Best Buy BS.

[Marajade]

That's untrue, I worked for bestbuy for a year, and I can assure you they they don't work on commission... However, I will say that unfortunately, Your experience is pretty typical of how employees handle their customers.. and the above reason is why. No incentive. I worked there for a year at Low ass pay, and finally left because there was no incentive to work harder for the lame-ass managers.

Circut City is Commision, not Best Buy.

 

[Etdaen]

my point.

 

[Noxxx]

I'm not really a big fan of Best Buy. I can drop a cd rom or a video card into a computer in 5 min, and have it up and running in 10 (15 if it requires some sort of install) Personally, I recomend taking the time to learn how to build a computer, its not that complicated. And once you know how to build one, keeping a manufactured one up and running is cake. If you're running XP, 95% of the hardware installs you do are gonna be as simple as pulling out the old piece and pluging the same wires into the same spots on the new one. Drivers are usually already on the computer.

 

[Direwolf]

This right here is why I always believed in doig it yourself to do repairs and what not with PCs. It is a very useful skill. Putting a new video card in start to finish will take me about 5 minutes top of having the case open and maybe another 5 minutes of uninstalling the old software and installing new software. CD drive takes about as along and no instalation involved.

 

[Blaine]

Now that's when things started to go wrong... I got best buy to install my video card.(which took like a week for a 30 min installation.)

THIS is where you went wrong. anyone, absolutely anyone, can open up a tower, remove an old video card, and replace it with a new one. it takes 10 minutes, and thats with being insanely careful (your handling over 1000$ worth of equipment, you had better be careful...) and with clean up time too (make sure the area you will be working in is extremely clean. again, expensive equipment.). if you've never gotten inside a tower before, i recomend it. its really cool in there!

 

[Tagrineth]

I work at circuit city and I don't get commission... =c

 

[Euphacent]

Ok, I'll take the bait...

I work at Best Buy and I work in the tech bench. I don't know what's going on with your Best Buy, but here we never take more than an hour or so to do a video card install. Yes, it only takes about 15 minutes to install a video card (screws and installing drivers take the most time), but we do have other computers we're working on, so we can't exactly drop everything to install your video card that very moment. Taking a week should not have happened, however.

As for taking three weeks to repair the CD drive: If you bought your computer from Best Buy and you bought a service plan with it, they can get the hardware replaced if it's bad, but they do have to send it off for service? Why? Because different computers use different parts, and there's no way to stock every single motherboard, sound card, type of ram, or hard drive every computer that has ever been sold at Best Buy in a Best Buy. Sure, if you complain to a manager enough, they'll let the techs take the cheapest CD drive off the shelf and install it in your computer so you don't have to wait the two to three estimated weeks for repair, but it probably want match the case and won't have the same specs as the one that was originally included with your PC.

As for having to wait a week for your warranty to switch over, that was BS. The warranty you buy from Best Buy starts the moment you purchase your PC. It overlaps with the manufacturer's one year warranty. Maybe they just do things differently in the Canadian stores?

Now about the harddrive. If you get a new harddrive installed, you have to install Windows on it. To install Windows on it, you have to either own a copy of Windows or have a restore CD that has Windows on it. It's not like Best Buy can just install a random copy of Windows with a random CD key for you. That's illegal. You have to provide that yourself. Since you apparently don't have a restore disc, you have to buy the full version of Windows XP Home, which is $199. It isn't super duper extra special edition. That's the standard full version of Windows XP. However, the vendor that repairs and replaces hardware for Best Buy (here in the states, at least) will typically do a restore when they replace harddrives. Restore discs don't always require you to input a CD key, but will often times require activation over the internet, which is easy to do.

Now, as for someone saying you can build a better computer for half the price now, that is very hard to do these days. You obviously haven't checked the prices of individual pieces of hardware versus buying a complete machine. You can get an HP desktop with an Athlon X2 3800+, DVD burner (with light scribe), 1gb memory, keyboard, mouse, and 250gb SATA harddrive for about $690 after $50 mail in rebate. I would like to see you build a similar machine that comes anywhere near that price. The processor alone sells on newegg for $295, and I didn't even mention a motherboard in the list above.

I will admit, however, that Best Buy's prices on RAM are pretty crappy. Most computer hardware is only marked up about 10%, and on most computers, Best Buy only makes about $100 per sale. When you see the ads where they're selling laptops for $499, Best Buy is actually losing about $300 per sale on those.

Anyhow, I'm not trying to justify the actions of the Best Buy that you went to. I'm just trying to point out other locations do actually take care of their customers. Everyone is human, so there are errors made, but there are definitely some things your local store could have handle more effeciently. The video card thing shouldn't have taken nearly that long. The CD drive, yeah, because it actually has to get sent off. Here's a tip, though. If you have a CD drive that's bad, and you want it replaced under warranty, but don't want to wait, you can usaully just buy a replacement for $30-50 (can get DVD burners for $59) and have the tech bench install it for you under your warranty. We do that when customers request it at our location. Also, I've never liked Circuit City. They always seem to dark and uninviting inside... but that's another story!

 

[Myrrh]

Well i'm mostly pissed off at Best Buy because ever since they put in my vid card I've had nothing but problems.

And for the people telling me to install and fix the shit myself. Personly i wanted but due to the fact that a certain family member thinks that the world and the warrety will end i'm stuck sending it to Best Buy.

 

[Kire]

. So i go down there to pick it up and they tell me that they didn't install windows on the computer, that i would have to pay 200 dollars to get the special ultra super duper copy of windows XP, and then wait 3 weeks for

windows? u should get a CDRW and make alot of copys of your windows CD with a crack file on it so u never pay for windows again

 

[Isomiau]

Fucking Best Buy...so I find a dvd that seems pretty spiffy, I, being a consumer, take said dvd to the register to pay. After 10 mins of the cashier bumbling to try and ring up the dvd, a manager is brought in, understandable, knowing the complexity of it all. After another 10 mins, (alternate BB and me)

"I'm sorry we cannot sell you this dvd, we cannot find a price in our system.."

"Oh!? What about that big red sticker that says $19.99? Do you think that could be the price?"

"It is not appearing in our system, therefore it is not our merchandise..."

"What do you mean it's not your merchandise? I got it from your damn dvd section..."

"I'm sorry, we cannot sell you this dvd..."

"What the fuck do you mean? It says 19.99, ring it up 19.99...heres a 20"

"Please lower your voice, we are incapable of ringing up this item..."

At this point I flipped the fuck out, grabbed the dvd and wung it across the store...

"Hey, what are you doing!? do not throw our dvd..."

"Buuuullshit, it is not yooooour merchandise, therefore I did not throw yooooour dvd"

Quite loud I was at this point, created a nice scene, they called the cops, I shouted rogaine and monoxadil(sp?) jokes to the bald dumbass manager as I took my leave before the black and whites showed up...Fucking Best Buy

 

[Mokk]

Now i can definately sympathize but if you don't know how to at least troubleshoot your own computer you're asking for a sore ass from whatever retailer you bought a PC from.

Aside from that how hard is it to insert tab A in to slot B? You coulda avoided this entire mess by taking a couple screws out and doing just that, the instructions for installation were surely with the video card.

Do you deserve to be dicked around and taken advantage of? surely not. Did you leave yourself open to it? indeed.

 

[Inunabe]

Everyone could save everyone else alot of trouble if you'd just stay away from those stores lol. Find one of those nifty little pc stores that some geek is always running in town somewhere playing d&d in the back room waiting for someone to walk in so they can make a custom pc for em for dirt frickin cheap. While it may not be as cheap as some think to make your own, if you get a custom from one of those stores it's gonna be really nice for little cash. Mostly becuase they an get parts from a supplier and guess what...we can't.

FORTRESS PC FTW *drools* they totally sell Bawlz and i bought 3 cases woot.

 

[Darkdante]

It always baffled my mind why people shop here.........

 

[Tagrineth]

Iso... that sounds more like you being retarded and overreacting. >_>;

 

[Isomiau]

yeeeeeeah, I uh, I'm not going to argue that....

 

[Passions]

Fucking Best Buy...so I find a dvd that seems pretty spiffy, I, being a consumer, take said dvd to the register to pay. After 10 mins of the cashier bumbling to try and ring up the dvd, a manager is brought in, understandable, knowing the complexity of it all. After another 10 mins, (alternate BB and me)

"I'm sorry we cannot sell you this dvd, we cannot find a price in our system.."

"Oh!? What about that big red sticker that says $19.99? Do you think that could be the price?"

"It is not appearing in our system, therefore it is not our merchandise..."

"What do you mean it's not your merchandise? I got it from your damn dvd section..."

"I'm sorry, we cannot sell you this dvd..."

"What the fuck do you mean? It says 19.99, ring it up 19.99...heres a 20"

"Please lower your voice, we are incapable of ringing up this item..."

At this point I flipped the fuck out, grabbed the dvd and wung it across the store...

"Hey, what are you doing!? do not throw our dvd..."

"Buuuullshit, it is not yooooour merchandise, therefore I did not throw yooooour dvd"

Quite loud I was at this point, created a nice scene, they called the cops, I shouted rogaine and monoxadil(sp?) jokes to the bald dumbass manager as I took my leave before the black and whites showed up...Fucking Best Buy

i think its funny lol
You should of just said well if its not your merchandise and your not willing to sell it then its mine and ill just go ahead and take it with me and walked out.

seriously, they openly admited that it wasn't "theirs" so you could claim it as "yours" then and just leave

 

[Euphacent]

Fucking Best Buy...so I find a dvd that seems pretty spiffy, I, being a consumer, take said dvd to the register to pay. After 10 mins of the cashier bumbling to try and ring up the dvd, a manager is brought in, understandable, knowing the complexity of it all. After another 10 mins, (alternate BB and me)

"I'm sorry we cannot sell you this dvd, we cannot find a price in our system.."
"Oh!? What about that big red sticker that says $19.99? Do you think that could be the price?"
"It is not appearing in our system, therefore it is not our merchandise..."
"What do you mean it's not your merchandise? I got it from your damn dvd section..."
"I'm sorry, we cannot sell you this dvd..."
"What the fuck do you mean? It says 19.99, ring it up 19.99...heres a 20"
"Please lower your voice, we are incapable of ringing up this item..."
At this point I flipped the fuck out, grabbed the dvd and wung it across the store...
"Hey, what are you doing!? do not throw our dvd..."
"Buuuullshit, it is not yooooour merchandise, therefore I did not throw yooooour dvd"
Quite loud I was at this point, created a nice scene, they called the cops, I shouted rogaine and monoxadil(sp?) jokes to the bald dumbass manager as I took my leave before the black and whites showed up...Fucking Best Buy

I've actually seen this happen before. People will claim that they bought something from Best Buy, try to return it unopened, and sometimes the customer service will actually take it back even though it's not in the system.. and not something that Best Buy even carries at any location. It's rare, but it does happen.

It's always funny when a customer tries to create a scene to get his or her way. When people start yelling because they just don't understand the way things work, I just tell them if they don't want me to help them, then I won't, and I walk away. Why would you become so irate over a DVD anyway? That really doesn't make sense. You could get it cheaper on the internet anyway.

Your behavior did warrant calling the cops, though. If customers start throwing things and yelling and using profanity, it's best to assume they aren't in their right mind and might be a threat to the employees and other customers. You're lucky the store didn't keep you there. Security in my store holds people until the cops get there, and shows them video tapes of the customer being a "public nuisance," which they can actually get fined for. We don't put up with that kind of crap at my store.

Everyone could save everyone else alot of trouble if you'd just stay away from those stores lol. Find one of those nifty little pc stores that some geek is always running in town somewhere playing d&d in the back room waiting for someone to walk in so they can make a custom pc for em for dirt frickin cheap. While it may not be as cheap as some think to make your own, if you get a custom from one of those stores it's gonna be really nice for little cash. Mostly becuase they an get parts from a supplier and guess what...we can't.

Contrary to popular belief, the techs that work at a lot of Best Buys are those same people you proclaim to be amazing computer techs/geeks that work at mom and pop shops. At the Best Buy I work at, three of us use to work at seperate mom and pop shops. I also used to work at Dell doing server tech support for corporate, higher education, and government customers. The techs at my store are not morons. Sure, a mom and pop shop can build a custom PC for you dirt cheap, but that's also how it's going to perform. A mom and pop computer store will never be able to compete with internet prices, and will never be able to compete with the price of a prebuilt machine made by a corporation. HP/Compaq, Gateway, Sony, etc, all buy their parts in HUGE bulk amounts so they can pump out tons of their PC's. They get their parts at lower prices than computer stores that only sell the hardware. Just see my previous post about the Athlon X2 3800+. There's no way you can build a machine that comes close to those specs for the same price, unless you get some sort of employee discount from a hardware vendor.

While there are retards that manage to get these jobs, there are also many people in the same positions that do know what they're doing. Don't generalize!

 

[Myrrh]

Okay Mokk, I WOULD fix it myself or get some of my smart friends to do it but due to the fact that the person who paid for the warrenty is INSANE i'm stuck taking it to Best Buy.

 

[Mokk]

Warranties are for suckers whereas PCs are concerned, especially if you know someone capable that you trust that can fix yer crap in 5-30mins as opposed to weeks at a time. That being said i can completely understand why you took the course of action you did, if you or someone else bought an extended warranty i'm completely with using it to it's extent, but now ya know how much of a hassle the whole thing is for future reference.

First thing i did when i got my newest PC? cracked the case, voided the warranty, upgraded the vid card and RAM. They still give me tech support on software issues via live chat and whatnot.. what they don't know not only saves me time and money, it saves me a headache dealing with people who aren't the actual tech.

 

[Passions]

actually my BB warrenty on one of my weaker computers covers everything that was with the system when i bought it. the CD rom busted they told me to go pick one to put in it and installed it in store for free. i can do whatever i want inside the case the origional parts are still coverd. the warenty covered my monitor also the button broke on it, took it in walked out with a new monitor.

they have there benifits, the monitor alone was the price i spent on the warrenty and then some.