Best Buy's Geek Squad ... and my poor poor laptop. :( :(
Ok folks. This is going to be long, but I'm pretty upset. I brought my laptop in to the Geek Squad at Best Buy because it was "stuttering". Trying to record was impossible because of it. I couldn't get a clean recording. I didn't know what the problem was. And yes, I know. Bringing in my cherished Fujitsu p-series lifebook to them was probably not the brightest thing I could have done, but I hadn't spoken to the guy that sold it to me in about a year and figured it wouldn't be all *that* hard to figure out at least what the problem was so I could decide what to do from there. Also, I'd had a bit of a fruit juice explosion in the general vicinity of my studio gear (not a direct spill over the keyboard or anything, but while I was walking by) so I wasn't sure if some splatters might have gotten past the keyboard in the laptop as that was *around* the time the problems started happening.
I brought the laptop into the Geek Squad in Newmarket, here in Ontario on Tuesday (September 16th), and told the folks behind the desk there all about the problems I'd been experiencing. While I was there, Ben, one of the technicians and another fellow (who seemed very knowledgable, though I can't recall his name) ran some diagnostics on the computer - which was still functioning, albeit slowly, at the time, to see some of the error messages the machine was generating when it worked through its processes. They were ooo'ing and ahh'ing over some of them. I thought, "Ok. They must know what they're doing." All the Best Buy Geek Squad guys that work on the computers are *supposed* to be A-Plus certified. There's a certain level of quality control involved in that. It's required before you can get the certification.
Anyway, I told them I desperately needed *some* kind of laptop to operate my home studio, and they encouraged me to get a Best Buy credit card, so that I could buy a laptop, put it on the credit card, not pay for 90 days, and return it before 14 passed, with no penalty. That's about the best they have for "loaners". So I chose an HP Pavilion - unfortunately with Vista loaded on it (my laptop had XP), and went home.
( Experienced a TON of problems with the laptop, not the least of which was that my version of Cubase LE no longer worked on Vista, and the unit itself was a little fan demon - ie: hugely loud and not practical for using with recording gear. :( I was not happy... but that wasn't the worst I was going to experience before the ordeal was over (well, it's *still* not over...)... and they had at least been fairly accommodating to allow me to take the unit home in the manner I did. So I was grateful for having *something*. )
So I left the laptop with them, Ben telling me that they'd look it over and have a diagnosis for me in about 48 hours. I did sign off on the fact that I had a backup of my data (ie: that they weren't responsible for returning my data to me if something happened. And I was fine with that) - but frankly, the data on the computer wasn't the issue for me. I needed a functional laptop for recording purposes. Without it, my recording studio is pretty much defunct. But I can reload on any data if they had to wipe the hard drive (or replace it for that matter).
I waited... I called once on the Wednesday to see if there was any progress. There wasn't. I called again on the Thursday at 8:30 in the evening. I was at an Urban Tapestry practice with both Allison and Debbie in the room with me, me on my cell phone. Speaking with Ben, he said that he'd opened up the machine - that it had taken him quite some time because the little Fujitsu had something like 30 + screws - but he hadn't found much trace of anything "juice like" past some small splatters on the keyboard. (He said he hadn't called me previously because he was backlogged, which seemed to me as if he was a bit overworked ... but that's kind of besides the point.) He said that when he tried to put the thing back together again, the video didn't seem to be working. He wasn't sure what had happened. I still trusted him at that point. He mentiond he'd send it off to their depot for them to have a look at and that the next truck leaving from their place with stuff would be on Saturday. He'd get all the paperwork ready and would send it off.
So Friday morning around 11am, I returned to the Best Buy to return the HP Pavilion and possibly get something for the duration of the time my laptop would be at their depot, that would run a bit more quietly. They did have one HP unit that was loaded with Windows XP, though it was a tiny thing without an optical drive. I figured I could get an external optical drive and that would be fine. It was actually a little cheaper than the Pavilion model too. Returning the unit, was, incidentally, entirely a painless procedure though it was a bit of a wait.
But when I went back to the Geek Squad desk and tried to ask them if there was any progress or anything on the laptop and just to confirm what was happening with it so that I'd know timing about when it was going to their depot and when it might be back, a fellow who regularly worked with Ben told me that the laptop just wasn't going to function. (Ben wasn't in until later in the afternoon so he didn't tell me this himself.) That it would cost me hundreds and hundreds of dollars to fix because it might be a deeper issue than just the video card not working. And that in and of itself was a very expensive piece. That if they shipped it to the depot, it would take weeks for them to get parts in, etc. He basically convinced me that I was better off just taking the laptop back and either a) seeing what I could do with it through other channels, or b) just writing it off as a loss.
I was stunned. Pretty upset too. Nearly burst into tears in their store right there and I am NOT prone to public tears, let me tell you. Fought tears all the way out of there. They had given my precious laptop back to me in a kind of ziplock baggie thing - with three screws floating around in the bag and some piece of flat plastic floating in there too ... I had no idea what it was. Devestated, I bought a couple of items I needed (a gold USB cable and a power surge power bar for my home studio) and got the heck out of their before I totally lost it.
That was when I decided to contact the guy that had originally sold me the unit. I figured it was high time I did that. Obviously, something had gone horribly wrong and I really needed the unit fixed. I didn't know who else to call. When I spoke to Derek on the phone he was sympathetic and said he'd have a look at it to see what could be done. He also said that Best Buy should have *at least* returned the laptop to me in the state in which I brought it in - ie: functional, even if not NICELY functional. He said I should give them a call and see if they'd do anything for me. But that I should bring the laptop to him and he'd have a look.
I did indeed call the Best Buy store, and speak with a manager over there. It was about 3 in the afternoon on the same Friday. The fellow was completely unsympathetic on the phone, even if he wasn't exactly what I would call rude. But his immediate excuse as to why the laptop was fried? The juice. That was very nearly the first thing out of his mouth. The juice had fried things and they couldn't get it functional again because of that. So basically, the guy *blatantly lied to me* because Ben had told me something *completely different* on the phone when I'd spoken to him on the Thursday. He had found very little trace of juice in the unit at all - and he'd been the one opening it up. Like a fool, I gave them that excuse - handed it to them on a silver platter. And they used it for all it was worth. I was pretty upset when I hung up the phone.
I brought the laptop to Derek's office soon afterwards and he sat shaking his head in disbelief as he looked at the state in which I handed the laptop to him. He asked me several times if that was the *actual* way they had handed it back to me. I said yes. He had a look at things and the news was definitely not good.
First off, he mentioned that when they put the unit back together again, it looked as if the technicians had lost some of the screws because there were some different screws in the unit that had been kinda forced in. There were, of course, three floating screws, not attached to anything. They just hadn't bothered to properly seal up the unit again. For A-Plus certification, that's ... inexcusable. Everything is laid out carefully on a table, if you know what you're doing. You keep track of *every little part* and you put the unit back together again in the same manner it was taken apart - *carefully*. Turns out that little piece of floating flat plastic in the bag there? It was the *hinge* that held the hard drive in placed so that it contacted the motherboard. Whoever had opened the unit *broke it off* in the process.
He told me other things too. Like, if the guy really wanted to check for juice splatters, he just needed to lift up the keyboard itself - which only required removing three screws. If he'd know what he was doing, he would have known that. Like the fact that things were definitely not in their originally configuration when they'd slapped the unit back together again (besides that missing hinge) - and it was NO WONDER the video wasn't working. That was the *least* of the poor little unit's problems. :(
He's making notes about what was wrong with the unit when he received it - and taking digital pictures as evidence at this point. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I have no home studio until this is resolved - and that's my livelihood. Plus, I *loved* that little unit. And it originally cost me $2400 2 years ago. That's not chump change. To fix this unit may cost a little less than buying a new one ... but I've gotten estimates of at *least* $800 for all the parts that might be required. And that, after an employee of Best Buy basically *broke* it.
I'm going to talk to Best Buy's Canadian headquarters tomorrow and see if they'll do anything for me ... I have no idea if they'll even consider doing anything about it ... but I'm hoping they'll have some sense of responsibility and human decency. I'd like to give them the opportunity to redeem themselves. We'll see.
*sigh*. What a week this has been. :(
I brought the laptop into the Geek Squad in Newmarket, here in Ontario on Tuesday (September 16th), and told the folks behind the desk there all about the problems I'd been experiencing. While I was there, Ben, one of the technicians and another fellow (who seemed very knowledgable, though I can't recall his name) ran some diagnostics on the computer - which was still functioning, albeit slowly, at the time, to see some of the error messages the machine was generating when it worked through its processes. They were ooo'ing and ahh'ing over some of them. I thought, "Ok. They must know what they're doing." All the Best Buy Geek Squad guys that work on the computers are *supposed* to be A-Plus certified. There's a certain level of quality control involved in that. It's required before you can get the certification.
Anyway, I told them I desperately needed *some* kind of laptop to operate my home studio, and they encouraged me to get a Best Buy credit card, so that I could buy a laptop, put it on the credit card, not pay for 90 days, and return it before 14 passed, with no penalty. That's about the best they have for "loaners". So I chose an HP Pavilion - unfortunately with Vista loaded on it (my laptop had XP), and went home.
( Experienced a TON of problems with the laptop, not the least of which was that my version of Cubase LE no longer worked on Vista, and the unit itself was a little fan demon - ie: hugely loud and not practical for using with recording gear. :( I was not happy... but that wasn't the worst I was going to experience before the ordeal was over (well, it's *still* not over...)... and they had at least been fairly accommodating to allow me to take the unit home in the manner I did. So I was grateful for having *something*. )
So I left the laptop with them, Ben telling me that they'd look it over and have a diagnosis for me in about 48 hours. I did sign off on the fact that I had a backup of my data (ie: that they weren't responsible for returning my data to me if something happened. And I was fine with that) - but frankly, the data on the computer wasn't the issue for me. I needed a functional laptop for recording purposes. Without it, my recording studio is pretty much defunct. But I can reload on any data if they had to wipe the hard drive (or replace it for that matter).
I waited... I called once on the Wednesday to see if there was any progress. There wasn't. I called again on the Thursday at 8:30 in the evening. I was at an Urban Tapestry practice with both Allison and Debbie in the room with me, me on my cell phone. Speaking with Ben, he said that he'd opened up the machine - that it had taken him quite some time because the little Fujitsu had something like 30 + screws - but he hadn't found much trace of anything "juice like" past some small splatters on the keyboard. (He said he hadn't called me previously because he was backlogged, which seemed to me as if he was a bit overworked ... but that's kind of besides the point.) He said that when he tried to put the thing back together again, the video didn't seem to be working. He wasn't sure what had happened. I still trusted him at that point. He mentiond he'd send it off to their depot for them to have a look at and that the next truck leaving from their place with stuff would be on Saturday. He'd get all the paperwork ready and would send it off.
So Friday morning around 11am, I returned to the Best Buy to return the HP Pavilion and possibly get something for the duration of the time my laptop would be at their depot, that would run a bit more quietly. They did have one HP unit that was loaded with Windows XP, though it was a tiny thing without an optical drive. I figured I could get an external optical drive and that would be fine. It was actually a little cheaper than the Pavilion model too. Returning the unit, was, incidentally, entirely a painless procedure though it was a bit of a wait.
But when I went back to the Geek Squad desk and tried to ask them if there was any progress or anything on the laptop and just to confirm what was happening with it so that I'd know timing about when it was going to their depot and when it might be back, a fellow who regularly worked with Ben told me that the laptop just wasn't going to function. (Ben wasn't in until later in the afternoon so he didn't tell me this himself.) That it would cost me hundreds and hundreds of dollars to fix because it might be a deeper issue than just the video card not working. And that in and of itself was a very expensive piece. That if they shipped it to the depot, it would take weeks for them to get parts in, etc. He basically convinced me that I was better off just taking the laptop back and either a) seeing what I could do with it through other channels, or b) just writing it off as a loss.
I was stunned. Pretty upset too. Nearly burst into tears in their store right there and I am NOT prone to public tears, let me tell you. Fought tears all the way out of there. They had given my precious laptop back to me in a kind of ziplock baggie thing - with three screws floating around in the bag and some piece of flat plastic floating in there too ... I had no idea what it was. Devestated, I bought a couple of items I needed (a gold USB cable and a power surge power bar for my home studio) and got the heck out of their before I totally lost it.
That was when I decided to contact the guy that had originally sold me the unit. I figured it was high time I did that. Obviously, something had gone horribly wrong and I really needed the unit fixed. I didn't know who else to call. When I spoke to Derek on the phone he was sympathetic and said he'd have a look at it to see what could be done. He also said that Best Buy should have *at least* returned the laptop to me in the state in which I brought it in - ie: functional, even if not NICELY functional. He said I should give them a call and see if they'd do anything for me. But that I should bring the laptop to him and he'd have a look.
I did indeed call the Best Buy store, and speak with a manager over there. It was about 3 in the afternoon on the same Friday. The fellow was completely unsympathetic on the phone, even if he wasn't exactly what I would call rude. But his immediate excuse as to why the laptop was fried? The juice. That was very nearly the first thing out of his mouth. The juice had fried things and they couldn't get it functional again because of that. So basically, the guy *blatantly lied to me* because Ben had told me something *completely different* on the phone when I'd spoken to him on the Thursday. He had found very little trace of juice in the unit at all - and he'd been the one opening it up. Like a fool, I gave them that excuse - handed it to them on a silver platter. And they used it for all it was worth. I was pretty upset when I hung up the phone.
I brought the laptop to Derek's office soon afterwards and he sat shaking his head in disbelief as he looked at the state in which I handed the laptop to him. He asked me several times if that was the *actual* way they had handed it back to me. I said yes. He had a look at things and the news was definitely not good.
First off, he mentioned that when they put the unit back together again, it looked as if the technicians had lost some of the screws because there were some different screws in the unit that had been kinda forced in. There were, of course, three floating screws, not attached to anything. They just hadn't bothered to properly seal up the unit again. For A-Plus certification, that's ... inexcusable. Everything is laid out carefully on a table, if you know what you're doing. You keep track of *every little part* and you put the unit back together again in the same manner it was taken apart - *carefully*. Turns out that little piece of floating flat plastic in the bag there? It was the *hinge* that held the hard drive in placed so that it contacted the motherboard. Whoever had opened the unit *broke it off* in the process.
He told me other things too. Like, if the guy really wanted to check for juice splatters, he just needed to lift up the keyboard itself - which only required removing three screws. If he'd know what he was doing, he would have known that. Like the fact that things were definitely not in their originally configuration when they'd slapped the unit back together again (besides that missing hinge) - and it was NO WONDER the video wasn't working. That was the *least* of the poor little unit's problems. :(
He's making notes about what was wrong with the unit when he received it - and taking digital pictures as evidence at this point. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I have no home studio until this is resolved - and that's my livelihood. Plus, I *loved* that little unit. And it originally cost me $2400 2 years ago. That's not chump change. To fix this unit may cost a little less than buying a new one ... but I've gotten estimates of at *least* $800 for all the parts that might be required. And that, after an employee of Best Buy basically *broke* it.
I'm going to talk to Best Buy's Canadian headquarters tomorrow and see if they'll do anything for me ... I have no idea if they'll even consider doing anything about it ... but I'm hoping they'll have some sense of responsibility and human decency. I'd like to give them the opportunity to redeem themselves. We'll see.
*sigh*. What a week this has been. :(