User Friendly PC's Take On Bad Service
With all of the tech shops out there including those in the big retail stores, it's tough for the consumer to avoid getting ripped off by inexperienced or unscrupulous. Many people claim to be techs and can easily get in over their heads due to lack of experience. The last thing you need is someone practicing on your computer and then creating a bigger problem than what you started with. The best policy is to go with a Certified IT Technician.
At User Friendly PC, we believe in treating our customers fairly and with respect. This is why at User Friendly PC, you will NEVER be charged for work which was not done. If we can't fix it, we don't charge. The staff at User Friendly PC are always honest, reliable and focused on solving technology issues in the shortest time possible.
The video's below show just a very small example of how the consumer has been taken advantage of in the past. User Friendly PC does NOT tolerate these actions and believes in treating everyone fairly.
Office Depot Repair Slathers Glue On Laptop
Scott's Acer Extensa broke, but he had an Office Depot extended warranty plan. Hooray! However, he writes, Office Depot's repair staff have a strange idea of what it means to repair a computer, and went right ahead and rendered his computer non-functional.
For the complete story, visit The Consumerist. Where shoppers bite back!
Here is a good example why we will never sell extended warranties. We believe that they take unfair advantage of the consumer and it appears in this case, that instead of fixing the problem properly in the first place, they tried to cut a corner and save themselves money.
Not only do we believe that Office Depot should replace the laptop but should also swap out the hard drive as well so that Scott's data remains in tact and secure. Scott says, "I discussed the situation with the supervisor, who explains to me that she will issue a complaint with the service department and that the expansion slot cover is a cosmetic issue and there is probably nothing they can do."
There is something they can do, though. They have a fiduciary responsibility to return the laptop in a repaired state with no more physical defects than when it arrived.
A Quick Word About Flash
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The Geek Squad Gets Caught
Fox 12 in Oregon makes a startling discovery about how the Geek Squad does business. It seems that several of the Geek Squads in Oregon were getting an F with the Better Business Bureau. That is until the Geek Squad headquarters in Minnisota asked the BBB to consolidate all of the Oregon reports with the reports in Minnisota so that if anyone looks up the rating now, all you see is an overall rating for the headquarters.
Way to mislead your customers Geek Squad. Watch the video and see how the Geek Squad misses a dangling hard drive cable.
ABC Investigates The Geek Squad
In this video the news crew goes undercover to 7 local shops with a pc that has had the hard drive cable loosened.
At one Best Buy, the tech states, "It can't detect your hard drive, so your hard drive's dead". WHAT!!! The hard drive is dead? How can this guy say this? He clearly has not diagnosed the system. Didn't he check the settings in the BIOS, or check the drive cable or power supply cable? How does he know that the IDE channel the drive is plugged into isn't bad? Did he connect the drive to a working system to see if it could be accessed? These are all basic troubleshooting techniques.
The Geek Squad Tech says, "It's not even detecting it. It's not even showing that the hard drive is there. So that means it's physically just fatal".
WOW! I've lost everything I guess. (By the way, if someone tells you a part (especially a hard drive) is dead, even if they replace the drive, make sure you ask for the old one back.
They say this tech didn't even open up the case. While he may have the title of tech, he is clearly, NOT a tech. Another tech as another Best Buy says it's a bad motherboard. Wait, I thought it was a bad drive. Oh wait, I see what he is doing...
...he's trying to sell a new computer!Best Buy Gets It Wrong Again
In this next video, Columbus, Ohio's Consumer 10 team performs their own investigation. So how did Best Buy fare? You guessed it.
Circuit City's Firedog tech says the operating system is fried, essentially dead. Where do these chain stores find these guys?
Best Buy thinks the problem is either the hard drive or the motherboard. I guess he's close.
This time, the computer hard drive was disabled in the BIOS (Basic Input Output System). The tech wants the computers Windows disk. Uh oh, another inexperienced tech. About the hard drive? He says, "It just clicked, and that's usually an indicator that the hard drive is bad". Really, I always thought that this might be an indicator that power is reaching the hard drive. Unless he really means that it is just "clicking". But did he run any diagnostics on the drive itself, at the base level of the drive? If he had, he would have seen that the drive itself was fine.
Perhaps he is confusing it with Iomega's old Zip Drive "Click of Death". Wait though, it appears that he put it in another laptop and it locked up that system. Maybe that's because the drive was installed with completely different drivers than what he has in his system. Perhaps he should have hooked it up as an external drive instead of plugging it into another laptop as the primary drive.
CBS Investigates - Geek Squad Gets Caught Again
CBS investigates the Geek Squad. A cable was loosened again. The Geek Squad thinks it's a software issue. They say, "From what we can tell, is to start over. So basically, we have to erase everything, and we'd reinstall the operating system". Bummer, the data is gone again.
It's my experience that most people can reinstall their operating system and start over but they hire techs so that they save their data.
The next shop is Doctor Geeks. I'm sure glad they are not here in Reno, NV. They find the loose cable but the computer miraculously ends up with viruses on it. Wow, what a coincidence.
Remember, before the computer went out, it was checked for viruses and spyware. I have to say here too, I've never heard of a computer having a heart attack. Oh yea, I forgot, their doctors!
They say they don't set the prices, "$300.00 to push in a cable" the boss does. I wonder if the boss knows his techs are ripping off the consumer.
Upon further investigation, as of November 1, 2009 Dr. Geeks did score an F with the Better Business Bureau. They've had 6 complaints in their area that they failed to respond to. It's always best to check out who you’re doing business with.
Consumer Investigation
Sacramento, Call 3 Investigation. Again, the hard drive was disabled in the BIOS. Best Buy misdiagnosed the problem asking for the Windows Restore disk and failed to return calls made by the customer 5 times, for updates.
One good thing about on-site service. The customer is there and is constantly kept updated.
Best Buy did eventually find and fix the problem in this case though I have to wonder how long it took them since the customer had to call 5 times.
Circuit City also misdiagnosed the problem telling them that there was no operating system. What was worse is that Circuit City wiped the drive clean erasing all of their data and without consulting the customer before doing so, or backing up the drive. OUCH!
House Of Horrors - Computer Rip-off
This video is from another country and I would like to think that what you see here would not happen. This guy not only misdiagnoses the problem, but then he steals half the memory, the video card, and the power supply and over-charges the customer. Just watch. Karma does come back to get him.
It just goes to show, always ask for your old parts back!
