Monday, August 13, 2007

Me against the Geeks

Have you ever had one of those moments you knew something was wrong and if you did nothing things would get worse? This afternoon was one of them, I've mentioned in the past that the DVD drive in our computer went down and we had to take it to the Geek Squad at Best Buy. I was sitting around and I kept thinking, it's been a week, I need to call and see if the computer is ready.

I call and they can't find the work order... bad sign number 1. I call The Wife to call, because she as all the info with her. She calls me back with the reply "Your not going to be happy and you're probably call and yell at them." About two hours earlier they sent the computer to Hewlett Packard and it's going to be another two weeks (I'm confused with a little bit of anger with that). The reason they sent it out today was they tried call all week, but never got a reply. They decided to call the old house number that was on the original receipt. Could be considered an honest mistake until you realize that they require alternative numbers when we turned in the computer to get it fixed. They had BOTH cell phone numbers. The kid tried to put the blame on The Wife; all she had to do was change the number with customer services and none of this would have happened. No you young punk, you had two other numbers and no one called them. That sent me over the edge and I immediately called them to get answers.


After multiple calls and being told to calm down (I may have yelled, but I did have a little decorum, I did not call the guy names and did not you an profanity. My goal was to show anger with my voice, try not to demand anything but make sure they understand I am going to swallow someone's soul if this does not get fixed) they finally give an OK solution. They are going to upgrade the computer so that I get an extra gigabyte of RAM and I get a dual possessor, that soothed me a bit. They got a hold of UPS and the computer is still in town and they are going to get it back and I may get some of the info on the old computer back. We can get all files back, but we have to reinstall all programs. This causes a few problems, I have a Strat-O-Matic baseball game and I have to call the company and get all the codes reactivated... that can take a week.


I was content with everything and I am ready to leave, they hand me the paperwork, but no computer. They have to install all the anti-virus and spyware so I now get put to the back of that line. We may see the computer tomorrow. Once the warranty expires I am not going back to the Geek Squad, I'd rather go to the little mom and pop place in Wake Forest that has helped us in the past.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but...

Get a Mac and you won't have to worry about the Geek Squad.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and about my iPod... I've had the same one now for about 2 years.

I will say - and it pains me to do so - that my iMac had a drive that died. In fact, it was the only drive on the machine, and it died. But, it was over 2 years old, and I had an external.

And what does it say about the value of a Mac that I was able to sell the thing on eBay for a decent amount even with that defective drive. And I clearly put that on the ad.

AaronG said...

I was going to recommend the same things as Levy. Get a Mac. Especially the new iMac.

I've had my iBook G4 for two years. No problems. Had my iBook G3 for two years until the Mrs. dropped it. Even then it still worked but not consistently.

Also, you don't need spyware and antivirus crap.

And my iPod had some bugs. Stopped working the day after the warranty expired. Talked to the nice lady at Mac. Gave me a brand new iPod regardless.

Get a Mac.

Anonymous said...

I might as well jump on the pro-Mac wagon while we are on it. I too had problems with my hard drive similar to yours Jeremy. I took to the the Apple store and they tested it. The guy said the drive may be going bad, please back up your files. In the meantime, after you back up your files reformat your hard drive and bring it in if that doesn't solve the problem. I did that and all is fine. Regardless, Apple has pretty good service and the hard drive would have been covered if it failed.

Get a Mac.

J Dog said...

I've looked at MAC, it's just the price. I just think it was a bad DVD drive and the computer is fine. The Wife wants a laptop and of we can ever afford it I might try a iMac, but that might be a while.

Anonymous said...

Stick with PCs J-Dog, don't be tempted by the dark side!