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.
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. 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.
and LASTLY "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/3764-6/pc_repair_ripoff.htmlThe 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."
THE REAPIR WE WERE TALKING ABOUT WAS A 10 TO 20 DOLLAR FIX :()
AND
A confidential settlement has ended litigation initiated by Winternals over copyright infringement regarding Geek Squad's use of its ERD Commander software. The lawsuit should end following a July 7th motion from
Winternals lawyer David Weaver, who cited a settlement agreement reached between the company and Best Buy, which owns Geek Squad.
Instead of a lengthy lawsuit, Winternals now has a three-year agreement in place with Best Buy. This will permit its Geek Squad of tech assistance personnel to lawfully use licensed programs from Winternals and Sysinternals. This includes the ERD Commander system recovery tool.
The problems for Best Buy and Geek Squad started in February 2006. Winternals had conducted training sessions for Geek Squad employees, as part of its negotiations with Best Buy to license software for its 12,000 Geek Squad workers.
Then the negotiations ended abruptly. Coupled with the admission from employees of Geek Squad and Best Buy that they had been using unlicensed copies of ERD Commander, Winternals began to investigate.
They set up systems needing repair in multiple locations, and put calls in to Geek Squad for assistance. Geek Squad staffers either used unlicensed copies of ERD Commander, or had them in their possession.
In April 2006, Winternals sued in US District Court in western Texas for copyright infringement, circumvention of copyright protections systems, and misappropriation of trade secrets.
do you have any other disc like windows xp or the sony disc?
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