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geek squad not geek enough

my laptop has been acting funny for the past few weeks.. the wireless is intermittent... it would disconnect and would reconnect every few min... and I have the extended warranty from best buy... well b/c I had it w/ my POS emachines and their "no lemon" clause. yes, their service is slow... and spotty... there is that small chance that over the next 3 years... something can happen to enact the no lemon clause. currently mine is JUST about there... they replaced the dvd drive, wireless card, hard drive. and I belive that the switch is broken so it would need a new switch or new motherboard... I'm not full of shit when I say it's broken... I kno how to fix a computer. I've fixed brakes on cars. I mean... no one's computer is life and death... maybe life & well being (getting fired for not finishing that project).. but not death... I turned an old laptop into a picture frame... so I kno how to take things apart and put it back together... CORRECTLY!! and since they changed the wireless card and I'm STILL having a problems... it's most likely the switch... and if U play w/ it... it does go on and off more often...

i ran my network connection a 50' ethernet cable for a while until the hard drive starts to click... and i can't do squat... fine no problem I was running off of my usb drive anyway... and I bring it back for them to take a look at.. 2-3 weeks go by... and thursday... I got a call from them... "we need your restore disks. the hard drive was replaced. and to test the wireless we need to restore your drive" wtf? I dropped off the machine AND disks... of course the guy on the phone is flustered... (on hold for a few min) oh wait here it is... I told the guy... "the wireless is intermittent I think it's the switch." "I'll make a note of it" friday... I get a call from their automated system saying... my laptop is ready to be picked up. great! I doubt that they fixed the wireless... I forgot my phone and I didn't get the message until saturday...

SO after work... I prep for porccu to visit me @ my parent's house... and I have time before she comes so I go and pickup my laptop... so the guy has problems FINDING my laptop... he's scouring around for it... when he does find it... I ask "what did U guys do w/ the wireless?" "well we replaced the hard drive and restored the drive and it's working" "so U didn't do anything w/ the wireless" "no it was working" I literally told them.. "if U guys have me take this home and come back a 3rd time for this problem... I'm going to raise hell. I'd rather U guys keep it and make sure that it's working before I take it home and find out that it's bad.." "ok, if that's what you want. we'll test it further." I break out my USB. I created a ping program. it pings a web address and says if it's pinged or not in a text file w/ the timestamp. of course they didn't preform any updates... so the program wouldn't run b/c it needs .net framework 3.5. so I told him forget it... it can't work right now... just keep an eye out for the switch. it was already on... and I pushed it further to the right.. the wireless turns off and then comes back on... "look see it's doing it" I play w/ it again. the light on the wireless goes off and on. "it did it again!" so he writes some notes down and says that it's intermittent and it needs to be tested further...

today... I get a call... sounds like the same guy that I was talking to sat... "your laptop is ready." "what did U guys do?" "we replaced the hard drive and tested the wireless" "what did U guys do w/ the wireless?" "we tested it further as you requested." "I think it's the switch that's bad" "we tested it for 2 days and found nothing" "ok I'll pick it up tonight" after finishing work... stop by my apt pickup my laptop bag. feed my cat... OFF TO BEST BUY!! I get there... 2 "geeks" were w/ customers... I notice that my laptop is there... so I sit on a stool they have there and wait patiently... I look at the customer finishing up and my laptop is behind them... I see the all too familiar wireless popup... that it reconnected... I walk up... what's that error message... that popup... "what?" the balloon popup. is that your laptop? "yes, what's that popup?" so he looks at the paperwork... "U got a call that your laptop is ready" "yes, they called me today" "well it says here that there's intermittent problems we need to send it out and have them double check. it could be a loose wire or something" (nice... they didn't do the job RIGHT the first time... so they want to make sure that they didn't mess anything up) I ask... "so what would happen if they found out that the motherboard was bad..." "well we'll replace it" (I kept quiet about the no lemon policy) "I'll close this one out and make a new ticket for you" "thanks"

on the whole... if I were to review best buy's geek squad. I would give them a horrible rating... only b/c I kno how to fix this kind of stuff myself... AND do a better job to boot!! I learned @ staples... that for every bad experience... people tell 10 others... right now... I'm telling essentially the whole world (only 5 people read it regularly in actuality)!! the ONLY reason why I'd buy their service plan again is the "no lemon clause" if it weren't for that... I would do it myself!!! I do give them credit. I was disgruntled sounding and they were still courteous. I could tell that they were a little on the "oh gee one of those difficult customers" mode. I still don't understand why they couldn't do the repairs at the store... that they have to send it out someplace... the only reason I can think of is consolidate their resources... an uber-geek squad so they won't need one at every store on standby during the slow times. but w/ the volume that they have... I think it would be worth it for that store.

I'm always reminded of that expose in canada... only 3/10 were able to fix a computer properly.

I'm planning on starting my own computer repair business... no joke. I have a card design made up already

Mood: geek squad sucks!!

5/19/2009 3:54:55 AM

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