to Gateway. The hard drive was replaced (took 3
weeks).

Since it was a new hard drive, there were no programs on it, not even
an operating system.

I asked Best Buy why they didn't re-install my programs & operating
system and they said no problem...there would be a cost to install
each program. What a rip-off!

It sounds like an awful ordeal, and you have every right to be angry.
However, as Bill previously said, your letter would have been more
effective without the threat of badmouthing. I don't think people
need to remind companies about word of mouth. I'm sure they are fully
aware of that risk.

I hope Best Buy works with you to find a resolution that suits your
needs and expectations.

Good luck.

Charles S.,

I have used BestBuy many times. When I had issues we always worked
them out. Infact they just replaced a flat panel monitor for me under
the Extended Warranty.

However, when reading your letter I began to wonder if maybe they were
loosing their touch.

Then, I got to the part of your letter, where you suggest that you
will start your little "chain reaction" with your 50 people a day.
That sounds childish and immature to say the least and will most
likely not score points with the reader..

I hope that BestBuy holds up their end of the deal and that you learn
something from the responses that I am sure your letter will generate
on this site.

Please stop back and let us know how this whole matter pans out.

BillR.