Best Buy Geek Squad Confession (long and interesting)

[mouser]

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The procedure taken to catch up on the computers was to take any computer currently in line to be fixed, or being dropped off to be fixed, and--if it had a software or operating system issue--wipe it, and reinstall Windows. Then, when the customer was given back his or her computer, an agent would inform them that due to an error, their data was lost. If they protested, the agent would be considerate, but in the end, if need be, point out #10 and their signature beneath it. For those that do not understand "wipe", it refers to completely deleting all data off the hard drive, and re-installing a fresh version of the Windows operating system. One supportive comment given by a manager, after a obligatory chuckle, was, "Oh well, they should have bought a data backup!" I never took part in this strategy, thankfully, as I was forced onto the floor to help people with their purchases after I was caught by a manager informing customers it would be better if they went to the Geek Squad a few towns over until we catch up.
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Now, the difference between a Geek Squad agent and a hobo with a thumb drive is that the hobo with a thumb drive has the potential to efficiently fix your problem.
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http://consumerist.c...-egg-hunt-257108.php

[Darwin]

Nice...

[f0dder]

Hm, not going to read the article, but the summary leaves one word: BASTARDS.

[app103]

You mean to tell me this isn't the standard procedure everywhere? 

[nudone]

there are several large companies in the UK that are, or will be, implementing a similar service to the Geek Squad - one is even using the 'official' Geek Squad in their branding.

I was amazed to see the high prices they are quoting for a repair job (some do actually offer a no fix no fee solution).

I hope that they are all going to offer such a terrible service as mentioned in the quote above - that way the 'hobos with a thumbdrive' will still be a necessity.

[justice]

Some piece with some shocking revelations, although not totally suprising for the cynical minded.

Are you aware that you can locate every image and movie located on your hard drive by just using the windows search function? Did you know that, especially if you use Internet Explorer, Windows keeps an easily retrievable record of many of your usernames and passwords to almost any website (including banking websites), whether or not you save your password manually?

Is this still the case with IE7? I take it the guy is referring to the index.dat?

[tinjaw]

I hope there are several huge class action lawsuits against Geek Squad, and Best Buy, so that Geek Squad is forced out of business. The amount of BS that has been brought to light is overwhelming. 

[Proximo]

One experience I had with Geek Squad said it all for me.  I build my own computers and have a good knowledge of computers as a whole.  I went into a Best Buy one day and noticed two PC's next to each other running a game.  The same game, but one was running much faster (Normal) and the other was skipping frames like crazy.

The sign on the table pointed out that the faster computer was optimized by Geek Squad.  I found this interesting because I know you can only do so much to the SAME EXACT computer to make it run faster.  So I asked the Geek Squad Person about it.  They where talking a bunch of smoke and dancing around some fancy terms to make it sound like they know their stuff.  They mentioned tweaks to drivers and registry bla bla. 

I said really.  So the only difference between these two computers is the tweaks you made?  The Geek then commented that they upgraded the Graphics card on the faster one.  I asked them what card was put in there and to my amazement.  It was a gaming card that was capable of actually running the game.  So I asked them how much for the service and it was about $100 more than the price of the graphics card alone.  So basically, they charged you $100 to install something that takes about 2 minutes.  That my friends is what Geek Squad is all about.  You don't need to do anything else to that computer to make it run that game faster.  Just swipe the graphics card out.

What a SCAM.

[Fred Nerd]

Quote
Are you aware that you can locate every image and movie located on your hard drive by just using the windows search function? Did you know that, especially if you use Internet Explorer, Windows keeps an easily retrievable record of many of your usernames and passwords to almost any website (including banking websites), whether or not you save your password manually?
Is this still the case with IE7? I take it the guy is referring to the index.dat?

Take a look at www.fuckmicrosoft.com and look at all that is stored and not too hard to get to, if you know how. I haven't tried it so I can't tell you if its still applicable, maybe someone else with more spare time can answer for us.