I'm writing this because the consumer needs to know that they and many others are paying BestBuy service fees for problems BestBuy has caused in the first place. First I will mention what is happening, then tell you a story on how bad this is and that its still ongoing because there's a loophole where the district attorneys won't even investigate this and BB is making millions a year stealing from their own customers. I used to work for this company, and when I found out what was going on reported it because I assumed at the time that this was being done by accident, but after being told they know and continue this practice, because its their bread and butter realize many need to report this and get on their DAs case to put a stop to it.
Millions each year whether buying a new PC, having a free virus scan, or just having their PC cleaned to speed things up are actually setting themselves up to have to return later on to pay over $150 to $250 for virus removal. But don't take my word for this, just go to any Best Buy and watch how they remove a flash drive from one PC, then enter it into another and right there the PC is infected. You won't know at the time but many who have done this will realize weeks or months later you had to return to Best Buy and pay a fee to remove viruses from your PCs that you had no clue were there or where they came from as many were very careful. Let me explain how this is done.
When you buy a new PC and pay for services like installing antivirus or just to speed your PC up or just to scan your PC for viruses, you will see the Geeksquad employee pull out a flash drive and plug it into your system. Once done watch what they do with that thumb drive. Either they will go back to plug it into their server to print a report, or plug it into another PC immediately. Don't let them fool you when they come back a minute later and if you ask them if the thumb drive was formatted, they will say yes. Here is where you catch them in a lie because many of you know who own flash drives, to format one then install files that fill up 1/4 takes 45 minutes yet they came out of the back with the same exact drive, and check the number assigned, its the same one. There is no way they can format and reinstall the software in a minute! Presetups you buy are infected too, and again you will pay through the nose for virus removal for infections they put on in the first place.
What happens next after the report they either tell you right there your PC is infected, or clean. If infected they offer a three PC clean package to remove viruses they put on in the first place. Let's say they tell you your clean. Withing weeks or a few months you notice your PC slows down and get unwanted popups which the antivirus should be stopping, but because they installed the antivirus or you installed it into an infected PC, the software is basically disabled. When windows 7 came out, I was handed a flash drive and told to pre set up 40% of the PCs ment for sale. As I was doing this, the antivirus kept telling me there was an infection and when I brought this up, was told to disable the antivirus as it was confusing the new is as a virus. Funny thing, xp and vista installs got the same warning. Every one of those PCs were infected by our Geeksquad tools and customers were made to pay for it. Now for the story:
I sold a new laptop to a young girl for college who was starting school in 4 weeks and tried to sell her a Kaspersky antivirus for her to install herself and told her to save her money as she was struggling as it was. Behind my back,our assistant manager talked her into letting him do it for free. Of course she agreed, not knowing she will be returning and back then the fee was $250. Three weeks later goes by and I happened to walk in and see her at the counter crying because her PC would not boot. It was heavily infected and she never connected to the internet yet, she only put family pictures on her system yet after time the infections hurt the boot partition preventing it from booting. The assistant manager had told her she either has to pay $250 to repair her laptop or just buy another and to co!e back when she has the money.
She had no more money as school and BestBuy took it for the sale and to pay for books and courses. I'm a cut throat salesman and was a Geeksquad agent too. But this was too much. I talked to her as she was about to leave the store and walked her over to the computer section and plugged her laptop in, then used the restore partition to reset her PC to factory settings. She lost some photos she didn't have copies of but was willing to lose them to have a working PC for school. Towards the end my assistant manager saw what I was doing and got a write up, one of many to follow. I refused to rip off customers, let alone ones who invested their money to the last dime from school when it was our company at fault which I reminded my assistant manager we were at fault. Thereafter my hours started getting cut to make me want to quit but had another job so no pressure and heck, if they wanted to give me 4 hours a week, fine. I could still get just about anything there at 5% above cost and yes those $40 cables Any emp!oyee can buy for $1.50, the only thing not discounted was game systems and PCs.
When that didn't work, they would change the schedule and put me on without telling me and mark me for no show. Have a few police reports I got just for records. They even wrote me up ahead of time before the day was there, for example if it was Tuesday, there would be a writeup for no show for the upcoming Saturday. When I took a LOA, that's when they finally got the last and final write up by not submitting the paperwork and making it another no show. I'm not a disgruntled worker, I was fired almost two years ago and only writing this now after a neighbor of mine asked me if I could fix their new PC and found out it was just bought at Best Buy who is still doing this practice and despite reporting it to the DA, no ones willing to go after them. Geeksquad does a lot of government contracts and you wonder how places like the BART gets hacked? Well there's your answer.
For those of you who have tech/PC knowledge, you can easily verify this simply by taking the hard drive out of a PC BestBuy worked on, or preset up and scan it on a PC they haven't touched and you will see that many a times they are infected. Remember, just because you have antivirus software, doesn't mean your fully protected, especially if BB did the install for you. If PC is infected, it disables the antivirus but leaves it running in a way you don't know its malfunctioning. For those of you who just use your PCs for email and been told your systems infected and had the above services, you now know why. I normally have the answers for just about everything, but for the life of me have no clue why not one single DA will pro so cute unless BB is giving some type of huge donations. To all, save yourself the trouble and do your own scanning and program installs, and if you are infected, not by Best Buy, there are many real companies willing to help, not steal your hard earned cash.
Best buy.com Reviews
I'm writing this because the consumer needs to know that they and many others are paying BestBuy service fees for problems BestBuy has caused in the first place. First I will mention what is happening, then tell you a story on how bad this is and that its still ongoing because there's a loophole where the district attorneys won't even investigate this and BB is making millions a year stealing from their own customers. I used to work for this company, and when I found out what was going on reported it because I assumed at the time that this was being done by accident, but after being told they know and continue this practice, because its their bread and butter realize many need to report this and get on their DAs case to put a stop to it.
Millions each year whether buying a new PC, having a free virus scan, or just having their PC cleaned to speed things up are actually setting themselves up to have to return later on to pay over $150 to $250 for virus removal. But don't take my word for this, just go to any Best Buy and watch how they remove a flash drive from one PC, then enter it into another and right there the PC is infected. You won't know at the time but many who have done this will realize weeks or months later you had to return to Best Buy and pay a fee to remove viruses from your PCs that you had no clue were there or where they came from as many were very careful. Let me explain how this is done.
When you buy a new PC and pay for services like installing antivirus or just to speed your PC up or just to scan your PC for viruses, you will see the Geeksquad employee pull out a flash drive and plug it into your system. Once done watch what they do with that thumb drive. Either they will go back to plug it into their server to print a report, or plug it into another PC immediately. Don't let them fool you when they come back a minute later and if you ask them if the thumb drive was formatted, they will say yes. Here is where you catch them in a lie because many of you know who own flash drives, to format one then install files that fill up 1/4 takes 45 minutes yet they came out of the back with the same exact drive, and check the number assigned, its the same one. There is no way they can format and reinstall the software in a minute! Presetups you buy are infected too, and again you will pay through the nose for virus removal for infections they put on in the first place.
What happens next after the report they either tell you right there your PC is infected, or clean. If infected they offer a three PC clean package to remove viruses they put on in the first place. Let's say they tell you your clean. Withing weeks or a few months you notice your PC slows down and get unwanted popups which the antivirus should be stopping, but because they installed the antivirus or you installed it into an infected PC, the software is basically disabled. When windows 7 came out, I was handed a flash drive and told to pre set up 40% of the PCs ment for sale. As I was doing this, the antivirus kept telling me there was an infection and when I brought this up, was told to disable the antivirus as it was confusing the new is as a virus. Funny thing, xp and vista installs got the same warning. Every one of those PCs were infected by our Geeksquad tools and customers were made to pay for it. Now for the story:
I sold a new laptop to a young girl for college who was starting school in 4 weeks and tried to sell her a Kaspersky antivirus for her to install herself and told her to save her money as she was struggling as it was. Behind my back,our assistant manager talked her into letting him do it for free. Of course she agreed, not knowing she will be returning and back then the fee was $250. Three weeks later goes by and I happened to walk in and see her at the counter crying because her PC would not boot. It was heavily infected and she never connected to the internet yet, she only put family pictures on her system yet after time the infections hurt the boot partition preventing it from booting. The assistant manager had told her she either has to pay $250 to repair her laptop or just buy another and to co!e back when she has the money.
She had no more money as school and BestBuy took it for the sale and to pay for books and courses. I'm a cut throat salesman and was a Geeksquad agent too. But this was too much. I talked to her as she was about to leave the store and walked her over to the computer section and plugged her laptop in, then used the restore partition to reset her PC to factory settings. She lost some photos she didn't have copies of but was willing to lose them to have a working PC for school. Towards the end my assistant manager saw what I was doing and got a write up, one of many to follow. I refused to rip off customers, let alone ones who invested their money to the last dime from school when it was our company at fault which I reminded my assistant manager we were at fault. Thereafter my hours started getting cut to make me want to quit but had another job so no pressure and heck, if they wanted to give me 4 hours a week, fine. I could still get just about anything there at 5% above cost and yes those $40 cables Any emp!oyee can buy for $1.50, the only thing not discounted was game systems and PCs.
When that didn't work, they would change the schedule and put me on without telling me and mark me for no show. Have a few police reports I got just for records. They even wrote me up ahead of time before the day was there, for example if it was Tuesday, there would be a writeup for no show for the upcoming Saturday. When I took a LOA, that's when they finally got the last and final write up by not submitting the paperwork and making it another no show. I'm not a disgruntled worker, I was fired almost two years ago and only writing this now after a neighbor of mine asked me if I could fix their new PC and found out it was just bought at Best Buy who is still doing this practice and despite reporting it to the DA, no ones willing to go after them. Geeksquad does a lot of government contracts and you wonder how places like the BART gets hacked? Well there's your answer.
For those of you who have tech/PC knowledge, you can easily verify this simply by taking the hard drive out of a PC BestBuy worked on, or preset up and scan it on a PC they haven't touched and you will see that many a times they are infected. Remember, just because you have antivirus software, doesn't mean your fully protected, especially if BB did the install for you. If PC is infected, it disables the antivirus but leaves it running in a way you don't know its malfunctioning. For those of you who just use your PCs for email and been told your systems infected and had the above services, you now know why. I normally have the answers for just about everything, but for the life of me have no clue why not one single DA will pro so cute unless BB is giving some type of huge donations. To all, save yourself the trouble and do your own scanning and program installs, and if you are infected, not by Best Buy, there are many real companies willing to help, not steal your hard earned cash.