I am so excited, the hubby’s union starts picketing Best Buy this weekend. The boycott’s been on for some time now. They’re building a new store in Wentzville, MO and using everyone union except the electricians. So the union is urging everyone to go to American TV, Circuit City, or Ultimate Electronics instead.

Of course, I know that little paragraph is going to bring me heat from the usual crowd of morons, so let’s make a note that I am only excited about this because we already boycott Best Buy for many other reasons, including Geek Squad.

And speaking of Geek Squad, the real reason for this random post, I came across something interesting a couple of months ago. When Vista first came out, this kid who hangs around our TV control room came in with his brand new laptop his grandpa had bought him. He’d gotten all three brothers one. This kid, however, is 13, and was showing me something very strange that had his grandma “like all freaked out”: there was a CD left in his computer. It was a burned CD with handwritten text on it.

“Let’s see what it is,” I say, and we pop it into the Avid. As it autoran, I just cracked up.

I love what it says:

Do not access this confidential tool unless you are authorized by Best Buy/Geek Squad. This MRI Customizer executable is a trade secret and proprietary/confidential information of Best Buy/Geek Squad. Do not use it for any other purpose other than repairing and/or upgrading Best Buy/Geek Squad customer’s computers. Do not provide unauthorized users access to this tool. Unauthorized access, use or duplication is strictly prohibited and can lead to legal action and, for employees, termination.

Okay, then how about you don’t be so irresponsible and sell a computer to someone with this CD still in the drive!?! Uh… Duh! LOL

Of course I had to take a look at this thing and it only further confirmed my belief that Geek Squad employees are not real techs but salesmen in bad uniforms. All the thing does is install some programs (which, granted, you do have to pay for and have a valid license key for) and then handle things such as startup services and programs, add/remove programs, start menu shortcuts, etc. So that’s what they mean in those commercials where they say, “and Geek Squad can personalize it for you”! (In other words, they’ll remove all your Flickr, Firefox, and other wonderful shortcuts and replace them with the IE ones you already removed and the IE ones will continue to reappear after you delete them each time. “Because Lyke OMG, every1 nos IE rules!!!1!!1!1″)

Moral of the story? This is all stuff the techs should know how to do without having a CD. Trade secret my hiney!

Haters
I wanted to post here last night but got sidetracked by the comments in my moderation panel. Yes, there are currently 12 comments waiting to be approved for this post. All from Geek Squad employees. Some of them admit it, others don’t but all I know is I’ve had 254 hits this month from geeksquadforums.com. So you decide.
I’ll approve the comments a bit later today after I’ve edited a few of them for profanity, I don’t appreciate people coming here and using the “f-word” and calling me an “asswipe.”
I love how they’ve all got their panties in a bunch over this though. It’s just too bad that 90% of them won’t bother to read all the previous comments because if they did, they’d realize that what they’re saying is completely repetetive and pointless.

New Theme
Some of you have mentioned my new theme, so I thought I’d mention that it’s really nothing special. ;-) Several weeks ago, I was working on a new site and installed the K2 plugin/theme on it. I’ve been wanting to try it for several months but never got around to looking at it. So on the new site, I liked it and tried it here. The theme is just modified a bit from one you can download. Maybe before long I’ll get a chance to create something that’s all my own again.

We brought the laptop into Best Buy along with my receipt that states I paid for 512MB of RAM. They took a look and saw that it was indeed showing only 504MB. They opened it up and low and behold beneath the 256MB chip was the 512MB one I’d bought. Supposedly.

After diagnostics and the taking out of my original chip and starting up the computer they discovered that the 512 was only outputting 256.

Now, they say that sometimes this happens that a chip at the manufacturer’s gets in the wrong box or something and is labeled and packaged incorrectly. So I bought a 256MB chip that was disguised as a 512MB.

Christine thinks they’re full of crap, but either way, they swapped out the wannabe 512 with a real 512 and I am now running at 760MB of RAM.

So, while I was still screwed over by them a bit, at least it was all taken care of in the end. So I’m a happy camper. They are safe from my wrath for now…. muahahahahahahaha. :)

I guess that makes it top search.

In a close second we have searches for “Geek Squad Sucks” or “I Hate Geek Squad.”

In a close third, variants of “Spoken For.”

Go figure.

All that was before HP acquired Compaq so even though I still dislike Best Buy, I went there again and ended up buying m laptop there the beginning of November.

A month and a half later, I go to use the cd rom and it’s gone. Not listed in My Computer, the device manager says there’s a problem with it, and I can’t reinstall the driver, a system roll back did nothing – so I took it into Best Buy. Again, I have the three year extended warranty, this one for bring in service. Note that nothing else was wrong with the system. Just the cd rom was gone.

On Wednesday, December 14, I drop off the laptop. They tell me they are extremely backed up and give me a projected date of being done as Thursday, December 22.

Fast forward to Sunday, December 18, I’m at church and Steve’s home with Elijah who’s sick. He calls me afterward and tells me that Best Buy called and said the computer was ready, I could pick it up at any time.

So on Monday the 19th, I travel an hour south to pick it up.

One of the first things the guy tells me is that the computer system of the all mighty Geek Squad is down and has been down/slow for the better part of the day (this was about 11am). So he can’t pull my info. But I’ve got my paper so he finds my laptop by that.

He brings it out and says, “did they call to authorize a charge for reinstalling your operating system?”

“Uh, what? No. I just got a call that said it was ready, come to get it. Why would they need to reinstall the operating system?”

“Because Windows got corrupted.”

“Uhhh, okay… no, I didn’t get a call for that.”

“Oh okay then.”

After some more meaningless conversation, I am looking at the papers and I say something like, “so do I have to pay for that?”

“Oh, no, if they didn’t call to authorize it, then you don’t have to pay for it.” I ask him, out of curiosity, how much would it cost. He gives me a figure just short of $60.

Something tells me to, so I try to turn on the laptop. When I open the computer up, I notice that my screen is extremely dusty, much dustier than it has ever been. He says something about the battery being dead and asks if he should plug it in. Um, hello, YES. He plugs it in and I turn it on.

Immediately we are greeted with a nice blue screen and some errors. He begins tapping on it and pressing keys and saying things like, “Hmmm, I wonder why it’s doing that.” And, “Strange.”

He pops out a cd that is an obvious burned copy that reads “Windows XP Service Pack 2″ in black marker. He pops it back in and messes with the computer some more. Next thing I know, he’s saying things again about how the system is down and so he can’t find out who worked on the computer, blah blah blah. Basically telling me to leave and wait for their call.

By now, I’m really ticked off. I tell him how I brought it in only for the cd rom, I got a call that it was ready to go home with me, that I drove an hour to pick it up because of that, no one else called me other than that call, and that I needed this computer for business purposes. So he starts scribbling notes down and takes my cell phone number, in case it’s ready while I’m still in that stupid town.

We go to do the only other thing in that town that we were there for, which is another story all in its own. Basically we stood at the Cingular store for literally an hour and 15 minutes before we were helped (some guy who arrived after us was helped first) and then another 15 or so minutes while she “took care” of us. And then left while my mother-in-law and sister-in-law stayed for another 20 minutes to handle their business. The woman was completely incompetent, I swear.

Anyway, after a late lunch around 2pm, I decide to go back to Best Buy.

I wait in line again and then talk to someone else. He was the same guy that took my RAM from me when I dropped the computer off. Oh, yeah, I had them add in 512 ram instead of the 256 it had – that, as far as I can tell, is the only thing the all mighty Geek Squad has done correctly.* So anyway, I tell him what was going on and that I was there to check on it.

The computer is sitting right there on the counter where I left it earlier. There’s a note on it to finish it asap and call my cell phone. No one knows what’s going on though, and he goes in the back to find out.

He returns with a “yeah, your operating system was corrupted and we have to reinstall it, that’s why the cd rom wasn’t working.” Some other guy comes up behind him and confirms this. They open the cd rom and there’s that burned cd again, “yeah, see?” (Like that shows me that the operating system was indeed corrupted, or something.) He says that it’s completely operating system stuff that stopped my cd rom and that no diagnostics turned up anything hardware related. He tells me that many things can cause this, and he strongly stresses viruses and adware. I know this is not the case. It was clean. I’m good and keeping my stuff clean. He tries to tell me that Internet Explorer was messed up, too. I know this is not true, as well.

He then feeds me some bull about them trying to contact me about the reinstall but that the phone number I gave them was bad. That is complete bull crap and without using so many words, I tell him this. I say that I got a phone call on Sunday morning telling me that the computer was finished. And furthermore, this I did not mention, if they had tried to call me and I was not home or the phone did not get answered, they would have been on the callerID, which they weren’t except for that Sunday morning call. So right there, I know I am being lied to and I wonder what other crap they’re trying to feed me.

What I ended up doing then, was not paying for them to reinstall anything and I take the computer home. I do the reinstall myself. Of course, this was after some trouble as I don’t know what the heck they did to the computer, but it didn’t want to do anything at first for me. I then spend several hours on this and trying to get it back into my home network.

What I want to know is this:
1. If they knew the problem was corrupted files in the Operating System and they “could not” get a hold of me to authorize the reinstall – WHY did they wipe out my operating system in the first place? You’d think they’d want to really get a hold of me to authorize that and try to talk me into allowing them to back up my data for their “so very low” price of $89.
2. Why did they call me to tell me the computer is finished if it so obviously wasn’t??
3. And most importantly, who’s copy of Windows XP were they trying to install on my computer?

And this is why I am kicking myself very hard for buying another computer not just from Best Buy but a Compaq. I swear, any more problems with this thing and they’re going to fix it, then I’m going to sell it and get another Dell. So there. Haha.

The best thing out of all of this? My Geek Squad casefile came a sheet of those little word magnets. Now I can spell out “I hate Geek Squad” on my refrigerator. :-P

* – actually, at the time I wrote this post I guess I was so wrapped up in reinstalling everything that I did not realize the RAM was not installed correctly. I purchased 512 MB but I was only running 512MB meaning I got screwed out of another 256MB. I took it back in and, they claim, the package I purchased was incorrectly labeled and was actually 256MB. Whatever it was, they traded it out and I am now running 760MB.

Bit of an update:
Yesssss, thank you very much, I understand about the Windows CD. This has been explained time and time again. Of course, I will never know if you all are right if I cannot test it out myself. But don’t bother bringing it up over and over again as it has already been done.

Secondly, after getting my system running again and posting this post, it was less than a week later when the CD rom pulled the same disappearing act. The solution? Two measly lines in the registry. Amazing how four guys at Geek Squad could not figure this out and had to corrupt my operating system instead. Quick fix guys, not a permanent solution… or a trained one, for that matter. It doesn’t matter that the issue was software and not technically covered by the warranty, they still couldn’t (or wouldn’t) figure out the real problem and instead corrupted my operating system! Morons!

More Interesting Articles:

Compute Repair Fraud on YouTube
Best Buy’s ‘Geek Squad’ Accused of Pirating Software – April 13, 2006
Couple’s Supposedly Destroyed Hard Drive Purchased In Chicago – June 1, 2006
My Best Buy Nightmare – October 26, 2005