BUYER BEWARE! READ THESE REVIEWS!
In all of my years as a consumer, I can't think of a better example of horrible customer service than this store consistently provides. I personally have had a handful of bad experiences here and keep hearing, from person after person, what lousy service they received. Being in customer service for many years, I know that sometimes customers can be unreasonable. But that's not the case here.
My daughter in law was having trouble with a computer her mom bought there recently (she didn't know how they treated me). Within the first month, the screen was flickering. It wasn't bad, at first, but progressively got worse. After a few months they decided to take it in. They were told that since they DIDN'T buy the WARRANTY that Best Buy pushes, they'd have to pay an $80 fee to send it back to the manufacturer. I called and spoke to the manager in customer service, explained the situation, and she told me it wouldn't be an issue and there would be no charge. "We have to say that for extreme situations like if there's water damage but I can't recall the last time there was an issue".
My daughter in law brought in in and later received a call that there would be an $80 fee plus a charge for the repair because it MIGHT have been dropped. We never dropped it. "Well we have no way of knowing that". Well do you have a way of knowing that it wasn't dropped by the manufacturer, or the delivery service, or one of your employees in receiving or when stocking? No, you don't. You look for any possible reason to screw over your customer and set policies to bully people into buying your warranty. So they screwed her over and took her money for doing nothing.
My neighbor was a victim of ransom ware. She couldn't get into her system and wasn't about to pay a group of thieves from Nigeria ransom (they were identified by the police). She brought her laptop to the Geek Squad in Bel Air. She was in tears when they told her they could offer no option but to erase the drive and reinstall the operating system. She explained that every photo she has of her grandchildren were on that laptop. "Well didn't you back them up?" they asked. That's it. Make her feel even worse. If she backed them up, would she be in tears? She said she needs to think about it and took her laptop home. She just happened to mention it to me. I looked into it. The thieves locked her out with a primary windows password. It's different from user passwords. Once that password is created, you must know it to get in. The geeks were correct that the operating system needed to be reinstalled. However, I was able to download free software from Symantec that enabled me to easily retrieve ALL of her files, documents and photos, and back them up on a thumb drive, before deleting the partition and doing the install. Another friend of mine had gone to the geek squad because she had gotten a virus. She was told the same thing, that she'd need everything wiped out and reinstalled. She would lose everything. Using a free online virus scanner, I was able to identify the virus. I did a little research and was able to completely remove the virus by removing 42 lines of code in the registry. Her system was virus free and she lost nothing. All in all, it only took a couple of hours.
I am aware of how other computer repair shops operate. Go to the Geek Squad in Bel Air, MD and pay more money for lesser quality service, with far less expertise, under a manager who, when push comes to shove, won't back up the service if she can find any possible way to weasel out of it by blaming you.
I gave Best Buy a bad review a few years back because they don't stand behind what they sell. I had bought FIVE pairs of Beats Wireless and three of them had issues within a few months. They were defective. They kept coming apart at seams where the plastic connected. Their service employee told me they were clearly not damaged and they'd take care of it. Then the manager came by and she said "Sorry but we can't exchange something damaged." I told her to take a closer look because they are clearly not damaged. They still look new and fell apart at the seams. "Sorry but we decided in a meeting that Beats customers have to deal directly with the company". She wouldn't even own HER decision. She kept referring to the other geniuses in the company and this meeting they had. She walked away for a moment and the customer service rep said "I can't believe she's treating you like that! You're an elite status customer!" I believe that refers to what I'd spent there in the previous year, which was about 20K. She could have exchanged the headphones and damaged them out. Even if she ate the cost, it's a drop in the bucket compared to what she cost her store. I haven't shopped there since and several of my friends and neighbors have told me that they've been going elsewhere because of her brilliant executive decision. read more