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Geek Squad Review - Read the Reviews Before You Purchase - Dont Get Scammed!
StarStarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 2/51

SAN FRANCISCO, WASHINGTON -- Be wary of these Big Box stores and their "computer repair" technicians. I've experiencing nothing short of anguish and egregious amount of errors and mistakes on their part. Most recently, I took a computer in to have it looked at for errors upon start up. It appeared that there might be a bug or something causing some startup problems. My computer is used mostly for business, and has up-to-date virus protection installed. I have however, gotten infections in the past. My line of work requires a lot of internet research so I might be predisposed to certain types of infections.

The last time I had to take my computer to Geek Squad, the Agent, let me know that it would take about 3 days to clean up and return the computer to a usable state. Unfortunately, it took over 7 business days to get my computer back. The original quote of $149.99 turned into $349.99. In the end, I got my PC back, late and over estimate. They informed me that I needed a new hard drive.

Once I got the computer back, I still was having issues with the new operating system installation. Apparently, once they installed the operating system, they left a few issues unresolved. My computer was missing the data, the computer was starting in a weird mode that I could not get it out of and It was incredibly slow to start and restart.

I began to look at reviews of Geek Squad, and I came across this site. One of the users suggested SecureRemoteSupport, as a possible alternative to Geek Squad. After doing my research I contacted them to repair my still broken machine. After a brief diagnostic period, which I did not pay for, they informed me that there was nothing wrong with my old hard drive and that I had been scammed by Geek Squad.

** was able to get my computer up and running using the old hard drive and after a few hours, got the infections removed from the PC. I didn't lose any data and I didn't have to reinstall any programs. Additionally, John offered me LIFETIME protection software for the computer. While expensive, it is guaranteed. Geek Squad won't do that.

I was able to go back to the Best Buy Geek Squad and speak to the manager and explain the entire situation. I offered up the invoice and diagnostic paperwork from Secure Remote Support and they decided to give me a full refund. I did have to threaten a chargeback with my American Express. I also returned the hard drive that the Agent said was absolutely necessary for my machine.

Most interesting, while I was waiting in line to speak to a manager, there were approximately 6 other customers in front of me. Of all those people, most of them I heard complaining about issues and problems that weren't related to the computer. It sounded as if they were experiencing similar issues to me. After reading some of the reviews related to them, I am not surprised there are this many problems with this service. I will not be using the Geek Squad in the future, and I suggest that you don't either.

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Be Careful What You Request/You will Get the Wrong Advice & Things You Didn't Request
By -

TUCKER, GEORGIA -- I am talking to my fifth person at Geek Squad. My first call, we got disconnected. My second call the girl said she couldn't hear me and went into a speech about my having to call back. No one called me back. The third girl took my info and then dumped me onto another person who took the same info. I spoke to a Supervisor for my fourth call and I am now waiting to speak to someone in their corporate complaint department.

In September, I had the Geek Squad come out to network my three business computers, setup automatic backup on an external drive and do a tune-up on one of the computer. I explained to the Tech representative that I wanted access to all three computers no matter where I was in my office or den. For some strange reason, which I did not discover until last night, he gave me access from one computer but set up a pass code and user box for one of the other computers.

I explained to the customer service representative that I seldom used this particular computer because it is in my den. However, when I get back from a trip or if I need to do something immediately, I will use it. I wanted access to these items from my other two computers which are in my office.

When I express my dismay and concern, I got the standard scrip about 30 days etc, why didn't I complain then, they would have to charge me, etc. etc. When I challenged the setting up of a password and user name on just one computer, I wasn't given a good reason why he did that. Also, they have a policy that states it should have been on his records and my invoice that he did that. The supervisor kept trying to blame the program they used.

I also had purchased at 1T external hard drive. I had a 750 one. I asked the Tech if we could "piggy back" the hard drives for backup. I explained to him I had huge files. I also explained to him that I have two businesses, a consulting firm that works with companies in the convention/tradeshow/meetings arena and a photography business. He told me I had plenty of space and to put the hard drive on eBay! Guess what, I am now out of space for my backup's. I don't know what is being backup, overwritten, nothing!

I am now talking to their corporate complaint department. He is giving me the company line. No relief here. Bottom line, they didn't do what I asked, they don't care I didn't get correct products and service. What ever, I am just out of luck! Oh, he just checked. What do you know, their Tech didn't fill out his work order correctly. No mention of codes or other items. This guy thinks he can help with the situation now. I asked him if their Rep's understand that 90% of the public doesn't have a clue about computer systems. He thinks he can get a resolution to the problems. Well, we will see.

Three Things: If you get cut off, call the customer back! If your personnel did something wrong, didn't complete their paperwork correctly, failed to advise the customer correctly, admit it, solve the problem and don't even think about charging the customer. I don't care if it has been a year. Car manufacturers have recalls! You did it wrong, fix it! What company sends out Tech rep's that don't know what is applicable for storage needs. If someone has huge files, they should it least have a formula or something that let's them know what the customer might need.

My advice, be afraid, be very afraid. Will I ever buy anything from Best Buy if I need the Geek Squad to install it and service it... That's not going to happen!! This whole affair took over two hours of my time. As a small business owner, this day just cost me money. Keep your money in your pocket. Find someone else to do your project.

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Fake Expert Blaming Customer for Their Own Incompetence
StarStarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 2/51

TORONTO -- The quality of service depends on who is on duty when you go or call in. One staff member was very patient (I'm a person with disabilities), but another was totally rude. I had purchased a computer at a Best Buy location in Toronto, and the in-store Geek Squad installed Thunderbird for me. Soon I found all emails disappeared from my Rogers email inbox in Thunderbird. When I called Geek Squad, the staff on the phone was nice and offered to help based on the fact that they had installed the software for me.

When I went in with my PC the next day, the guy on duty asked me for receipt. I told him that if I open my Hotmail, I could show him the receipt. (Best Buy had emailed the receipt to me.) He opened my email, but did not look for the receipt or allow me to look for it in my own email account. Instead, he repeatedly asked me for the receipt to prove that I had purchased the PC at their store.

It appeared that he was looking for an excuse not to work, or was giving the customer a hard time because he was not happy working. Then he offered CONTRADICTORY explanations about why ALL emails had disappeared from my Rogers inbox in Thunderbird, but was retained in the original Rogers inbox, and eventually blamed me for “accidentally” deleted ALL emails from the inbox in Thunderbird.

It was not true at all because those allegedly “ACCIDENTALLY DELETED” EMAILS WERE NOT TO BE FOUND IN THE “DELETE/TRASH” BOXES, neither in Thunderbird, nor in the original Rogers account! That was obviously a person who does not know his stuff but had a lot of “expert” arrogance. He was not to admit that he could not solve my problem, so scapegoating the customer was his best strategy!

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Geek Squad is not completely America
StarStarStarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 3/51

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA -- I would like first to point out that Geek Squad reps are NOT IN AMERICA. I have on a few occasions hired the remote assistance technicians and paid top dollar, only to speak to people with broken accents whom were very difficult to understand. I even had to disconnect the call a few times and call back in to try and get someone that could understand me and someone whom I could understand.

DO NOT hire Geek Squad remote services. I've hired them to give my computer on a couple of occasions and they've always made it worse. The best thing to do is to find a remote service that is based in the United States that actually answers the phone when you call. Be sure to check out their reviews too. If you check out Geek Squad reviews, you'll notice a ridiculous amount of horrible reviews for the Geek Squad all over the internet. I've never seen worse reviews.

The most recent one - I hired Geek Squad to fix an Outlook email issue that I had had for a few weeks. Apparently, the company that I hired, safepcfix.com was able to go in and check out the fact that Geek Squad did not repair a virus problem from a few months before that led to the eventual collapse of my Outlook files. To make things worse, Geek Squad never did the cleanup on the file system on windows, so the other company I hired was able to go in and make it faster and remove a bunch of junk files that could have caused me issues down the road.

Moral of the story - don't trust anyone that works here. I can't imagine that they would be able to do anything good for your computer, as the reviews that are positive, almost seem to be written by the Geek Squad company themselves. As others have mentioned: Buyer beware!

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"Geeks" Did More Damage to Machine Than When I Brought It In
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

MARQUETTE, MICHIGAN -- Here's my response to Geek Squad satisfaction survey after they "fixed" my machine: I brought a gaming tower in because it was stuck in the dreaded Microsoft automatic repair loop. It would not boot. Apparently the "geeks" at Geek Squad have no idea what this commonly discussed problem even means. Although I specifically and explicitly instructed two different agents NOT to wipe out the drive but rather just call me if they couldn't break out of the auto repair loop. Wiping the drive and reinstalling the Windows 8 operating system without contacting me was their brilliant solution to getting it to boot.

I received a nice, shiny, blank machine and the Geek Squad seemed so proud to be able to "fix" my machine. What a bunch of heavy handed, incompetent monkeys. If I'd wanted my machine wiped clean I would have done it myself or asked my 8 year old to do it.

To make matters worse, I insisted on speaking to the Marquette store manager and she proceeded to tell me that it was my fault because I declined the disk backup service. Excuse me but when you bring in a machine to see if a boot problem can be repaired you do NOT expect some clown to wipe out the whole disk. As it turns out, I had enough backups to recover everything that I needed but it took me over 10 hours to get my machine back to the way I had it before a Geek Squad monkey blew it away.

EXTREMELY unprofessional to have a manager who obviously doesn't know the difference between a boot sector and a ski boot come and claim that it was all my fault. The only thing she had to offer was waiving the $50 data recovery fee to try to recover everything that they had lost. She informed me that I would still have to wait up to 3 weeks AND pay for the amount of data recovered.

Are you people SERIOUS?! If I had the time I'd take Geek Squad to court but as it stands, I'll just have to settle with posting my experience to every anti-Best buy board that I can find and filing a compliant with the Better Business Bureau. Don't knock yourself out trying to reach me, I've seen and heard everything that I ever want to hear from Best Buy and/or Geek Squad. Epic fail.

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"Cheat Squad," Not Geek Squad
StarStarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 2/51

TUSTIN, CALIFORNIA -- “Cheat Squad” would be a more appropriate company name. Seems the company's business model to “sell the $200 protection plan” and don't worry about the fall out if your skill set is subpar for making in house repairs. A simple task of installing a new hard drive on the HP laptop left for repair resulted in four missing screws on the underside. Plus the keyboard was not intact (hard to guess what spare parts may have ended up on the work table) and eight keys on the keyboard would not function.

Upon return to the store to report the condition I was told “we are not authorized to open the case”. The case had to be opened to install the hard drive. Turns out, they lied to me and I never needed a new hard drive in the first place. They claimed I needed a new hard drive because they are not qualified to remove the malware or viruses that were on there in the first place. I had to find another company to get it cleaned up and fixed. I ended up finding SafePCFix based out of Southern CA. They were able to log in and fix it remotely in a few hours. They sent me the screws that Geek Squad lost for my laptop.

These poor young Geek Squad employees are being fed and fattened up on a corporate line of mumbo jumbo that covers up ineptness and a fraudulent business model. Eventually the result will be the end of any integrity for the Geek Squad brand and their own employment. Needless to say when I checked in with SafePCFix they were friendly, helpful, respectful, knowledgeable, quick to diagnose the issue and reasonably priced. Now that is a great business model. I have no problem with a referral. Buyer Beware at Best Buy and Geek Squad Agents.

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Terrible Customer Service, I Mean TERRIBLE!
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

BEST BUY, MINNESOTA -- I made an appointment to have my remote starter installed 1.5 months in advance. In making this appt:, I specifically told the tech I had an old remote starter in that needs to be taken out, he replied, "No problem, they can do that during your appointment." Upon arriving at my appointment I told the tech about the old remote starter, and he said, "It will be a 50$." I said the appointment setter never told me that, and then just said well, whatever, I need to get this installed. He said it would be a little more time, and I asked how long, he said I am slotted until 6:00 p.m.

As I waited patiently, I went and sat back by the installation area. At 5:15 p.m. another vehicle pulled in and he stopped working on my truck and started working on hers. At 5:35 she pulled out. At 5:40 another vehicle pulled in and he started working on this vehicle. At approximately 6:05 I went and asked a manager if it is normal for him to work on other vehicles when mine is not completed. The jerk manager said he would check to see what the status is. He spoke to the tech and then told me, "Apparently you should have a second appointment for removing the old remote starter."

I asked why I was not told that, and what does that have to do with my truck now? He said, "Well these other people have appointments and he needs to help them!" I said this doesn't make since, why can't he finish my truck and then work on theirs, he knew what he needed to do regarding mine, even the guy who brought his vehicle in at 6:00 wondered why they did not finish mine. Then the prick mgr. said, "I just have him tear everything out and give you your money back, how's that!" My dash was lying on the ground and in pieces, I quickly told this little **, "**, he is going to finish what he started!!"

I just spent $650.00 on a new stereo for my girlfriend and was pleasant in the beginning and this is how they treat me. Needless to say I took back the stereo and canceled my total tech yearly service that I just spent $214.00 on. I will never go back to Best Buy, the staff are have no clue as to what customer service is. I was told my car starter is now not covered under a warranty.

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Utter indeference to failure.
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA -- This is more of a Geek Squad Review. But does touch on Best Buy's customer service philosophy.

I was looking forward to having my newly purchased Sony XBR55X900E TV installed today. But it was not to be. Upon my Geek Squad Tech arriving, I showed him where the XBR55X900e would be mounted. As well, I showed him the brand new, never used full motion wall mount I purchased elsewhere. Without any effort to inspect the mount or exploring how the mount attaches to the wall, He dismissed my mount as "unsafe" even though it is rated for 55" TV's up to 89 pounds, and sold by a major retailer. The Tech did offer to sell me a different wall mount off his truck, a proposition that I found distasteful. Interestingly, BestBuy offers many similar mounts with identical attachment hardware. The attitude conveyed is if ‘you don't buy my TV wall mount, you don't get your TV installed'.

One positive comment for the Tech, was he remained courteous throughout our brief encounter. While the discouraging downside is the overall impression conveyed that he was more interested (as it turned out, the impression affirmed by the BB manager as well) in refunding the transaction. In fact, the attitude was rather cavalier, more so - we would prefer to refund rather than satisfy a customer. When asked for the name of the Tech's managers, I was informed that the Tech currently does not have a manager, or any other supervision. He did volunteer that a colleague was filling the role until a manager is hired.

The broader downside (which BB is eager to explore) is to ignore the impact of poor service on future sales. In my case, I was planning to replace all my appliances via Best Buy. My decision is largely influenced by the conduct of my sales representative as well as my overall in store experience. That said, given the rather lack luster service side of the transaction, accompanied by the clear implication that my business is not valued, and dismiss-able, I will shop elsewhere.

Curious that BB with the assistance of Geek Squad is more eager to step towards retail oblivion than extend even a modest effort to resolve a problem.

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Geek squad is horrible!
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA -- Dealing with Geek Squad has been an absolute nightmare!! And judging by the hundreds of other reviews here, I'm guessing most of you feel the same way. As a business owner, and computer user, I rely on technology.

I hired Geek Squad to fix a start up virus issue. The computer would pop up virus warnings telling me to call a bogus phone number. The phone number, when called, would be answered by an overseas person trying to get my credit card number. I almost gave it to them too.

I took the machine to Geek Squad to have it removed. $300 later and 3 days later I had the computer back. EVERYTHING WAS GONE!!!! All my pictures, all my documents, EVERYTHING!!!!

When I called them, they said that they had to replace the hard drive because the virus was so bad. I demanded to speak to a manager and told them I wanted my old hard drive back with all my stuff on it.

I started calling friends for some suggestions and luckily was referred to safepcfix (guaranteed too,) which is an online computer repair company. After speaking with their technician I was able to get ALL OF MY data back off the old hard drive and get the virus removed. They helped me navigate the BS with Geek Squad so that I could get my money refunded back to me and return the new hard drive that I didn't need.

Geek squad lied to me blatantly stating that I needed a new hard drive. I found a better company that was able to not only get my "lost data" back, but they were able to get me a refund from the Geek Squad.

Please do NOT hire the Geek Squad to work on your computer. It will only cause you problems and money that you don't need to spend. The tech guy at safepcfix com was more reasonable of a cost as well and helped get it up and running.

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Entertainment install
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

We paid for Geek Squad to install receiver, TV, and accessories. They came for everything out, opened and took out the new (which we paid a lot of money for) equipment and told us they were out of time and would be back at 3 pm. Never heard from them. Called customer service 3+ times - tried to get to listen, call store 2x. Finally, actually went to store and insisted seeing a manager. Not sure yet how much that will work out. We are still a mess in our main line, video no space, waiting all day for nothing. Don't know when it will be resolved and we paid + 5,000.00 for the privilege!

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Geek Squad Rating:
Star Half star Empty star Empty star Empty star
1.4 out of 5, based on 62 ratings and
207 reviews & complaints.
Contact Information:
Geek Squad
P.O. Box 9312
Minneapolis, MN 55440
1-800-433-5778 (ph)
www.geeksquad.com
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