Never Pay Best Buy's Geek Squad to Fix Your Computer
By xnotion
So I was browsing around in the Sunday Paper this weekend, and I came across a Best Buy ad. Being the technology enthusiast that I am, I decided to look through it and gawk at all the latest gadgets for sale. As I turned through the pages of the ad, however, I came across a sad sight. I realized that Best Buy and its Geek Squad are essentially scamming people who don't know any better about their computers. They're charging ridiculously high prices for extremely simple tasks. Changing your PC's memory? $40. When you consider that memory these days costs around $50 on average, $40 to install it is incredibly high. The way that this company works is by preying on people who don't know how to do these things themselves. My goal with this article is to save YOU money and teach Best Buy that consumers are tired of being scammed into paying outrageous prices for tasks they could do on their own.
First, let's look at GPS installation prices. Now, to begin with, a GPS is not the most complicated device to install. It pops out of its little box, mounts onto a suction cup, and sticks to your window. But apparently, Best Buy thinks that consumers are willing to pay $49.99 for this service. Yes, you read that right, $49.99. This price essentially gets your GPS out of the box and onto your window. From there, the wonderful geeks will then tell you how to navigate to a location. Navigating to a location is so incredibly simple that I decided to try it out on my 90 year old grandma. I asked her to navigate from her nursing home to the nearest pizza place. She was able to complete this task in approximately 3 minutes on a TomTom. Seriously, Best Buy?
Since setting up a GPS was fairly simple, I moved on to something a little more difficult: setting up a wireless network in my home. Geek Squad thinks such a service costs $150. With today's routers, almost anyone can set up a network, but I understand that not everyone is as adept as I am with technology. But I still could not fathom paying $150 for that service. So I called around to local "computer gurus." The good news here is that they will charge less than $100 for that service. So if it isn't something you can do on your own, please, please support your neighborhood geek and ask them for help before shelling out $150 for the Geek Squad to do it. They'd probably mess it up anyway.
Continuing my search on Geek Squad's website, I was able to locate many more rip offs. First, there is a $40 charge for an in-store "tune up." Said tune-up consists of enabling a pop-up blocker in Internet Explorer (which any 10 year old with access to Google could do), and cleaning out unwanted programs. Before you spend money at the store, see what free programs can do. I use CCleaner which is a free program that gets rid of space-consuming temporary files and unneeded programs. And, it's 100% free! Take that, Best Buy.
Next up is email. Email these days is pretty much so simple that your kid could (and probably does) do it. Nonetheless, the Geek Squad continues to prey on unsuspecting folks who think $50 is reasonable to setup an email account. Essentially, they will open your program, ask you for the password, type it in the box for you, and say "there you go, we fixed it!"
This next item honestly takes the award for most outrageous cost. To install a program today, one needs to insert the CD into the drive, click "Next," "Next," "Finish," and they are done. Best Buy will do this incredibly difficult task for you for the low price of... $30! And you have to bring the computer to them. I think if you can drive to the store and carry your computer in, you're perfectly capable of inserting a CD and clicking a few buttons.
Some other ridiculous services include Virus Removal for $200 (just buy a new computer if you're going to pay that much), setting up your new computer for $150 (just turn it on, folks), setting up a printer for $50 (the cost of most low-end printers these days), connecting your iPod to your car's speakers (buy wire, plug both ends in, turn on radio, wow), connecting your bluetooth to your phone for $150, setting up your Xbox for $50, and much much more.
Sometimes, we can't figure something out on our own. But I implore you not to use Best Buy's ridiculous and outrageously priced services. If you need help, call any teenager or local computer expert and chance are you'll save hundreds of dollars. I am writing this article because I think it is a shame that Best Buy preys on people who don't know as much as they could about computers and charges them an arm and a leg for services so simple almost anyone could do it. Shame on Best Buy and Geek Squad.
Comments
Dublin Dave, I agree. The whole purpose of this article is to get people to realize that the Geek Squad is basically overcharging and rarely has any more "tech know-how" than the average teenager. Thanks for commenting and sharing your experience
i just gpt my computer back they charged me $140 to clear something out of the history that would not delete. i brought my computer home plugged it in and the history is still there.
Robert, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Come on guys, $140 to delete something? That's a little ridiculous, especially when the job isn't even done. Thanks for sharing your experience, hopefully more and more people see the outrageous overcharging that the Geek Squad partakes in.
Man, you couldn't have said it better. My mother in law had the Geek Squad come up to "re-calibrate" her new TV. I don't even know if that was the term.
Anyways, I told her to cancel because they wanted $100+ to basically plug in a TV. I hate the Geek Squad, as well as Best Buy!
THAT'S TRUE GUYS THE GEEK SQUAD TAKEN ALL PEOPLE FOR DUMMY WITH THEIR PRICE.
I WAS WORKING FOR BEST BUY LIKE A GEEK SQUAD SOMETIMES I WANNA CRY FOR THOSE CUSTOMERS, BUT UNFORTUNATELY SOME OF THEM ARE REALLY STUPID, WHEN YOU TELL THEM YOU CAN FIX IT FOR THEM FOR 2X CHEAPER PRICEM THEY DONT TRUST YOU THEY SAID I TRUST THE GEEK STRASH
Completely true. I had the "Geek Squad" recover my hard drive 5 or 6 years ago for the low price of $100. I was told everything would be able to be recovered, and all I got was a disk with the sample music from three years earlier on it. No way to prove that wasn't all that was on there! Ugh. yesterday, we purchased a new laptop, and when we went to the register, there was another $100 to set it up, and get a copy of the recovery disks. Against the sales person's recommendation, we ventured ahead to do it ourselves, even though the lack of included recovery software is what nipped our ability to get into our last laptop. Behold! The included manuals have directions to create your own recovery disks, and you can do it from home instead of waiting for hours in the store, at NO additional cost. My question is...when they set up computers for you, do they remove the included manuals that say to do it yourself? I've never seen them before, just been told there were no backup discks included. ARGH!
A few months ago I purchased a desktop machine at Best Buy. The store we were at did not have it in stock but one down the street did. We wouldn't be able to get there until the next day and they were going to create the recovery disks. I agreed based solely on the convenience.
Got to the other store 24 hours later and they couldn't find the computer (it took them 30 minutes of me going back and forth between Geek Squad and the Service desk) and they hadn't even started to create the recovery disks. I told them to give me the charge for the recovery disks back and I'd do it myself.
Seeing as how Windows prompts you during the initial setup to create the recovery disks, it really isn't that hard. Also, I get to set up the system with the names that I want and it correctly discovers my network, not Best Buy's.
Uninstalling unwanted programs then using CCleaner to get rid of anything residual gets you a better system than Best Buy would have given you anyway.
Great article. There needs to be more like this. The Geek Squad facts need to be available to as many people as possible so everyone can see how much they charge and what is actually done. The email set up is the perfect example. Setting up an email takes 5 minutes at most. To charge $50 for that is unconscionable. There's a new service called "social media training". I can just imagine them setting up a Twitter and Facebook account for someone and then saying here's how you post, that'll be $150.
Eric and Kris, thanks for your comments. I agree, more people need to know about this ridiculous rip-off.
When my computer froze, it wouldn't turn on and I decided to take it to the Geek Squad to fix it. The Geek Squad charged me $225 just to reset my computer and they offered to store the memory for me and I said, "that would be nice". So the next day I went to go pick it up, I turned it on when I got home and everything was gone!! All of my important documents were gone!! I went back and asked about it and they said, "we can't do that." I asked about my anti-virus and they told me none was found so I had to buy a new one for $60 when i had just installed a very expensive one into my computer right before it broke!!
What a bunch of assholes. They charged me $200+ just to remove a simple virus from my laptop. Unfortunately, I didn't know any better at the time...
DO NOT GO TO GEEK SQUAD, PEOPLE. Ask your friends or search on the internet.
How do you get ripped of when you know what your buying ? Its not like they grabbed your wallet and took the money.If your a customer and your not sure , do some research , dont jump into anything without knowing.
Geek Squad is a pretty bad rip off. I manage a computer repair store and we charge 65 to remove viruses. Sorry 200+ is just blatant price gouging, most of our laptop screen repair prices are under 200!
Is best buy the best deal no but rember the car delarship has the most expensive labor rates too and thats what geek squad is the dealership mechanic yes 200 would be horible for a 1 time virus removal but that 200 covers any and all virus removals for a year do piss and moan b/c your not educated yes john I run a small shop and charge 35 per and yes I have customers come in and give me computers best buy fixed but its like anything else I have customers who love me and others who swear i ripped them off geek squad isnt some evil rip off now as far as sales associates best buy employees are not paid on commission but belive me there sales are tracked and every 30 days they get reminded of what you have or have not sold so they may push services you dont need but thats sales floor not geek squad per se and yes I hear about customers that get turned away that could have been helped but a car delearship wont work on a 15 year old clunker they will try to sell you a new car geek sqauds the same way I have a colleagu who works there who helps me part time so just rember a educate yourself and you wont get hosed and if you have a bad experince its more than likley that store or that secific clerk not the company as a whole
1 more thing I want to say as a computer tech to EVERYONE your software is like your tires on a brand new car or brand new computer if you get a virus on a new computer its not the manufactures fault just like if you drive your car on a construction site and pick up nails on a brand new car aint nobody going to fix either of those for free
The funniest part of this argument is that nobody forces people to pay for these services. :)
I bought a laptop and the "Black Tie" package at Best Buy 18 months ago. About a month ago I took the computer into the Geek Squad becuase there was something wrong with my keyboard. Some keys were randomly not working. When I was waiting to drop it off, the Geek at the desk told the customer in front of me that they were having computer issues, so she will need to fill out a manual form. By the time I got to the desk, computer issues were fixed and all of my forms were electronic.
Last weekend my hard drive crashed, so I took it up again. Explained to them (same Geek) that the hard drive failed diagnostic. I would have replaced it myself, but that's what the ESP is for. He told me that they would need to send it off-site to be repaired, which I knew. They called me on Thursday (4 days later) because they ran the diagnostic and my hard drive definitely is bad (yep). I was then told that I needed to come in and sign an authorization for them to send it off-site for repair. When I asked why they did not have me complete the paperwork on Sunday when I told them the hard drive was bad, I was told they had computer problems.
I understand that if you have a computer, you will eventually have problems. However, when you are a company who sells a computer repair service, and your computers are constantly going down, perhaps it's time to call in the local repair shops, because obviously Geek Squad isn't working for them either.
Your paying for the brand name of support, that's where the bulk of it's going. Yes, they charge a lot. Yes, most of it is basic. But some people just want to be spoon fed and will pay big dollars to do that. If you don't need or want Best Buy Support, ask someone else.
Whomever wrote this article, sure did the World A Valuable Service. Right On, It Is "The Dumbo Squad".
Dublin Dave 22 months ago
Great article, I made the mistake of using The Geek Squad to install my LED, sound system and other components. These guys should really be called the Dummy Squad, horrible experience, technician complained the whole time about how he had too many calls, couldn't connect TV to my wireless, did not program remotes, service was way overpriced to begin with and they they wanted me to buy a HDML cable for $125 off their truck. DONT USE THE GEEK SQUAD AND I WOULD RECOMMEND AVOIDING BEST BUY COMPLETELY.