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youtube.com/bestbuy0 - Jarice Brodie has done some cool things in his life. Next: Best Buy’s holiday campaign.
323 Comments
- raabco, on 10/12/2007, -4/+456Besides the glaring audio synch issue, and the fact that their findings aren't surprising, I was glad to see something like this. Though I was really disappointed that the store that fixed the problem for free seemed to get the least amount of air time.
- raabco, on 10/12/2007, -7/+221"2nd the pc is obviously a 486, think when did you last see those style desktops."
BUWAHAHAHAHAHA
....And he called us all noobs....
BUAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH - bubba9999, on 10/12/2007, -1/+199You haven't worked with "regular" people much, have you? They think it's a magic box and things just happen. Most of them are afraid to open the box in case the magic leaks out.
- bradford, on 10/12/2007, -1/+171As an ex long-time Best Buy and Geek Squad employee, I can confirm that this level of incompetence is quite common. It is Best Buy's standpoint that Geek Squad is an extension of their sales strategies, thus their hiring practices reflect that standpoint. Many Geek Squad "Agents" are hired or transfered to Geek Squad based upon their merits as sales people, NOT technicians. This strategy, combined with the pathetically low pay level (which any certified or experienced technician would laugh at) results in untrained staff programmed to follow certain sales strategies. In my experience, many of my fellow employees were on the same technical level as the customers across the counter seeking support.
To respond to Drakar, Best Buy did settle with Winternals / Sisinternals and integrated many of their tools into Geeks Squad's authorized repair disk (Much of which is purely automated). At some level, Best Buy has internally recognized that their Geek Squad staff is mostly unqualified and have catered their corporate licensed / developed software to reflect the situation.
It was a good school job however, very flexible hours. I got out a soon as possible afterward. - Drahkar, on 10/12/2007, -4/+101This is actually a standard line from Geek Squad I've found. I personally run an IT Support Business dealing with Enterprise level support. While talking to some of the employees of my clients I've heard from many that have gone to geek squad being told they are having a power supply issue. I had them describe the problem and the problems range to obvious hard drive failure to bad memory.
Anyone ever hear if Geek Squad settled the case with Winternals where they were pirating their flagship product in all of the GeekSquad locations? - koolaide, on 10/12/2007, -11/+100Listen, I work for Geek Squad. I can tell you one thing; if I saw any of my co-workers do this, not only would I kick their ass myself, but I would absolutely make sure they were fired. Not all Geek Squad stores are like this, but unfortunately we have the ***** ones such as this to give us a bad name.
- riddlebox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+86Am I the only one who caught " Keyboard failure press F1 to continue." error code? I love this error, it actually made my day.
- TheOther1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+85@ mem2
The BIOS showed it was a Dell Optiplex GX110, which is a PIII, not a 486. Since you can not even correctly identify the PC, I can only assume you are a Geek Squad employee. - taotehue, on 10/12/2007, -2/+77my wife had a geek squad warranty before I knew her. When a capacitor blew on the mother board they replaced the hard drive. Geek Squad sucks!
once when i was in Best Buy I was looking for SATA cable and the "Geek" didn't even know what I was looking for. I think real computer geeks work on Enterprise Networks and ISPs.
You are better off going to somebody you know that does that kind of work, IMHO. - jivemasta, on 10/12/2007, -3/+77This pisses me off, because I thought it would be a fun summer job to work on the geek squad since it would be simple. I got an interview and didn't get the job because I lacked "people skills". Their loss I guess, one true geek turned away from best buy ever.
- Reziarfg, on 10/12/2007, -5/+76I work with those in my own computer repair class. They're at least Pentium IIs if not III.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -26/+95You don't even need to be a computer repair person....you need to have this thing called common sense.
"Sir what is the problem?"
"My computer won't start."
*Turn it on, see primary hard disk not found error*
*Open case and look at ..... well the hard disk*
It doesn't take a genious to figure out a ribbon cable should be there... you can clearly see space for it in the back... - Norweed, on 10/12/2007, -10/+79Nah, real geeks write the software that runs the hardware :-)
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+74I read the title and first though .... "Duh?"
- bradford, on 10/12/2007, -3/+62It's a sales job. People skills are essential.
- Jolene, on 10/12/2007, -22/+80Ventriloquist town?
- roastedbagel, on 10/12/2007, -2/+58My grandmother can't. And trust me, she has common sense. Not everyone is as inept as we may be, even if to me, I agree, and it is common sense to check for loose plugs. However there's many people in the world that don't even know how to open the case, let alone check for cabling issues.
- alwaysmc2, on 10/12/2007, -3/+56heh, $69.99
that's 'cause they're screwing you. - mandel15, on 10/12/2007, -3/+45Please don't tell people to take it to a friend, I do CS and people think I can fix anything that works with power, from computers to toasters!!!! Please do not take it to a friend, only u offer a pint after :)
- twinklyJesus, on 10/12/2007, -17/+55You got a Geek Squad warranty for YOUR WIFE? I wish my wife came with a warranty!
- DrStephanHeimer, on 10/12/2007, -10/+48@ mem2
You have been dug down as inaccurate + lame
and I would never believe you. - Antinous, on 10/12/2007, -0/+35@mem2
Call someone a noob yet it's a 686 class CPU. Nice one.
Those are obviously Optiplex GX series from Dell (266mhz-600mhz).
Which works out to i586-686. Anyways....grow up a little. - Po0py, on 10/12/2007, -0/+32My guess is that every single person who sees this story via digg knows how to push in an IDE cable. Kudos to the guys who fixed the problem for free. It is the right thing to do instead of charging $100+
- badgey, on 10/12/2007, -11/+42I have issues with my power being supple as well.
- joel8x, on 10/12/2007, -0/+31Never underestimate SUPPLE power.
- rompom7, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31Thats what she said.
- shakin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+28No, the "free" guy was an honest business man who knows about customer service. Anybody taking their computer in to him for repair and getting it fixed for free is going to go to him again for more serious repairs or when they buy a new computer. He probably plugged the cable in and made sure the others were tight, then booted the computer. When it booted properly he turned it off. The customer didn't ask for a full system check so charging her $100 for it would have been a rip off. Besides, I highly doubt the other places actually did that.
Imagine if you took your car in for an oil change and the mechanic gave it a tune up as well. That would suck and I bet you wouldn't take your car back there. Computer repairmen get away with that kind of crap because their customers don't understand what they're doing. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+28@ jpkones
Geek squad was put in Best Buy's in 2004... the actual company was founded in 1994, but acquired by Best buy in 2002... i think your april '06 date was just a tad bit off... straight quotes from wikipedia...
"...The Geek Squad was a company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota that was founded in 1994 by Robert Stephens. The company provided computerized technology support.
In 2002, The Geek Squad was acquired by the electronics retailer Best Buy and was integrated into all Best Buy stores in America and Canada in 2004..." - ClassicJBC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+27That's the thing; nobody but individuals and garage shops are doing residential PC repair anymore. Everyone (the company I work for included) is moving up to small- and medium business if not enterprise level support. The margins on consumer level support are getting paper thin. Soon, GeekSquad and individual college students will be all that's left.
- raabco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+27What an efficient little digger you are! If you make a habit of firing off comments to a digg without viewing the content, you must be able to get a lot done in a day.
Also, while what you said is correct, the actual point of the video was to... Ahh forget it... You're probably off commenting on some digg story you couldn't be bothered to read, but have all the answers to. - KnytFyre, on 10/12/2007, -2/+28Computers enjoy the lack of understanding that many of modern life's amenities face. We live in such a technical world, but the majority of people using this tech have no idea how it functions. I am most of my friends "go to guy" when it comes to computer problems, just like I have a friend that is the "go to guy" for auto mechanics. The average person may, and I stress MAY know how to fix or troubleshoot one aspect of our day to day tech, but ask yourself this, would you know how to fix your LCD monitor, what if the tie rods went out on your car, and that $500 surround sound system you have hooked up to your TV, how are you going to do when that breaks? Digg tends to appeal to geeks, and as geeks most of us know quite a bit more about tech than the average person and we should not use our knowledge as a base for the knowledge level of our average friends and neighbors.
- SillyRabbits, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27You have to remember that anyone with those actual skills can find a significantly better paying job than Geek Squad. It's a common problem in most service industries today. For example, the idiots down at my local Jiffy Lube, they aren't good mechanics (I wouldn't have even thought it possible to break a dipstick had I not gone there). However, what can you expect, talented mechanics today aren't going to change oil for $8/hr when they can open specialty shops restoring and maintaining high priced toys and make 6-figures. It's the same for the computer industry. Anyone with any real talent isn't going to be working there long....
- commiecat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26Amen to the first comment.
This not only showed Geek Squad's incompetency (again) but also shows how news media is more interested in scaring you than actually helping you. It's good that the big chains got this bit of negative press on a local station but you should also applaud the store that did it for free - at least post their name and address and show an interview with the owner or clerk.
Mom and pop shops are usually run by people that are hobbyists first and business-folk second. Whenever someone at my company asks for personal computer help that I don't care to deal with I send them to a small shop in our town - one with Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Netscape Navigator and Word Perfect stickers are mostly-faded on the window. I know they'll be treated honestly and fairly. No charge just to examine a computer to add onto the actual repair.
It's sad how many people/companies are more interested in making the most money from a problem instead of trying to solve it fairly.
Well put, raabco. - forcedfx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26@darkliquid - In a sudden windows crash there isn't time for Windows to dump anything to the event log. BSOD's were disabled so nothing was being written. Also, BSOD's don't always write to the event log.
- Hickeroar, on 10/12/2007, -5/+30mem2- Geek squad has only existed for a couple years...and they've only teamed up with best buy within the last year and a half. (this is also known as "you're full of crap")
8 years? riiiight. - speaker219, on 10/12/2007, -3/+28Did you notice this?
http://xs410.xs.to/xs410/06496/Keyboard_failure.jpg - Murdats, on 10/12/2007, -3/+27@roastedbeagle
I hope you meant to call me adept and not inept
it seems strangley paradoxical to call me both inept and skillful enough to repair a missing/loose cable - PleaseJustDie, on 10/12/2007, -5/+28You may be a able to outnerd me, but I, a software developer, still know way more about computers than you ever will.
- bradford, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23@Mem2:
"1st thing that video is at least 8 years old I remember seeing it when I was young in highschool."
Perhaps you are thinking of the PC World investigation of major retail computer service departments? I remember reading it long ago:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,3764-page,6-c,topics/article.html
The article is from Mid 1998. A damaged IDE cable was part of the problems on their test PCs.
From the article:
"Of 55 problems tested across 20 stores, a total of 30 were misdiagnosed, ignored, or went otherwise unfixed. Best Buy and Computer City each missed on 9 of 15 tries."
"Best Buy was best, with charges as low as $20"
Best Buy's service has consistently sucked for the better part of the last decade, but at least their prices were better back in the day. - brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22"1st thing that video is at least 8 years old I remember seeing it when I was young in highschool."
So how do you explain the existence of Geek Squad in Best Buy, since that merger only happened a few years ago? - scelestus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24WTF? Can I buy some weed from you?
- quickjack, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22An honest computer repair shop seems to be harder than finding an honest car mechanic.
Where is Puddy when you need him? - ahcomeon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21Mmmmm... Supple Power...
- hcetrepus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20Power supple issues are tough to detect....
- Iknockstuffdown, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19@mem2
Geek Squad didn't join best buy until 2002, so you are obviously talking straight out of your ass. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20@mem2
"OK noobs, 1st thing that video is at least 8 years old I remember seeing it when I was young in highschool."
Here's a news flash... you are still not old enough to call anyone a noob. - trubbleshute, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20Gerryk, you knew that it was wrong. You should have gone public with the information, misdiagnosing a computer problem is immoral. Anyone who has worked on a computer before would probably be tempted to misdiagnose for an extra couple of bucks, but imagine if your doctor misdiagnosed you to get a kickback from a pharmaceutical company--just wrong.
On the other hand, computers are a luxury, its usually better to go with dell or apple and opt for the three year warranty for an extra ($100?). - MicroBerto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18This is a major problem we have in this country, and I see it as a national business opportunity.
My mom's up in Cleveland and bumped into a family friend who needed some physical PC repair (i couldn't have fixed it over the phone). She asked what to do, and my best response was "Have him find the neighborhood 15 year old geek and pay him $15/hr to do it, minimum 2 hours."
Geek Squad, CompUSA, CircuitCity, whatever... they all suck equally. And as you saw in the video, you never know what you're going to get at mom and pop shops.
Nobody knows where to go, including myself. You're better off finding a kid and paying him what he considers a ton of money. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+20And it took them this long to figure out that Geek Squad sucks?
Glad someone pointed this out...the problem is that most people reading this article aren't so clueless that they would use Geek Squad in the first place. - Ramble, on 10/12/2007, -6/+21"Am I the only one who caught " Keyboard failure press F1 to continue." error code? I love this error, it actually made my day."
No, I caught it too, but it's been in computers for decades now and it makes perfect sense, even if the wording is a little bad. -
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