Computer newbies forum: Am I being ripped off by Geek Squad?

You can ask them what their bench/diagnostic charge is to this point, pay that and pick up your laptop. You can probably find a diagnostic utility for your hard drive from the manufacturer's web site (probably what the Geek Squad uses) and test the drive yourself. You can download the various free malware packages and run these yourself. That pop-up should be easy enough to resolve yourself. Tracking cookies and suspected tracking cookies aren't necessarily threats but they sound suspicious. One way to avoid these is use other than IE. Use FF and set it up to remove cookies upon exit or add trusted sites as you wish to keep those cookies that are useful for you...such as those that remember you as a registered user, your banking institution etc.
Yes, the unaware can be taken advantage of and can't prove one way or another that a vendor is being completely honest. "Caveat Emptor" ( buyer, beware) is nothing new.

Geek Squad is one of the few computer repair/support companies that rose to nation-wide status and lasted very long. Any other company that I think of is actually just a handful of franchises. They didn't get to the top by inventing stories. You are much more likely to encounter crooks at a small unsuccessful no-name place.

Think of the profit motive: there's none for Geek Squad. That employee isn't on a commission, and adding a hard-drive sale isn't going to noticably impact even a single store's daily bottom line.

As far as qualifications -- I'm sure any GS person will be A+ certification, prob'ly plus a bit more. Computer techs at that level are educated at tradeskill/community-colleges or military.

On the one hand, there's prob'ly a reason they didn't go pre-med or MBA. On the other hand, they know a lot more than you do, and this isn't rocket-science, eh.

This kind of thing does happen, in all areas. You bring your car in for maintenance and they tell you the CV boots need replacing. You go to the dentist for a prophylaxis & checkup and they want to "up-sell" you on filling a cavity.

It's gonna happen cuz that's part of the experts' job, to test and evaluate.

If you think you know more than the expert, then clean your own teeth. But in this case, if that were true, you wouldn't have installed a lame trojan, eh.

while there are some true blue it professionals in the geek squad, most of them are not. A+ certified, not that A+ certification is big deal, I was A+ at one time with out a single class to train for it I could become a+ certified again. What the geek squad did to you was highway robbery. $199 is their base rate for diagnostics, that is how much you pay to have them look at anything. When I know anyone that is looking at the geek squad for repairs I laugh, it will be about $500 for anything. the only way all these tech companies fix computers is to erase your hard drive(tell you its defective) you were better off just having the backup and hard drive replaced in the first place. But this is you life now, get your comp back and get some screwdrivers. you can do the repairs yourself for less than $100. but if you're not comfortable with the guts of your machine get your money back and buy a new computer, that is the only course of action I see.


as for the success of the geek squad, they are part of big box BEST BUY, they will be here to take advantage of you for a long time as long as BB is solvent, they will be taking suckers to the cleaners(not calling you a sucker).

I went on a personal vendetta after my customers were annoygin me with this misguided belief that free actually works, so I set up a little demonstration.

AVG does not recognize Blaster worm... a now archaic virus that there is no reason not to recognize;
AVG, Avast, MAlware Bytes, and AD-Aware all do not effectively block or remove Security Tool, the current most popular scare ware.

Not saying MB-aw is bad... just saying, it alone cannot be depended on. AVG is itself useless. Avast is a step better but still not worth the ram it uses to run.

Quite frankly, for the $500 cost, you could have brought another cheap laptop or pretty near another one. I would remove it from their grasp and go elsewhere. Of course this is up to you. As the other posters offered, there are s/w virus scanners, etc., and its getting to be alot to swallow if the HD went bad. It went bad under their care and wasn't described as such when you dropped it in. Of course now its too late to verify they are dealing with your system parts, but I tend to lean on the negative side of things. I think there is something at play here, maybe wrong fix or failed diags. All this now open to debate.

tada -----Willy

Well just to inform you, an anti-virus program doesn't remove viruses so you're out of luck there.. there's really not much you can do but to restore your OS on your own if you know how, otherwise you need someone like a Geek Squad technician to remove the viruses from your computer.. so when you pay that $199 for diagnostics and repair it covers all labor.. so when they told you your hard drive was broken and you needed a new one they were not lying because they make NO MONEY from you getting a new hard drive installed.. the hard drive installation is included in the $199.. they gain nothing but extra work.. you chose to back up your files so that's what cost you extra and if your hard drive fails and you don't have the know how you cant do it yourself so I'd say its well worth paying $150 to remove your personal info... Even if you knew how to do all this it is many hours of tedious work.. you're paying basically like $10/hr for em to fix your comp which is pretty cheap..

Geek Squad is a ripoff, plain and simple. People need to realize that bright lights, great advertising and catchy tunes and words are not a guarantee of good value. There are countless computer repair and support companies in all major US metro areas and the vast majority of them are run by skilled, experienced technicians and honest business men and women. When Big Corp America gets their hands on a business the customer is in trouble. Yes, all businesses are doing what they do to make money but the smaller guys typically don't have shareholders to worry about nor can they afford to be labeled dishonest. They have no choice but to be honest because their business depends on it. One such company is in Dallas, TX - AssureTeks. The guy that runs this company it straight-forward, honest, well spoken and won't just feed you what you want to hear. I contacted him a week ago about my Dell XPS. He contacted me back and asked for the service tag, which I gave him. He told me the unit was still under warranty with Dell and that he cannot get paid from Dell to fix my computer; that I should call them. They ended up replacing the entire unit after one of their techs came out and replaced nearly every part in the computer. He saved me a bundle of money and lost out on some for himself. However, I did need him to transfer my data and re-install apps for me. It gets better - he arrived at my home and explained to me that he could go through the process of transferring my data and re-installing apps, etc. but preferred to try to swap the hard drives since the computers were the same model - it worked! He passed up making money off me that he clearly could have got away with. It seems he is in this business for the long haul and that his reputation is very importatnt to him. He has a loyal customer in me forever and I will refer all my friends and family to him as well.

first off geek squad is in it for the money the local store the guy could not tell me if the usb wifi would run in ubuntu or not..they told me my monitor is fried on the dvi port but a quick forced edid scan fixed this as it was merely locked in sleep by an old nvidia card for 3 years.. next thing i see wrong is why $200 bones for a new hdd when the price of a new 250gb is less than 59.95?? then there is this. how can they backup your current drive if it is GONE??? pay the bench charge get your machine back and replace the drive yourself. its not hard to do and only takes about 20 minutes. as for the virus i prefer eset32 but you have to chose for yourself. now you probably dont have the cd's dont frown yet they can be ordered from the manufacturer you need only the serial number.. this is true for hp dell and gateway. final note i would recommend a travelstar drive made for mobile pc's with higher tolerances pertaining to shock and platter wear..

I must have missed something in your rant.
What does a collage education have to do the the OPs question.
All your A+, N+ etc, etc, etc has nothing to do with the Geek squad and ripping people off.
You insinuating that people are stupid and cheap is not real bright.

I know this thread is 2-3 years old.. Just thought I would post a little information..
For $199 the user gets one year of "most labor" support on problems that he/she has. (minus data backups) for up to three computers
Then they would change you $50-100 for a new hardrive (that has 10-30% markup)
Then I would guess you NEVER backed up your files, so they offered to backup your files for an additional $99-149

I see this day in and day out.. The user never backs up there files, then when a computer store offers to backup the files, they complain about the price..
Do the "users" just think computer repair shops should do free work, and hand out free parts?
I dare you to call ANY service company (HVAC, Plumber, washer and dryer repair) and find one that is willing to work on YOUR broken stuff for less than $80 an hour.

Run a complete Diag/repair of the crap you down loaded, PLUS run a complete hardware diag to find the failing harddrive, backup your data, install a new harddrive, move your backup files back onto the computer, run 199 windows updates, install xyz antivirus software, talk with you on the phone for 30-60 minutes, then talk with you agian when you pick the computer up... and you get ALL OF THAT for the BARGAIN price of $400-500.. plus they warranty the work for one year.
PLEASE please please.. I want SKILLED people to come work on stuff at my house for that DISCOUNT price.. If we worked in ANY other Skilled trade.. it would cost you $1200 or more.. I have billed $150 an hour for computer work in the past.. and worked for the company for an extended time. At that rate, your bill would have been an EASY $1500
The computers are worth NOTHING.. it's the DATA thats worth EVERYTHING.. who wants to loose the fist photos of the baby, and all of the wedding pics.. and OMG I spend years typing all of that crap (that no one will ever read lol).. What about my Quickbook data? My whole life is on there.. LAMO then why didn't you back it up??
Your LUCKY they COULD offer a data backup, I had customers drives COMPLETLY fail ... that cost $1600 just for the data recovery from a 3rd party company... and that didn't include my fee's.. since only a small hand full of companys in the world can recover files off of failed drives

Users need to realize that just becuase a new computer can be bought at $250 and up, doesn't mean that SKILLED labor to repair them should be any cheaper..

Now give it a few more years, the Cloud takes off.. all users data is stored in the cloud, the OS is Droid, and it has no real settings that can be changed, and is ran from a chip that cannot be written to and replacements cost $100-500... NO MORE computer work.. old one brakes.. you just by a repalcement, log in with the same username/password as the old device.. and everything is back .....Kinda like a cell phone, but all of your data is saved.

I would never take my laptop to Geek Squad, they will do exactly what you said, just keep adding problems and costs. Besides, if it was a virus issue and your computer was working fine, you could have just scanned your pc and removed it manually once you found it. Seeking help from these guys won't get you anywhere. The installation of a hard drive on a laptop, is so simple, it makes me wanna cry when i hear they ask for 60 bucks to replace it. You open the lid, slip the old one out, slide the new one in! And also, don't be so sure your laptop will come back with all of its original components. My cousin went to upgrade his RAM there and the laptop came back WITH NO GRAPHICS CARD!!! Just trust me, you can do everything by yourself its just a matter of confidence and a little citation from google :P ;)))

I'm a Geek Squad agent going on 4 months now.
I've read through this forum thread and cannot believe the ignorance in a few of the posts.

As stated in one, Geek Squad has changed services and now offer what is called "Tech Support".
A client can purchase a 1, 2 or 3 year term of "Tech Support". $199, $279 & $349 respectively.
If the client is purchasing a new computer then this service is discounted by $100 across the board.

With this service, the client will be covered for virus removal, operating system repair, REMOTE assistance (so they don't even have to leave their home!) which allows them to go to geeksquad.com and browse through a list of agents and choose the one they wish to work with based on their success rate and customer reviews. Or the client can call the hotline to establish the remote session also.
It also provides anti-virus complimentary (Norton, Webroot, Trend Micro, or Kaspersky) for the duration of the term.

Under Tech Support if the clinet has ANY software problems, ANY # of times during the term, they need only to contact us.
Lastly, this service covers not 1 but 3! computers as stated in a prior post.

This is NOT an extended warranty for hardware. The only thing not included in Tech Support is data backup, transfer & recovery.

SO!
You nay-sayers need to understand that the first step an agent does on a unit is to run a hardware diagnostics test. Doing this ensures first and foremost that we are dealing with ONLY software issues.
This is not a simple once over test but a very thorough and extensive compilation of testing utilities being used.
If failing hardware is detected, such as a hard drive for example, then yes we will notify the client and suggest a replacement. At Best Buy we carry many variations of drives a customer can choose from. Under Tech Support, the client only need purchase the replacement and the install will be at no extra charge. In the case of the failing hard drive, once the new drive is installed the operating system then needs to be reinstalled. Most clients already have recovery discs, either from the manufacturer or created by Geek Squad at the time of purchase, and if they do not then as stated earlier, the only action needed to be taken by the client is to contact the manufacturer with the unit's model # and s/n or p/n in some cases.

So now I'm going to address the $2500 cost that someone mentioned earlier in this thread regarding the recovery of data from a hard drive. Obviously we do not charge $2500 every time. Actually, this is a very rare occurrence and is only done when the data needed to be recovered is EXTREMELY vital.
Put simply, a failing hard drive is a failing hard drive. Data recovery is just that, data recovery. There are 3 levels, one being more costly than the next. The client makes the choice depending on how important the data is.

It is not our fault nor our responsibility to ensure that steps are taken to backup this data to circumvent a costly recovery.

We are not scam artists. We are individuals who have a passion for our jobs. We do NOT work on commission. Personally, I do my job, and enjoy it, because of the people who need the help and experience that I can provide. Geek Squad has always been a respectable and go-to source for those who would rather not have to know what we know.
We are Geeks...
That is all

You are still a con artist, here is why.

Geek squad is known for giving bad diagnostics (unless they are perfect, please tell me you are perfect)... everything is a virus or failed hard drive apparently. Haven't you noticed? This is not like getting an MRI, wtf are you talking about..

If you are misdiagnosed at the hospital, there are repercussions and medical malpractice laws.

Same goes with car shops, if they wreck your car their insurance covers it.

With geek squad that doesn't happen, they don't turn customers away and when they break your stuff, steal your personal information, go through pictures of you and your kids, and load viruses on to your computer. Tough luck.

You don't know how much the licensed software costs either, because it's a big corporate site license which costs barely anything per instance to run. Windows PE? what a joke, there's nothing you are doing with PE that can't be done with a free version of linux.

Anti-virus is free. Windows defender and Clamav (open source) clean viruses. You can always run them in safe mode and stop root kit processes so they can be removed (not that you know how to do that.)

My point is, they have corrupt business practices and there is no stopping them from making a bad diagnosis.... every time. If they make a "careless mistake" while trying to fix everyone's computer, you have no way to recover financially from it. That is wrong. Charging a person for labor when no labor was done. smh. I do custom software.. can you imagine if I charged for a requirements meeting. lol.

And to the guy with all the useless certifications, that never happens and it's not ok for geek squad to drop my hard drive or leave it in a dusty room with no antistatic bag.

and trying to use your kids and age to coax us? you are the worst. Next time geek squad tells you that you have viruses or hardware failure ask for the diagnostic so you can see the SMART or the infections. and wtf, cookies aren't infections, they are plain text files that are pretty much used for target advertising. hardly malicious. Your browser can delete them for you... for free.. lol.

OK, the title seems a little harsh. The Geek Squad is there to get you to buy a new computer from Best Buy. For any of their services, you need to pay the about $200. They will then call you in about a week to tell you that there is something even more wrong with your computer that will cost you more. This will continue until they tell you it is cheaper to buy a new computer from Best Buy. After you buy the new computer, they will charge you an additional $100-$200 to transfer the files. The hard drive in your computer is most likely properly working. Go get your computer from Geek Squad and refuse any payment they may ask you for (Because is sounds like you have already prepaid). Go to a reputable computer fixing place and get your computer diagnosed by them. Tell them to remove any extra Geek Squad software. (The Geek Squad probably installed a lot of bloatware that is hard to remove and constantly tells you that you need a new computer). Your hard drive will most likely be working fine. If for some reason it isn't, and you have the extra cash, replace it with a SSD (Solid State Drive). A solid state drive is quite a bit more expensive than a normal hard drive, but it is much faster and is a lot less likely to fail. But DON'T buy it from Best Buy, because they just ripped you off.

Hope this helps,
ericlericl