Best Buy - Greedy

Posted by At Your Service on 2012-11-21:

I'd question the $30 removal for a virus. That sounds pretty cheap and shows no guarantee that the malware won't show up again or, in my humble opinion, has been professionally dealt with.

On the other hand, $199 is over the top. No question the that if it was virus only, I have found better ways of dealing with the issue.

I would suggest picking up an inexpensive external hard drive. Make it a habit to dock your unit nightly and use a package called Acronis True Image to back the system up. You can create an automatic backup at intervals you choose. Then when the malware invades, all you need to do is restore everything from the previous backup.

Posted by trmn8r on 2012-11-21:

$199 to remove spyware is hefty, on the other hand $30 is cheap.

If you had a trojan, they can't be fully eradicated with reinstalling Windows. Good luck.

Posted by ok4now on 2012-11-21:

The Gunk Squad is clueless when it comes to computer repairs. All they know how to do is over charge the customer. Good for you for walking and getting a fair price to fix it.

Posted by leet60 on 2012-11-21:

I have always considered the Geek Squad the last resort short of reformatting my hard drive and reinstalling the operating system. They typically have "canned" responses for every complaint. I find them not unlike an inexperienced mechanic who pulls the computer codes from a vehicle, insisting the first code is the solution.

Posted by FoDaddy19 on 2012-11-21:

I agree that $199 is ridiculously expensive. When I was at Geek Squad the charge for virus removal was a diagnostic ($70), which was covered if you were under warranty, plus a $90 charge for "OS service" which was basically virus removal, updates, and "Agent Tweaks" which to the best of my observations didn't do anything. So it was still overpriced 7-8 years ago.

Best Buy makes a significant portion of it's revenue from services, profit margins on computers and TV's are slim. So they services and accessories are sold at huge markups. Geek Squad Services generally carry a staggering mark up. When I was there, they usually expected to you to sell $600-$900 worth of services per 7-8 hour shift.

With that said, you weren't mistreated in any way. You opted not to get the warranty, that's your call. They simply told you what they charged to fix the problem. You declined and took your computer elsewhere. No big deal.

A word of advice : Get a flash drive or external backup drive to backup all your work you're doing on the computer. You'll thank me later.

Posted by Cwazychicken on 2012-11-27:

go to locally owned shops. I personally know quite a few who charge like 30-40 bucks an hour because they need the work and are good at what they do....some even guarantee satisfaction or free! Try them out...30 bucks may seem cheap but in this economy, people need work.