Geek Squad Consumer Reviews - Page 3

IRVING, TEXAS -- Unfortunately, I wasted my money and my time using this service. I took my laptop and told the rude employee about the error. He said we can not take it unless we have a prove about our error. I took it back home waiting for the unexpected shutdown to take a picture then I brought it again. I left it for 8 days and when I got it, I had the same problem. I took it back to them and the same employee said to me "I can't do anything, only we can ship it back". It's like their time is precious and ours not. I'm very disappointed and don't recommend anybody to use their service.

I brought in my hard drive with all my photos on it that had crashed. They sent it off to data recovery and about two months later I got a call saying that they had recovered almost all of the photos so I paid $500 and they shipped it to the store. Before I took it home I had them check it and lo and behold the hard drive would not work, so they mailed it back to data recovery.

About a week later, I received a call saying that they could only recover part of the data that they had originally recovered and it would be an additional fee for a new hard drive because the one I had sent along with the broken one was also broken. The additional hard drive that I had sent was brand new, out of the box and was working when they transferred the data. They refused to admit that it was their fault and was broken under their care. To add to my frustration, each time I had gone into the store, the first time to drop the hard drive off and the second time to attempt to pick it up, it took over an hour. I will never use Geek Squad again!

This is a travesty. Service? HA! Today alone is over 2 hours on the phone getting passed from department to department. I ordered an expedited phone replacement on 11/19/14. Today is the 25th. 2nd day air delivery? Learn to count! You need 3 days to "investigate", then UPS needs 8 days to "investigate", then you need 2 more days to re-open and send me another phone. That is almost ONE MONTH to get an expedited phone replacement.

What is the responsible customer driven thing to do? Easy. Send me a phone now. Today. If the other eventually shows up, great, I will send that back to you. But no. Even now, after 1h 23m on the phone, I am being told that I need to go into a 30m hold queue for a supervisor. Mind you.... this is not my first call nor my second. Geek Squad has wasted over 10 hours of my time already.

On 11/20/14 "it will be there today." On 11/21/14 "it will be there today." 11/24/14... you get it. Today yeah, rinse, repeat. Only by repeatedly insisting and calling was I finally able to get an investigation open today and they got THAT WRONG TOO! GS said, "Oh, you got your plasma TV". Num-nut. I am replacing a cell phone. Fix your systems and fix your customer service, and fix your processes. BTW, don't worry... the next phone call is to cancel the GSP on my other cell phone. What a waste of money.

BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON -- This is the most worst experience I had till now. My laptop crashed this Monday and took it to Geek Squad for repair. Since it was my official laptop I have very important data and also some personal data which I desperately needed. Hence I requested them to get my data backup as soon as possible but, Geek Squad seems to work on their comfort zone. They took all my contacts and said they give a call when complete.

Even after asking to mark my case as urgent, they opened my laptop on 4th day and till end of day no call from them so I went and asked to hand over my laptop then they say my data is not recoverable and they cannot do anything. I don't know if it is true. I don't know if I need to lodge a complaint if they took my data for their use.

AUSTIN, TEXAS -- Geek Squad sells a second rate insurance policy online... you think you have bought local coverage and then you find out you have to send you computer in every time. It took them 8 weeks the first time. They sent me a computer back where Windows 7 was replaced by Windows 8 and in addition a bad battery. Now they tell me that they won't replace the Windows 7 they destroyed. BEWARE. After 16 frustrating weeks I have a computer with no working battery and the windows 8 they replaced Windows 7. I now have over $800 of non-compatible products.

ALABASTER, ALABAMA -- Laptop dropped in on Tuesday, Errors needed to be fixed. Windows 8 not updating, HP not updating and an unauthorized account / illegal intrusion on credentials. Faulty right speaker muffled sound. The girl at drop-off was polite helpful and nice and listened. We gave authorization to do whatever they needed to fix the Windows 8 and HP errors and protect against intruder. They called my wife approx 11 a. m. next morning saying the laptop is ready. I personally received an email about 10.30 am stating the computer is fixed and ready for collection.

However we arrived about 7.30 - 8.00 pm a new guy was at desk. It was clear and free but he signaled us to wait while he typed on a computer/till. He came back after few minutes of us waiting and showed our laptop and the geeks squad receipt contract papers. From that moment the guy was non communicative, non interested, not listening and dismissive when we opened the laptop to check if it was fixed. He never bothered to communicate and was oblivious to anything remotely.

I had paid for this HP laptop in full cash at black Friday week. And we paid for an extra years cover on maintenance services at Geek Squad and 2 year cover extended. He just wanted to hand us the unfixed computer back and shoo us away. His attitude was disgraceful. Argumentative and ill informed.

He was unaware of basic CPU queries didn't even know what windows metro was! I had spelled out the outstanding issues and errors to save the techs time on a notepad and even supplied a picture of errors on the desktop easy to find. Somebody was supposed to "refresh" the laptop but nothing absolutely nothing had been changed from the 1st moment yesterday when we brought it in. Except they uninstalled AVG antivirus free! Like that helped!!?

This guy acted like a complete jerk. Instead of admitting he was incompetent and had no clue what happened and what to do or even excuse his ignorance by calling for someone who knows what they are doing he instead choose to argue irrelevant meaningless baloney. I know enough about windows to know when I asked him several question about why nothing was fixed and what they had done if anything? He was totally disrespectful argued with both myself and my wife. He is unfit to deal with any customers or computers and should be sacked for customer abuse and incompetence and disruption. I am a reasonable man.

If the staff had miss-communication and busy and under stress I'd understand but their failures are not ours. Instead of being a man and getting out of the way so people who can do something this guy tried to project his own failings and hide his incompetence with arguing, lying pretending and acting and then disgraceful tried to Shout down us in front of a crowd now and children.

This guy had the nerve to claim I had not paid for anything therefore, he had the right to act like a complete **! To his ignorance mistake I have paid for everything previously pal! Finally he said he'd call the manager! Finally some actual help! The young manager was understanding and listened and resolved and admitted it was Geek Squads mistake not ours. That tall guy ought to be fired.

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA -- Bought a Panasonic TV from Best Buy. Got the pressured sales pitch for Geek Squad service plan "they will come right out to fix your TV if there is any problem" (right). When it went out called Best Buy told to call Geek Squad, can't get a tech out for 4 days between 8 and noon. Tech calls 10 minutes after noon going to be late. So I wait. Gets here, looks at it for less than a minute, gives his expert opinion that it needs a new motherboard, orders the part, says it will come in in a week reschedule. Okay. Wait couple of days. I get a message that parts on back order. Call to reschedule.

Parts apparently going to be delivered on Thanksgiving day (right). Schedule for next day service to see if motherboard is the problem then go from there. Call Best Buy to see if they can help out in any way. They told me "well you could always buy another TV." They clearly do not care about customer satisfaction. Call Geek Squad again on a Sunday. Agent tells me that because the part will not arrive in time I would qualify for an exchange #. Please hold for that #. Wait around 10 minutes on the phone. Agent comes back. "Oh sorry. Department not open on Sunday. Call back Monday morning to get #."

Monday morning call once again. Have to go over the whole story again for the fifth time. "Please hold while I transfer you to that department." Wait another 20 minutes. Agent comes on, says that the delivery date which will be out of their days guarantee is just an estimate. Could ship tomorrow - just have to wait. Asked to talk to a supervisor. Told "no supervisor available." Okay I'll wait. No there is no supervisor here. Agent will put in the notes to call me sometime today. I am not happy. Can you transfer me to the complaints department. Agent tell me that she can not transfer but gives me the # which turns out to be the wrong #.

Call Geek Squad again. Ask for manager or supervisor. New agent ask to verify who I am so once again go through story again. Wait again for 15-20 minutes on the phone for supervisor. Have to go over problem. Once again Supervisor tells that while in fact because of the ship date does fall into the lemon policy just going to have to wait. "It may ship out tomorrow. We just do not know. But for your trouble I would like to take this opportunity to offer you a $50 gift card to Best Buy. Can I do that for you?" Like he's doing me some big favor.

I told to keep the card. I am more interested in having my TV fixed and with the kind of customer service you are giving me why would I ever step foot in another Best Buy again. Can I have the complaints department? "Can not transfer you but here is the #." Up to now I have called 8 times rings busy every time I wonder why? If you are looking to buy anything WORST BUY sells I would think twice and I would never recommend Geek Squad.

HOUMA, LOUISIANA -- Review I left for Geek Squad. When I sent my computer in I was asked if I wanted to pay to retrieve my hard drive in the event that it needed to be changed. ($165) I told the Geek Squad agent to contact me before making any changes to my hard drive. Before bringing the computer in to them I had my hard drive, and operating system checked by a certified computer tech. My hard drive was in 100% operating condition. So I knew what was wrong with my computer before it was sent off. LCD was bad, and wireless card problems, so I opted to use the $300 warranty that I purchased less than 1 year ago.

I signed the contract stating that I didn't want to pay to get my hard drive recovered. Told the agent clearly to contact me before changing my hard drive. today... got a phone call asking my wife to pay $60 to buy my original hard drive back, and an additional $250 to recover my info. and they needed an answer by tomorrow or my hard drive gets recycled. I think I'm being conned into paying these fee's. My hard drive was fine. I'm not paying a cent more for service that wasn't required or needed. I have 100% confidence in the computer tech that checked my computer. He is the top computer tech for tidewater marine services.

I expect to have my hard drive in the mail, and at my door step in about 7-10 days. If that doesn't happen, I'm going back to Best Buy, find the Geek Squad agent... start a war with him. I want to know why I was not contacted like I requested. I don't think that its very fair that they swapped out my hard drive, then try to squeeze money out of me to recover that info... again I know my hard drive was fine. I specifically requested being contacted before any changes to my hard drive. The agent stated... "no problem, just sign here to deny retrieval of any info". I was warned that this would happen, that's why I had my computer checked before sending it in.

I'm currently offshore,500 miles away from my computer, ill have it sent to me in a few days. My wife tried the computer, when wireless is turned on, my computer still won't find any wireless networks... so my problem still exist. On top of that Geek Squad wants me to pay $320 to retrieve my personal info. How's this for a rating? Did you get the answer you wanted?

I got my answer about the service that was provided to me by Geek Squad, good service that I paid for.
when I bought my laptop for $1300 I really couldn't afford the extra $300 for 3 year full warranty, but I bought it anyway, in case I needed it. When I needed the service, I now find myself being conned. $300 for warranty through Geek Squad, plus $320 to retrieve my hard drive and I still have a wireless problem. $620 total... my computer is on sale new for $830. I'd buy a new one before send them anymore money. Thank you for the service I did not receive!

CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, PENNSYLVANIA -- I brought my desktop into the Geek Squad because I was busy at work and really didn't want to deal with fixing this computer. At the time that I dropped off the computer, I reported that the hard drive was producing a registry error. I provided receipts for all of the equipment (computer purchased 06/07 at Best Buy and hard drive purchased 12/09 at Best Buy), and was told that if the hard drive proved to be faulty something would be done to provide a replacement hard drive. The Geek Squad engineer with whom I spoke recommended the $69 diagnostic repair would take care of the situation. I was told that I would hear something in three days.

By the time that I returned home, I had received an email providing a case number. Three days later, I logged into the web site to find that my case had been closed two days previously and that the computer was ready to pick up. No phone call, no contact of any sorts. I called the store, and the engineer who answered the phone could not provide any explanation about why I wasn't contacted. But, he did report that the outcome of their work was that they diagnosed a BAD hard drive.

Additionally, he went onto to describe the cost options that I had for replacement. When I questioned him about the fact that the hard drive had been purchased at Best Buy a few months before, he said that I would need to take it up with the manufacturer to obtain warranty service. Two hours later, I arrived at the store and picked up the computer. The computer was no closer to being fixed that it was three days before. I was simply out $70.

At this point, I really didn't want to spend my time working on fixing this computer, but felt that I had no other option. Once I got it home, I went to the hard drive manufacturer's web site and downloaded a utility that allowed me to repair the drive in less than an hour. At this time, it's working perfectly. Total cost for the repair (excluding the $70 I wasted at Geek Squad) - $0.

I feel like I received NO VALUE for the nearly $70 that I paid Best Buy. I did not need a diagnostic service, as I reported the type of hard drive problem (registry error) to the Geek Squad engineer when I first brought the equipment in. I needed someone to spend an hour, like I ultimately did, to get past the hard drive error and fix the problem. I explained that to the engineer at drop off, and he was completely confident that was the service that would be provided. In fact, he collected Windows and other driver disks from me to have when they corrected the problem (as it turns out, I didn't need to reinstall anything when I fixed the problem at home).

If that service wouldn't be provided, why did he sell that service to me???? Here's the best part of the whole scenario - The 'expert' diagnosis provided by this diagnostic service was COMPLETELY WRONG!!! For $70, the Geek Squad provided the wrong diagnosis. The hard drive is, in fact, NOT BROKEN and does not need replacement. If I had believed the Geek Squad, I would have spent additional unnecessary dollars on a replacement hard drive that didn't need to be replaced. But, why would that surprise me after this experience? Pardon me for being so naive. It just took a little while for me to catch on.

Lessons learned for me from this experience: I have learned that I need to take the time to perform my own computer diagnostic and repair activities, and I have no need for Geek Squad. I can deal with the computer equipment manufacturers myself, thanks to the web and a telephone. Thanks for reminding me!

I must be an expert (though I didn't think of myself as one before) and will consider myself one from this point forward. I must be one because I was able to fix a problem when Best Buy's Geek Squad couldn't even they were being paid to. As of today, I am providing expert computer diagnosis and repair to as many of my family and friends as I can. And, unlike Best Buy, I am doing it for free. That way, when the occasion comes that I can't fix a problem, I can step away saying 'You got what you paid for' - something that Best Buy can't say to me in my recent experience with the Geek Squad.

I have learned that the word 'expert' is thrown around much too freely and that the meaning of the word varies. At this time, my opinion (and that which I will be sharing with all of my fellow IT co-workers) is that the Geek Squad is 'expert' at collecting revenue and providing not much in return. Never buy a diagnostic service where the service accuracy isn't guaranteed!

I sent my computer in to have my USB port looked at, we only discussed my USB port because it came unglued. We never discussed the performance of my computer, and I was happy with the performance of my computer so there was no reason for them to even evaluate the performance of my computer. It was never a topic.

They had me sign a piece of paper saying that I didn't want to pay $99.00 for them to make back back-up disks, and I went along with it because there was no reason for them to do anything to my computer except to glue the USB port back. I just assumed they had to ask me that as a protocol but I didn't think it was necessary because I didn't come to them with that kind of problem. I was later informed that because I signed that document, that there was nothing anyone could do to help me further.

However, when I signed the document, I was not informed that a full diagnostic would be run on my computer, and that the Geek Squad would be replacing parts that were failing, since the computer was still under manufacturer's warranty. (without consulting the customer first, and I was promised that they would consult me first). This displeases me and raises the question to me about the importance of customer service to the Geek Squad, because they never gave me the opportunity to make a decision as to whether or not I want to allow them to fix the new-found problems or not.

So instead of just gluing the USB port, they went into my computer and looked around and identified problems that were not issues to me. They said that my hard drive was failing, (which I doubt). I was very happy with the performance of my hard drive, and they DID replace my hard drive without letting me know it, and I think they should be held accountable for not staying on task because if they did find something unusual with my computer that "WE DIDN'T DISCUSS" then the responsible thing for them to do is to contact me so that we can HAVE that discussion.

In fact, I had an agreement with the employee who took the computer, that nothing would be done to it without talking to me first. I later spoke with someone in Consumer Resources and she told me that they do courtesy calls "sometimes". Why not "all" the time? I spoke to someone else who worked at the store and was told that only people without the manufacturer's warranty get these calls. Why only them? ESPECIALLY when replacing a Hard Drive... I mean really!

I believe they did it to spite me, because I didn't pay the $99.00 to make back up disks, and now there is no way to prove it, because my old hard drive has already been refurbished. As far as that goes, why was my old hard drive refurbished and given to someone else, instead of being given to me? I was told that it was because the hard drive belonged to the manufacturer, but wait... didn't I buy the computer? Wasn't the hard drive included?

So we have a promise that was broken, we have what I consider an invasion of privacy, when they went into my computer looking for a problem when all I wanted was my USB port fixed, and now all of my memories, and every program I had with that computer is gone. The pictures of my deceased grandmother are gone. I equate this with taking my car in for an oil change, and it being returned to me with a new engine without my permission.

The sad part is that they are getting away with ruining my computer because I signed a document saying that I didn't want them to make back-up discs for my hard drive, and they are getting away with lying to me about saying they would contact me about the "new issues" (if there were any) which they failed to do. But my complaint is this:

Why only contact customers with NO manufacturer's warning, and allow them the options to have their computer fixed or not when new-found problems arise, and NOT contact the customers that are still under warranty when new-found problems are discovered? ESPECIALLY Hard drive problems? Best Buy and the Geek Squad have lost another customer because of their lack of good customer service.