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Geek Squad Charges $415 Dollars To Replace A Hard Drive...

consumerist.com — ...and makes customer retrieve data files himself. Geek Squad: Price to diagnose was $69.00, OS Install $129.00, Back up transfer $99.00, NO Guarantee. Estimated repair time seven to ten days. "Seven days later, they hadn't even looked at the machine. After 8 days, they'd begun testing the laptop..." read on for more.

Who dugg this? Made popular Feb 27, 2007

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  • digitalgopher, on 10/12/2007, -11/+295I'm not sure what's worse: geek squads' absolute incompetence at handling what seems to be a trivial issue or best buy's continued persistence in screwing customers... tough call.
  • verifex, on 10/12/2007, -3/+274Wheres the BullySquad when you need them?
  • VSKBadCRC, on 10/12/2007, -13/+252I work for Geeksquad, I do know that when a customer wants their data backed up, we do charge a $99 charge, and it covers 10GB and under (Which, our store never abides by, we always just do the full backup at $99, unless it's ridiculously huge, like in the 30+ GB range).

    If the data backup/recovery fails though, they are supposed to return the $99 fee that was paid, and then re-sell them a $29 fee for attempting the data recovery. This may or may not seem fair, but I believe this customer was wronged in that they were never refunded for the failed data backup. And the estimate was most definitely bad.

    But I really want to explain something that I know some people don't understand, unless you've worked in these kinds of jobs, by which I mean Geeksquad or an equivalent position where you roll in and have to repair 150+ machines a month, or more, something goes awful in Best Buy around this time of year, and our store is suffering immensely over it. Specifically, our stores basically aren't budged the kind of money they need on labor. And this problem goes on from about the end of December all the way up until March.

    We basically have no money to spend on labor, and the condition of our precinct has been terrible as a result of it. We're short staffed, and usually only have one guy there, with maybe a 2-3 hour gap where there's more than one person there. Our store's only a 20K store, so it's not a big one, but right now we have about 30 machines in our queue that need worked on, and at any point we can maybe keep 1, maybe 2 of them worked on over any reasonable length of time.

    It makes things frustrating for us, our phones ring off the hook with people calling in with things like, "How come I'm not getting any sound", to "I have a Compaq 12345. . ." or "Can you tell me how to install this new wireless router?" It's frustrating for everyone, we can't give the customers in-store the attention and time they deserve, we don't have enough hands available to do the work that needs to get worked on, and our phones are just getting bombarded with people asking mundane simple questions.

    No one here that reads Digg would ever buy Geeksquad services, nor would I ever expect them to. But there is a whole world of people out there who do, and right now I can honestly say that some stores are just getting $hit hammered to death with people wanting to fix everything from their CD-ROMs not showing up in My Computer to people coming in that have no Antivirus or Antispyware, don't have ServicePack2, and us dial-up at home...

    But I do feel bad for the customer in this situation, they should have been refunded $70 of their data backup fee. Plain and simple.
  • pastasauce, on 10/12/2007, -11/+228GeekSquad has always been a rip. I remember seeing a staples ad advertising GeekSquad. For $100 you could have GeekSquad set up your WRT54G. Or you could have that kid down the street do it for some cookies.
  • WalesAlex, on 10/12/2007, -8/+114What's this LINIX OS they speak of?
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -11/+104Computers have become a big part in all of our lives. Kind of like automobiles did in the 50's . . .they kind of became a necessity more than a luxury. People need to learn simple computer maintenance. Just like we all learned to change tires and most of us can change our own oil if we needed to. Changing a HDD is almost as simple as a tire change . . . seriously.
  • bradford, on 10/12/2007, -6/+56If you are of the age of reason, have not yet learned that retail store service departments are substandard and overpriced --- then you deserve to be screwed. People who don't bother to educate themselves on a particular product before they fork over an insane amount of cash are the prey of stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, etc..
  • DaveCT, on 10/12/2007, -3/+46http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxqx4hgeKgQ&mode haha
  • blinkfink182, on 10/12/2007, -6/+44As a former Geek Squad Supervisor, I agree with the above comments from the other Geek Squad employee. Labor budget is *always* low. My store in particular never had a break from low labor budgets. I hate hearing stories like these because you never hear about the good interactions that the Agents may have with customers. I personally had a woman come in with a computer full of pictures of her father who died that was BSOD'ing. Fortunately, the HD wasn't dead, and I was able to recover her pictures and she was forever grateful. Even took the time to write letters to my managers, which I never expect from a retail customer. It is a simple operation, but it doesn't change what it meant to the customer. Yes, its true, there are many Agents that really don't know what they're doing, for whatever reason (training, intelligence, whatever). But don't downplay the fact that there are good workers and intelligent people working for Geek Squad. Now I'm a Network Administrator for a company, only reason I was stuck in retail is that I just needed a company to give me a chance. A lot of these kids are looking for the same thing.
  • member57, on 10/12/2007, -0/+38Geek Squad keeps me in business!
    Every screwed customer from Geek Squad becomes a great customer for my business!
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+36I'll do anything the 'Geek Squad' does for half their price.
  • celestial, on 10/12/2007, -0/+32man, i'm in the wrong business
  • adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -4/+34pfftt sometimes I'll do it for free just to clear up the bad name they give TRUE geeks.
  • undersky, on 10/12/2007, -5/+31Listen to what the guy who works at the Geek Squad said, I think Geek Squad shall charge more than $99 for backup. Maybe $500, because it seems the supply is completely shooting over the demand.

    When they start charging $500 for backup, I bet people will learn more about computer, just like some people will try to learn how to work on their cars.
  • Makurosu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+27I don't know about their service, but the suits give me the creeps. It's like they're a cult. I half expect them to offer me a free lesson about families and the purpose of life with computer repair.
  • Ahnteis, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27Maybe you should give the kid $20 so he feels like doing it again next time instead of ripping him off because he doesn't know the value of his work. :P
  • VSKBadCRC, on 10/12/2007, -5/+27Reply: VhaidraU

    VhaidraU, the average consumer uses maybe about 10-15% of their total hard drive capacity over the life of their machine. Grandparents aren't exactly firing up Limewire and checking out the latest from Greenday. And the local businesses, who are some of the biggest purchasers of data recoveries/backups from our store are usually only storing Word documents, E-mail, and a handful of attachments.

    I did one just today that totaled about 650MB.

    Ironically, the people who do pirate the most stuff don't care about recovering their data because - low and behold, they can just re-pirate it.

    The biggest data recovery I've been asked to do to date was the data from a 1TB hard drive. Which we also only charged $99 for, because we were moving it from a bad drive to a new one.
  • eggo, on 10/12/2007, -10/+35I run a small, independant competitor of geeksquad. I am the sole technicain, receptionist, salesman, janitor, and manager. I do it all with no help, and I push through an average of 30-40 units a week. That's desktops, laptops, cash registers, you name it. A repair NEVER takes more than 2 days unless I am waiting on a part to be delivered. So don't give me that crap about being short on labor.
  • Y0tsuya, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24"when thier computer brakes"

    I hate that too. I'd be driving along, and then the stupid computer in front of me decides to stop in the middle of the road just so it can make an illegal left turn.

    I'll let someone else tackle the 2nd spelling mistake.
  • m0tbaillie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21Just because someone isn't tech savvy doesn't mean that they're a "tard".
  • VhaidraU, on 10/12/2007, -7/+26I just had a hard drive replaced at my local Apple Authorized Dealer, Voelker Research, and they charged me a whopping $35! That was backing up the drive, installation and transfering data then testing the system too!
  • CircleFusion, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21@vskbadcrc

    So it seems that GeekSquad is screwing up their budgeting. That sort of problem trickles down and affects everything. In this case, it is evidently affecting the quality of service.

    I used to work as a computer tech for many years (I do website development now). I've worked for two computer stores before. I found it difficult to understand how the store was charging the customers so much for labor while the techs were not paid well and were not given proper tools, and the company was always struggling and very little (if anything) was being spent on advertising. It seems like tech support costs are often inflated to make up for bad business planning.
  • adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20Did you even read it? Premium service? You have to be ***** me, if a mechanic tried pulling half the ***** that this BB did then he'd be looking at a lawsuit and possibly investigation.

    Best Buy was in the wrong here.
  • jamauss, on 10/12/2007, -5/+21There's a company named "NerdsOnSite" (that GeekSquad basically copied their idea from). They're much more helpful and affordable. I used them once when I had a bugger of a time trying to figure out why one of my machines wouldn't boot up. Turned out my power supply had gone toast but I didn't have a spare psu to test with. They did, and were only there about 45 minutes before I was up and running again. They even introduced me to Woot.com, while they were there, heh.
  • SwellGuy007, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Dude, good luck with your business, but I dugg you down for sending us to an unfinished site with no useful information on it. I will now misspell a swear word to express my displeasure ... Fcuk!
  • SpectralSounds, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16I used to work for the Geek Squad in the Best Buy, Paradise Valley, AZ.

    Let me tell you from firsthand experience. They WANT TO LEECH ALL OF YOUR MONEY. They will make up problems. People paid pretty much whatever was suggested without flinching though. They would come in with browser hijackers that would prevent them from going on the internet, and rather than quickly fixing that in 5 minutes with an LSP fix.... They would tell them a reformat was necessary and then sucker them into backing up files. I ended up quitting because I felt filthy working there. I even went so far as to report the practice to Best Buys HR.

    Of course nothing ever happened.
  • joltjake, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16ok, a hd costs about 60bucks, and takes 20minutes to intall, so somehow they're charging 400bucks an hour, that just isn't right.
  • hackwrench, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15Fry's isn't any better. Dropped off a laptop with a broken DC jack that I bought there Jan 20, halfway through February called to see about progress and they said they hadn't looked at it, and they still have it and haven't called back
  • Cink420, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17$129 for an OS install??? I'm assuming it's just a reinstall...how can they possibly charge this much for such a simple process??
  • tdogg241, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13You have a business!
  • adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14What really sucks is that I know a few guys in GS who actually know their stuff, but because of management and stuff they have to try and drain as much money as they can from people or risk losing their jobs.
  • Lyianis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12@ eggo
    what ends up killing us is we are expected to set up new pcs (10-20 a day), answer all phone calls 5-15 per hour(avg call 2-10 minutes) test all returns, sell services and computers, check in new repairs, repair pcs, check in cameras, tvs and other misc apliances, and ship anything that needs to be shipped to the manufacteror. i work in a smaller store and huge chunk of my time can get eaten up just minding the front counter, we have a average of 10-15 people come up to the counter an hour to ask questions or check in repairs/electronics.

    when you have only 1-2 people to do all that its makes do actual repair work very hard.
  • badogg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13People should just learn to do this stuff themselves..
  • VhaidraU, on 10/12/2007, -16/+28vskbadcrc said, "I do know that when a customer wants their data backed up, we do charge a $99 charge, and it covers 10GB and under (Which, our store never abides by, we always just do the full backup at $99, unless it's ridiculously huge, like in the 30+ GB range)"

    Since when is a 30GB drive considered "ridiculously huge" the drive I just had replace, which I quoted a $35 cost for backingup and transferring files to the new drive and testing of the sytem afterwards was 120GB and I had at least 60GB of data on it.

    How big is your hard drive?
  • jcaino, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13i worked as a tech at best buy a good while before the geek squad was there, and i saw stuff like this happen all the time - although turn time was 24-36 hours.
  • dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Of course a company repairing their own brand of laptops is cheaper than a company that has to repair a huge range of varied computers (Some better built than others). Yes, Apple's support seems good - But they have an unfair advantage, given the fairly small range of (generally decent) hardware that they've picked, and that they make most of the software that runs on it..
  • bumpinvolvo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9@ guyinthechair:

    "I don't know what you're talking about businesses only using 650mb on a hard drive. Last time I checked Windows used at least 3gb."

    Windows files are replaceable and unimportant files. A customers folder full of pictures, resumes, homework, etc are generally not replaceable. Those are the files you backup, not windows.
  • sheldonwilson, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13You must consider that the cost covers the time to do the task as well as the effort the service requires. Also, these are flat rates, whether it takes 15 mins or 7 hrs.
  • eean, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10He has a business!
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9@mrrockabilly

    Dude, it's easier than the tire changes I've done. One time I had to change my tire in the freezing cold rain...slippery...miserable.
  • UNL1M1T3D, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9@ vskbadcrc


    Very well said. I am the Easy Tech at the Staples I work at and it is tough. We have been getting really busy lately due to word getting around that we do tech work and it is hard just getting time to do tech work. I am scheduled Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, and any free time I have to do tech work. Usually that isn't too bad, but when I am constantly getting called out to the sales floor to explain how a router works, or answering phone calls, its hard to get anything done.
  • Dgen_X, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I had to read that "sentence" multiple times before I understood it......

    fix your grammar dude, then call non techies tards
  • nstern2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8You would be surprised how many times I have shown a customer an external enclosure, Explained how easy they are to install and still have them look at me like it was freaking brain surgery. The fact is most of computer repair is mental. You won't know if you can do something unless you try, and 75% of the population wants someone else to do it for them because they are lazy.
  • DAC1138, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8You guys are all right. They actually charge money for their services and skills! Go figure! We should all work for free. I mean, free is what builds the economy, right? It's what pays the bills and keeps us under a nice roof. Working for free is what we all dream of. I always learned all my geeky skills so that one day I could work for free. [/sarcasm]

    Get real people. Geek Squad EMPLOYS people to do work. It just so happens that it's computer work. Yeah, they could have some unknown kid do it for cheap, but who are they going to sue if that kid screws up? That kid doesnt have a history. He's just "some kid". Geek Squad is an official business that charges for the time spent working on the machines.

    Is my logic all wrong? Should I start working for free?
  • AggieTales, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8This exact same thing happened to my parents. I was out of town so I wasn't able to help when my Dad's HDD "crashed". He took it to them and they deemed it "Unrecoverable" and then proceeded to charge around $500 for a new drive, OS install (which he didn't need b/c he had his own copy of XP), and "diagnostics." The funny thing was, when I did get back in town I ran a simple data recovery/disk maintenance program, SpinRite 6 by Steve Gibson (hopefully some of you know who he is), and I was able to recover 100% of the drive and infact he still uses that drive to this day(almost 2 yrs later) b/c the only problem was the MBR had gotten corrupted(most likely through a virus).
  • seanny19, on 10/12/2007, -10/+18@vskbadcrc

    I don't know what you are talking about with the "under staffed" thing. Every time that I walk into a Best Buy the "Geek Squad" is sitting around chatting with their work mates. I am sorry, but the Geek Squad is nothing more than a bunch of little trained people that do not really know how to evaluate a computer problem.
  • Zuggy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9That's why you should

    a) Learn to do this stuff yourself

    OR

    b) Find a local kid that will do it for little pay, food or old computer parts.
  • dvinnen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Wow, didn't realize we were the only store with these asinine labor issues....

    I just got off an hour ago. I worked 3.30 to close. Only time another agent was there was for the first 30 mins because he worked opening by himself. It's ***** ridiculous. Our queue must be 35 PCs plus and the customer service is hurting because of it. I've never been cussed out so much.

    Anyways, about the cost, yea it is overpriced. I like the fact that our store only charges $59 to install an OS if they have restore disks. Since 98% of all the pcs we deal with are HPs or gateways and the lot there is no need for drivers so we just charge what we do for an software suite.



    Other then the customers who call reading off their entire model number to me (like I know what a HP a1930n is other then a computer) are the ones that bring in the tower with the power cord still attached. I can never figure it out. They assume we have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse but think we need their generic power cord? Also love the ones that refer to the PC as the harddrive or the modem. More then once have I quoted 80 bucks for a new "harddrive" only for the customer to get upset wehn they realize how much more a desktop really is.
  • bergur1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11As a fifteen year old I would LOVE to do this for HALF the price. Like someone else said I would be the kid setting up your router for small amount.
  • CircleFusion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"People should just learn to do this stuff themselves.."

    Why?
    Why can't someone find a reasonably priced and reliable service for hard drive installation and data backup?
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