My husband and I have purchased our cell phones at Best Buy for quite some time, because we like the great selection and we particularly liked the protection plan you can purchase. The protection plan service on cell phones has changed, buy is still worth the cost to us because it could save quite a bit of money if our smart phones ever needed to be replaced. My husband's phone had a screen crack that made it unusable. We did not know our protection plan number, so we went in to the Best Buy store in order to see if they could look it up for us. (If you know your protection plan number, you can simply go online to get a new phone and box to send in the old phone.) We waited for service in store at the Geek Squad desk. Best Buy is now requiring you to make an appointment online before coming in for Geek Squad service. I totally understand the benefits of having a set appointment time for service, however, I think that if there is more than one Geek Squad agent available, one of them should take walk-ins. We were asked if we had an appointment after a few minutes of waiting. When we told the Geek Squad agent (who we later found out was the manager) that we did not have an appointment, she made it a point to tell us that their appointments for the evening were booked (we were there 5 hours before the store closed on a weeknight) and that there was no way they could get to us. Mind you, there is no one waiting in line or anywhere near us at this time. My husband started ranting. I quickly and politely asked if it would be possible for us to wait in case there are any no-show appointments. Fifteen minutes later we amazingly were provided with service. What do you think about Best Buy's new requirement of customers to have a Geek Squad appointment ahead of time? What has been your experience with Geek Squad?
I have never used Best Buy's Geek Squad and now thanks to your review probably never will. As a customer you should have been treated better, in a polite manner you could have been told of the new procedure but they would see if they could fit you in, and for your next visit please use the online appointment setter. Handling the situation in that manner would have made you feel that you were a valued customer not a pain in the ass to them. You should not have had to ask them if you could wait around so that they could fit you in. These types of places must remember that because they offer a service that many other people offer also they can not be rude, they have a paycheck because you came to them, you could have gone somewhere else. I would have. When service people are rude I leave and spend my money some place else.
The problem with geek squad is that they over sell the service and it's when they are available to help you depending on staff numbers. It also depends on how big the store is and how good the staff are there; some are better than others. I still think it's not a bad deal, because all you have to do is be vocal in a busy store (cry and panic, act well) and they will just do it for you as soon as possible. I used to do this with my old landlady and say she's just not very clever or understands things. She would then do an act, and they would do anything to get us sorted out and to leave.
I would have probably called first, just to save myself the frustration, thst being said, I WILL NEVER USE THE GEEK "RIP OFF" SQAD EVER, NEVER NEVER ,EVER! My parents bougt a "new" computer from Best Buy (a nice hp) with all the bells and whistles and it started getting "the blue screen of death" right off the bat so my mother made an appointment to have them come look at it they charged her some un-Godly amount of money and didn't fix jack as the couldnt get the computer to replicate the crashes. a few days later after it kept crashing I called to ask them to come back out as there was a months warranty on the "work" they had done. I was informed that since they couldn't replicate the problem theyvcouldnt warranty anything so it would be another $298 to come out and "fix" it. At this time I didnt know a thing about computers but now,years too late I do and I have become aware that, I BELIEVE my older un-tech-like parents were sold a refurbished pc and told irt was new, otherwise why would the recovery partition be named differently and have ALL,YES ALL EVERY LIL BIT, of new data sent and stored there, this is why it kept crashing, as the storage was in the ted zone ALL THE TIME!! BEST BUY AND THEIR GEEKS ripped off my parents as well when they came out to the house (to the tune of like $200) and all the asshat did was INSTALL THE DRIVER FOR THEIR NETGEAR!! not even th full software, THE DRVER ONLY, which isnt saying much considering it is a PLUG AND PLAY DEVICE! long and short of it is BEST BUY AND THEIR GEEKS AR JUST AS BIG SCAMMERS AND RIP OFF ARTISTS AS THOSE PEOPLE WHO CALL AND SAY THEY ARE FROM THE I.R.S.!
Oh wow, that is not good. I haven't shopped at Best Buy for a long time, so I have no knowledge of the Geek Squad. It is funny when I think of Geek Squad I think of the computer professionals that come to your house to fix your computer. I paid one of them 200 dollars once. It would have been cheaper to get a new computer, although at that time, computers cost more than that.
I think I actually signed up for the geek squad service when I bought these computers, but it's been years, and I'm sure any type of service I paid for has long expired. I did the same with the large appliances, and to me, it was all a waste of money. I agree that if there's more than one person on hand, one should handle the appointments and the other walk-ins, if they're able. Not everyone would know to call in advance and make an appointment, and wouldn't mind waiting a reasonable amount of time, but to simply be told to make an appointment for another day is ridiculous. Not everyone has a lot of free time to come and go to the store numerous times, and if someone has paid for the service (or will be paying, for that matter), they should be served.
