A friend contacted me asking if I could recover all the pictures from her laptop that she had sent in to Best Buy for repair.
To make a long story as short as possible…. The laptop stopped working, she took it to Best Buy where she had purchased the laptop and the extended warranty. The following is her account of what happened next:
They sent it to their Geek Squad when it wouldn’t boot up for them. I received
a call from them stating that my motherboard was out and it wouldn’t be covered, even though it was still under warranty. They perceived that that this was caused by something that I did. I asked them to give me an example of what I could of done to cause this and they were unable to provide me with one. They asked me if I wanted to authorize the repair and quoted me a charge of just less than $200. As the computer was only $400 11 months ago I was reluctant to invest more money in it. I told them I would like to think about it and I would get back to them.
About 2 weeks later I received an email from the Geek Squad notifying me that my device that had been sent in for repair was “ready, willing, and able.” Surprised that the repair was done without my authorization I called Best Buy in Ames and was informed that my laptop was back. I asked if it was repaired and they said it was. I asked if it was covered under warranty and they said it was. I told them that I was coming to pick it up and would be there in an later as it takes 70 minutes to get there.
When I arrived there was some confusion on finding my laptop and then about 15 minutes of checking records on their computer and finally the news that my computer was not repaired nor would it be covered under warranty. As you can imagine I was very disappointed to find that I had made a needless 45 minute trip to Best Buy on a Sunday afternoon. I asked to talk to the manager on duty and voiced my displeasure at this inconvenience and the misinformation I had been given. She was very unfriendly and said she was unable to help me or compensate me for my needless trip. I told her about the call I had made prior to coming, to verify that the repairs had me made and how I was assured that it was under warranty but she was very uninterested in my inconvenience. I asked for my laptop which took them 10 minutes or so to locate and then another 20 minutes to tell me that the AC cord was lost. She did provide me with a new generic AC cord to replace the one they lost and acted like that should be compensation for all my trouble.
I will never go to Best Buy again.
She asked me what laptop I would recommend as a replacement and after this experience, I couldn’t recommend Best Buy so I sent her a link to some deals that Dell had.
She provided me the laptop and I wanted to decipher exactly what “dead” meant. I plug in the device, turn it on and it boots into her desktop running Windows 7 with no problems. Thinking I “got lucky” and the laptop may never boot again, I connect an external hard drive and immediately begin copying off all her pictures and videos and anything else I think may be useful for her new computer. I exported her profile and made sure I had everything off that machine and rebooted. Everything worked without any problems. I contacted her to let her know I had done nothing but this laptop was now working fine but she had already purchased a Dell.
I am not taking credit for fixing the laptop but I will express my discontent with Best Buy for not honoring their warranty and otherwise poor customer service not to mention losing her A/C power cord.
My friend compensated me for the time spent backing up her files and burning them to DVD and gave me a card that said:
“Thanks so much for solving all our computer problems. You are the ‘Best Guy’ unlike Best Buy”