Lockernome: 10 Cases of Geek Squad Violating Customer Trust
10 Cases of Geek Squad Violating Customer Trust
By Ryan Matthew Pierson for Lockergnome
The Geek Squad is arguably one of the largest corporate repair groups in the US, with technicians available at virtually every Best Buy store and even a few stand-alone shops around the country. As a whole, Best Buy has a reputation for being the largest electronics chain in the country and covering a wide variety of needs from entertainment to computer repair. After purchasing the Geek Squad brand, Best Buy has expanded its support services to the UK, making it one of the largest (if not the largest) single tech support organizations in the world.
That said, it’s important that I stress that the examples listed below are likely isolated incidents, but they do serve as reminders that you are handing your phone, computer, camera, or other miscellaneous gadget over to strangers whenever you take them in for repair. You don’t always have time to hide your personal files when your computer or phone breaks, so it should stand to reason that these employees are expected to have a level of responsibility that doesn’t include snooping where they don’t belong (or making copies of these files when they do find them).–Ryan Matthew Pierson for Lockergnome
Read the Details of the 10 Cases Here.
This excerpt appears with permission from Chris Pirillo.
About Chris Pirillo
Chris Pirillo is the founder of the tech blogging network, Lockergnome and previously served as host of TechTV's Call for Help show. Chris's insightful and entertaining how to videos will now be featured in the PC Pitstop newsletters and highlighted at techtalk.pcpitstop.com and pcpitstop.com.
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One should ALWAYS protect themselves first before relying on others to be honest. It just doesn’t happen very often!
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When my laptop crashed with all my personal files on it I realisd I was very exposed if I handed it in for repair – but did not have too many options. Since then, I keep all my sensitive files on a memory stick permanently plugged in to the computer. So at least now I can unplug it before sending the equipment for repair.
My mother took her PC to the local BB Geek Squad. 1st thing she was told without even turning the thing on
was to all time cop-out “Virus”! She as having problems launching IE 8, couldn’t open other programs (Works,Wordpad, etc.)
and it was running really slow. When I looked at it, the HDD was fragmented to the poing of strangelation. Also there had
never been any Windows updates done, including mostly service pack 3 for WIN 7. These jackasses didn’t even do simple maintainence.
I just insalled Avast, and AVG PC Tune-Up. Now runs great! Geek Squad is a pos rip off.
About five years ago, a local TV station took a pc into five different repair facilities for repair. It had a cable deliberately disconnected and was a test of the ability/integrity of the facilities selected. Geek squad had the highest cost of the five. In fact, one of the facilities charged nothing and also, said why.
A quick youtube search can also show A LOT of scams in which they charge you for complicated pc problems when it was actually a HDD SATA cable that was unpluged… I'd rather trust my local store than them :L.