Best Buy & Geek Squad Policies

[christinaphilly]

 A few weeks ago I was sitting on the sofa with my baby and accidentally knocked my laptop off of the sofa onto the floor. The screen cracked. Great... Just what I needed. I had purchased the Best Buy / Geek Squad protection plan that covered things like this so I wasn't concerned. The laptop worked fine except for the obviously cracked screen. It was annoying to look at but I was able to do everything. A few days later I brought the laptop to the Geek Squad and asked them to fix the screen. Sure, no problem. I was told the laptop would be sent to the servicing center to fix the screen because they don't do that in-store. I waited about 10 days and was told my laptop was ready. I picked it up at the store and checked out the screen. It wasn't cracked. I was happy. Left the store and went home expecting to be able to immediately use my laptop again. Got home and plugged it in. NOTHING. The initial 'HP' black & white screen came up and then nothing, just a black screen and a blinking cursor. I tried over & over again to restart, check the startup settings, etc. My husband is an IT professional and knew what to look for. He determined that there was no operating system installed. What? I wondered why they would touch my operating system just to fix a laptop screen. So I looked at the Geek Squad receipt again and saw in small letters that they wrote my hard drive failed and was replaced. WHAT?!?! I knew what this meant and it was bad - all of my files, programs and operating system were gone. I cried and then immediately called the store. (I had a baby in August and my mother had just died one week previous to getting my laptop back so my photos were more important to me than ever!) The guy I spoke to at the store was very nice and agreed that it was strange that they replaced my hard drive when all that was requested was to fix the screen. He told me he was putting in an 'escalation' to get my hard drive back since I hadn’t requested this to be done. He told me it would probably take about a week or so to get it back in the store. I was pleased, though annoyed because I still couldn't use my laptop. A few days later I went into the store to have them address the other issue with my laptop not working or having any operating system re-installed. I figured while I was there I would also check on the status of my original hard drive. I told the young guy at the desk what had happened and what I was told was being done to get my hard drive back. He went in the back with my laptop and checked things out. He came back out a few minutes later and confirmed that my hard drive was replaced and that there was no operating system. He said it was like that because I failed to bring my installation CD’s with me when I brought my laptop in for repairs. Why would I bring those with me for a cracked screen?! He was clearly missing the point. He then went back and checked on the status of my original hard drive. He came back out a few minutes later and told me that he had bad news – I wasn’t going to get my original hard drive back because they have a policy that when they replace one part out, the old part (the customer’s) becomes their property and the new one becomes the customer’s. So he told me that essentially they now owned MY hard drive… He told me that if I want to get all of my files and photos back they can TRY to do recovery for me, but that it starts at around $250. What?! I was very dissatisfied and left the store with nothing resolved and a skeleton of my former laptop. I got to my car and cried. When I got home I immediately called the customer service number for Best Buy/Geek Squad. I told my story to a nice woman who listened and entered my complaint into “the system”. She told me that she contacted the department that had my original hard drive but that she got their voice mail. She said she left a voice message asking them to send the hard drive back to the store. She said that the store could then do the recovery for me and that it would “only” cost me about $100. Again, she was missing the point. I did not ask for this service and should not be paying for this service. All I wanted was my original hard drive back! I waited a few days and heard nothing back from them. Finally I was so fed up and decided to write a letter to the corporate offices explaining the situation and threatening to take legal action if my original hard drive was not returned to me. I sent the letter by mail but also sent it by email. I received a response the same day. I was told that he would investigate the situation. Finally someone was DOING something. A few days later I received a call from the manager of the store that I had gone to. She said she had my original hard drive in the store for me to pick up. I was thrilled! She was very nice and apologized for the frustration I had gone through. We picked up my original hard drive the next day. My husband placed it into the laptop for me. It worked perfectly in fact I am typing this from the supposedly “failed” hard drive that Best Buy wanted me to pay $250 to “recover” files from!!!! Unbelievable! I will NEVER shop there again and will never let them touch any of my equipment again. Afterwards, I sent a follow-up message to the man from corporate who helped me get my hard drive back. I told him that the “failed” hard drive they took from me was in perfect condition. I still haven’t heard back from him... -Christina

[starhelper2587]

I would think the service center should be calling clients before even touching something as important as someone's hard drive.  This same issue has came up before on these forums, about service centers replacing hard drives w/out the client's knowledge.  I believe when you sign the paperwork authorizing the PC to be sent out for repairs, there's something on there about checking the whole PC and fixing all problems, even if the problems found were not the problems which initiated the PC to be sent off in the first place.

I've never heard a policy or anything like what you mentioned you were told.  I don't think any hardware removed from a client's PC becomes automatic property of BB.  I think the actual issue is that defective stuff is usually sent back to the MFG so really, things like your hard drive are hard to recover for this reason, I believe.

However, one of the Community Connectors (BB corp employees/forum moderators) should be along sometime Monday or Tuesday to assign your thread to the CC best suited to work with you, the store, and the service center to come to some kind of resolution.  Keep in mind, threads are assigned in the order they are posted.

[christinaphilly]

Thanks for your reply. I felt the same way. If something as important as your HARD DRIVE needs to be replaced at least give the customer the courtesy of being notified FIRST. If you can't notify the customer don't do the service. It's not like they just came across a faulty power supply or a bad dvd drive. Without my original hard drive my laptop was meaningless to me. It's the heart of anyone's computer. The practice of just fixing anything they find, even if unrelated to the original problem, shows very poor customer service practices on Geek Squad's behalf. Again, anything that doesn't store the customer's data is one thing - maybe notification isn't necessary in those cases. But a hard drive?! Really?!?! So unacceptable. I will never go there again. EVER.

[starhelper2587]

Hopefully one of the CCs can help track down the hard drive.  The pictures you mentioned being on there would be very important to me too, if I had gone through those same 2 traumatic life experiences!  When someone offered you the data transfer service, maybe that was a good indication that the hard drive is someplace that the store can still access it at, or I don't see why they would have offered that service.  I agree though, I wouldn't want to pay for it either, since you didn't ask/want the hard drive to be replaced in the first place.

[Nokia]

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starhelper2587 wrote:

I believe when you sign the paperwork authorizing the PC to be sent out for repairs, there's something on there about checking the whole PC and fixing all problems, even if the problems found were not the problems which initiated the PC to be sent off in the first place.

I don't think any hardware removed from a client's PC becomes automatic property of BB.

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Correct. The service center checks the entire computer and fixes any and all problems found. Also on the form is a box saying that you have been offered a data backup. If you decline that, you are responsible for backing up any important data yourself before sending it out.

Actually, if anything is replaced, it becomes property of BB. In the case of a HDD, it is destroyed, and then recycled according to BB policies.

[christinaphilly]

The store returned the original hard drive to me already. Also, I did not check any box regarding data backup and was not offered this service when I brought it to the store for repair. I am aware of what the "form" says but in my opinion that agreement was voided when they did unauthorized additional work unrelated to what I brought it in for. Even more so, what they replaced (my hard drive) claiming had "failed" was actually fine. When I got it back from the stoe and replaced it into my laptop it worked perfectly. I am posting to this message forum from it in fact...

[starhelper2587]

I'm glad you got the hard drive back!  I'm sure that's a relief.  So I assume you were able to recover those important pictures?

[Nokia]

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christinaphilly wrote:

The store returned the original hard drive to me already. Also, I did not check any box regarding data backup and was not offered this service when I brought it to the store for repair. I am aware of what the "form" says but in my opinion that agreement was voided when they did unauthorized additional work unrelated to what I brought it in for. Even more so, what they replaced (my hard drive) claiming had "failed" was actually fine. When I got it back from the stoe and replaced it into my laptop it worked perfectly. I am posting to this message forum from it in fact...

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If they replaced it, that means it failed one or more tests. When it fails tests, that means it is in danger of failing, not that it won't necessarily work right then. Failing can mean any number of things: longer seek times, corrupt files, and in some cases, a full crash. The reason BB does this is to be proactive. It prevents a problem down the line that a customer may ask "why didn't you fix this when I brought it in before?"

The form you signed authorizes the service center to fix any problems found. It can't be voided when they do exactly that...

[christinaphilly]

My husband has three college degrees, one of which is a bachelors in Computer Science. He has been an IT professional for over 10 years. He knows exactly what to look for and what to test on the hard drive. He also does computer forensics. My point is that he found absolutely nothing wrong with my hard drive. Nothing. It is in perfect condition. Geek Squad simply lied. Period. We believe the company has some incentive to replace as many parts as possible because they probably get more money for doing this when they exchange the parts. Also, they refurbish parts and can then resell them which makes them even more money.

[Nokia]

BB does not get extra money for replacing parts. Every part they replace costs them more. Defective parts are returned to the mfg., except HDDs, which are destroyed.