You know what's fun? Making the Best Buy people tell you about their products.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Ugh, Best Buy’s service department gave me one of my clients. Because they were so horrifically incompetent they couldn’t diagnose a failed motherboard in a two month old computer.

I got a call from a business associate of my neighbor who told me that her son’s computer had stopped working while he was at college and asking if I’d take a look at it. Being the whole computer engineer/systems administration geek that I am, I said ‘Sure thing. I can diagnose it for you and tell you what your repair options are, if any hardware is required.’

So the mom and the son bring the computer to my house, and I ask the son what exactly happened when the problem occurred. He tells me that he came back from class and the computer was frozen. He tried to move the mouse, but nothing would happen, and he tried to Ctrl+Alt+Del, but nothing would happen. He says he then tried to power off the system with the power button, but nothing happened, so he pulled the power cord out of the back (didn’t know about the hold-the-power-button trick), and plugged it back in. It would not boot.

I tell them I’ll need to hook it up and look at it, see if I can discern anything from the POST, as the kid said that he did not see any error messages when he tried to boot the computer. Well, no wonder he didn’t. The computer wouldn’t POST at all. So I start troubleshooting. Test power supply, seems fine. Take out everything but video, memory and CPU. Still no POST. Remove processor, test in other board. Boots fine. Remove video, test in other board. Boots fine. Remove RAM, test in other board, boots fine. Try known working memory, video and processor from another machine with compatible hardware in kid’s motherboard, along with known good power supply from other machine. No POST.

So I call them back and tell them that the motherboard in the computer is the source of the problem, that some component or components on it have failed, and that to fix the computer would require replacement of the motherboard. Woman nearly breaks down in tears telling me that she’s taken this computer to Best Buy (where she bought it) no less than four times and they told her that it was fixed each time, only to find out that it was still just as broken as before she took it in. The computer, still under warranty, now goes back to Best Buy because she wants the broken hardware replaced under the warranty. Best Buy gives her hellfire for having someone else open it.

So I have to step in and proclaim to Bust Buy that as a degreed computer engineer and systems administrator with four years experience as well as three years of teaching A+ Certification courses, I most certainly am qualified to diagnose a dead motherboard and that I would be very, very happy to swear out a statement to this woman’s attorney if the failed hardware was not replaced. I, having examined the motherboard closely, would also be willing to swear under oath that the motherboard failed through no fault of this woman, her son, or anyone else. No evidence of overcurrent or overvoltage was apparent, no chips scorched or blackened, no capacitors bulging, leaking or exploded, no cracks, no pins bent, no scratches, no anything to indicate that the kid or his mom had done anything wrong. I also tell them that I have crystal clear 1600x1200 pictures of the hardware which would confirm my statements to the satisfaction of any qualified professional.

Best Buy relents and does finally obtain and install a replacement motherboard, for free. Lady thanks me profusely, and now refuses to do business with Best Buy. Apparently I am now her computer supplier and repair company. Fine by me. Her influence upon her business associates have landed me other contract work that she says she previously would’ve recommended Best Buy for. No problem, Best Buy. You lose money, I gain it. And now I have a happy client who will gladly refer me to others.

Screw Best Buy.

22

Not really PCs, but all electronics. They sell everything from PCs to software to DVDs to refrigerators to TVs. Fun place, actually. Picked up my digital camera there about a month ago.

It’s best if you know what you want already, though. They have a lot of products and a lot of their employees are high school or college students doing part-time stuff so you can’t really expect them to be experts (unless you luck out and get someone who is an audio enthusiast or something in the stereo department or an avid gamer in the game departments, etc.).

I don’t think their prices are particularly inflated. They can’t compete with the discount chains, of course, but they’re pretty competitive with most other chains, as far as I can tell.

23

When we were shopping for our first computer one of the first places we went to was Bestbuy. I wanted a Mac - and at that time Bestbuy didn’t sell Macs. So…since then, I had ignored Bestbuy ads, thinking that, as far as far as computers were concerned, they had nothing a Mac owner like me would be interested in. Because of your post I was inspired to check the Bestbuy ad that came in Sunday’s paper - and they do sell Macs! How long has this been going on?

24

I hate to ruin the pile-on, but as a new sales person I can tell you that learning product knowledge can be daunting, particularly when there are hundreds of items to learn. If the sales person is new, or is just doing this as a part-time job for the summer, expecting him/her to have detailed and intimate knowledge of all products is unreasonable, especially in a mill like Best Buy. That said, the salesperson shouldn’t try to bluff through it. I always respond: “I don’t know, but I’ll find out for you.” Most of the time, customers are trying to see if you’ll be honest with them. Those who are just trying to play with me get turned to a more experienced salesman (who can generally turn the tables quite effectively).

25

Go to a music store and ask for, well almost anything. It is remarkable how little people know about music.

“Gimme a copy of the best-selling CD of all time.” “Huh?”

26

If you really want to aggravate them, tell them you plan on buying AppleCare when the original warranty is about to expire (of course this only applies to Apple products). All of a sudden, my iPod wasn’t going to last 3 months before it breaks, and I was going to be back at Adequate Purchase complaining, and they weren’t going to do anything about it because I hadn’t bought their warranty.
Bullshit, I say. I tell the asshole cashier that I would only let Apple service it anyway. Then the bastard had the balls to ask me if I wanted him to throw the reciept away!
Best Buy Sucks.

27

I was getting a car stereo insalled there about a year ago and killed most of the time playing around on those 2nd-gen iMacs, with the round base.

Oh being clueless isn’t the problem. It’s realizing and admitting it that’s the problem. :wink: