if you think best buy is so good maybe you need too drop by www.bestbuysux.org and see what you think of best buy now. first off there extended warranty they offer is a total joke. i would never in a million year make any big purchase from best buy. there warranty is nothing more than a scam to just take your money.

Just a question,
I am a Best Buy employee in Ontario, Canada, and yes, I also work in the computer department.
My question to you all is, if you think we're lying to you, why do you honestly think that? Yes, there are some associates who might not know the specifications on every single product in their department, or you may have pulled them from their department to ask them questions relating to a product they don't sell (This happens on essentially an hourly basis). It may just be me because I happen to like my job and helping others, but I very rarely see an associate (in my department at least) intentionally lying to a customer. And the ones that have...don't work there anymore. The point is, all Best Buy associates (Canadian and U.S.) are non-commissioned sales assoicates, so we really have nothing to gain by providing false information. Yes, we don't know 100% of the specifications of every single product we carry, but it is kind of hard when each department deals with thousands of products. And the people who do their homework, either A) don't need help selecting products, or B) Shop online because they hate sales associates. We are there to provide help to people who need it. And you know what, I've done my time in fast food as well. Anyone who has had a job holding a spatula and making burgers, is empathetic to those in fast food. But there are some people who complain just for kicks, and take out their frustration on anyone who they know can't yell back.
So the next time you go into a store, try giving the folks there a break, they're there to perform a job just like the rest of you. And as I said, it may just be bad experiences from different perspectives, but there are half a dozen different big box electronic retailers in my city, and only one is non-commission, and our customer traffic is higher than almost all the other stores combined because of the fact we go out of our way to help our customers.

Who cares...several of the Geek Squad "garages," have closed down in our area.

The're High School grads or recient tech school grads looking for their first job.

Give the kids credit for getting their first job in the IT world, but they're hacks at best.

What a group of morons. Those ugly outfits, ugly cars, and misleading name. There is no point in even going to that store, DVD's are cheaper @ Target or WalMart...Computer parts are cheaper @ Fry's or online.

Besy Buy was cool when I was 12, spending my dads money.

First off, id defenitly pick Bestbuy over Walmart(its a dump!) and theres no frys around here. Plus games are cheaper at bestbuy. Walmart never has the games.

Shop Walmart online.

Go to NewEgg or any of a number of other alternatives!

In my experience, if you're in the computer repair business then you have pirated software. It's funny, but that's how they do business. I'm not saying that's how it is for every singe repair shop, I just know people who work for a few places, and I'd say that this is the norm.

Yah, it would save alot of money.

i'm have my own computer repair business and i'm thankful that the Geek Squad is in my area.i have in the last two weeks,repaired five Geek Squad networking setups that they did.and they claim that the Geek Squad members are all MSCE.

i'm have my own computer repair business and i'm thankful that the Geek Squad is in my area.i have in the last two weeks,repaired five Geek Squad networking setups that they did.and they claim that the Geek Squad members are all MSCE.
--------------------------------------------
I'm very happy to report that Best Buy has never, ever steered me wrong. I'm happy also to say that I'm glad that you and your shop are not in my area.

quote: they claim that the Geek Squad members are all MSCE.

Yeah, just like all McDonald's burger flippers are certified chefs(even if they wanted to, how could they budget for all those salaries?) ROTFFLMMFAO

I actually know for a fact that isn't true-- a couple of high school kids who were promoted from the floor...

"I'm happy also to say that I'm glad that you and your shop are not in my area."

Where the hell did that come from? Did he insult you? Anyone?

Nice uncalled-for slam from left-field, there, bud.

It's all about the claim... McDonald's doesn't claim their "burger flippers" are certified chefs... try to get a better analogy next time.

That was a slam, :p.

Point taken!

In fact, you could go further and debate as to whether McDonald's is even in the "food" market at all!

It helps to remember who Winternals are. Winternals and Sysinternals are one and the same. I'm sure the only reason this is showing up in court is because BB & GS are not playing fair. (Sysinternals is the group who broke the Sony rootkit story). Unless they have had a management shakeup I truely doubt they are doing this for the publicity.

Well if they were on a "trial-and-test agreement" just over a month ago, I can see this happening but also a cheap shot at BB/GS for just not being timely. I don't think it was BB's intention to defraud anyone and this is Winternals way of making themselves known to the immediate public by latching on to something good.
I seriously doubt Geeksquad 'needs' Winternals on any level and Winternals is just sore about loosing the licensing agreement with a multi-million(maybe billion) dollar firm.

Best Buy is an overpriced store anyhow-- they just know how to market themselves better, and as well are fairly adept at store design: and that's what one's paying extra for.

But as far as getting tech support from such an institution, they're just as inept as most of their competition-- it's in one's best interest to do ALL their homework prior: most employees are just a bunch of illiterates-lucky-to-not-be-flipping-burgers that do not know even the products they carry, make up bs answers to spec queries, outright lie to suit their sales purposes, etc.

Well. I am a happy Best Buy employee. I assure you that we are more than just a bunch of illiterare burger flippers. Best Buy is the largest electronics retailer and are not overpriced. If we were overpriced, we would loose business to our competitors.

hahaha
I hope this is a joke. Nice spelling! If you are 'illiterare[sic]', you are going to 'loose[sic]' my business. :-p

OUCH, billern!!!

GJM1989: You sir may be an exception, but asking any pimply-faced salesman a tech question-- at ANY store, not just yours-- is like asking a busboy in a restaurant a question about the wine list. Worse though, "I don't know" seems not a part of their vocabulary-- and even worser(g)-- they flat out lie whenever a cheaper product has better specs...It's like shopping at a store of budding future car salesmen!

Not more expensive? Yeah, that WAS a joke-- check out all the deal sites to confirm where the majority of bargains are, and who gets mentioned seldom........But hey, more power to you guys: it's like the Pepsi vs. Coke-- the former wins the blind taste tests, the latter carries the higher pricing AND the lion's share of sales %.
All the best to you guys-- keep selling a lot.

hahaha! Yeah, sounds like a Best Bull$hit salesperson!

My experience with Best Buy has been no different from other big box electronics stores, it's*** and miss in finding a rep that knows anything besides prices or doesnt BS their way through a sales pitch.

Gah!

Pepsi? Wins taste tests? Damn. I must have a lower tolerance level for "Sweetness". Pepsi tastes *way* too sweet to me. Like Coke, but with extra Nutra-Sweet, just for fun.

*grin*

You know, I totally agree with you-- & that's the other part I don't understand: how they win the taste tests to begin with.
Two other great sodas: Hansen's Grapefruit(out west mostly) & Dr.Brown's Black Cherry.

You do lose business to others. You just never hear about it. Those of us that educate ourselves before we buy, never come in your store.

Not over priced? I just purchased a router from another store for $133.99, Best Buy price was $179.99. No rocket science here.

Had the Dr. Browns. Never seen Hansen's I'll keep an eye out. :)

I run a consulting company here in my area and I personally never buy things from Best Buy. They are not computer store. They barely carry anything that I would ever need. I can go to CompUSA and get a discount just for being a company. And for even lower prices I could go to local computer supply stores that have a 2 year replacement guarantee for any parts my business purchase. Best buy is the Fred Meyer of computer stores. There is no benefit of going there vs. anywhere else that sells washers, dryers, and a car stereo amp in the same store. Geek Squad? hehe.. they pay them like 10 dollars an hour?... Isn't that McDonalds manager pay? oh well.. I guess you get payed for what you know.

Brian Aldridge
http://www.BoiseComputerService.com
http://www.BoiseComputerService.net

You must be the only exception then. I have invariably found Best Buy employees and managers to be complete idiots. And, you are indeed way over-priced.

There goes Geek Squad! They were good though, good for messing systems up. About 1/3 of my customers are ones who tried Geek Squad out only to pay hundreds of dollars just to be with yet another broken computer. I use 100% legal software, they should too. Fine them up the ying yang and make sure to put a dent in their company.

by the way, those stupid VW's they drive in make me gag. :S...

at least they're not driving priuses ... then i would have to kill them. then again i want to kill most of the people driving my car. that's right ... it's my car.

Same here with my clients (and myself)--I simply refuse to use or install illegal software (a.k.a stolen intellectual property). I also will not perform repairs a computer that I know is running illegal software.

Yes, it has cost me some business, but I didn't desire the vast majority of those individual or firms as clients anyway. They were cheap tightwads that wanted every corner cut--only to complain about any and all problems being my fault later on. I have no problem walking away from those people.

Maybe i'm slow at catching on to best buy's angle on this.

wouldn't they just have to buy 1 copy for each service department. i mean, how many copies could u use at the same time? u never have to install it, just move it from computer to computer as needed.

is there some sort of screwed up licence agreement i'm not aware of that makes u pay everytime u use it? i'd think that would be like limiting the number of times u could use a scewdriver or any other tool.

anyway, what could 1 or 2 copies per service dept. cost? i'd think it would be pennies to best buy.

It all depends on how they license it.

The licensing methods most commonly used are: Per user or per system. If it's per system, then it would cost them a whole lot more, since every place they use it would need an individual license.

Per user (or technician) allows them to license it to each geek squad employee, allowing them to use it on as many computers as possible.

The GeekSquad isn't a service department, they drive to peoples homes in black & white VW bugs, so every squad would need a copy of the software.

Maybe they bought 1 copy for GeekSqad and they copied it to ALL the Best buy locations...

They work on many machines at once, and depends on which software suite they are using from Winternals.... maybe each copy can be used on different machines.

You don't expect GeekSquad to have more than 1 machine in for repair? Everytime I go to Best buy, there is a line of people.

I am thinking they probably have 6-8 machines being worked on at once.. at least 2 or 3.

They might do that, but they have a presence in every best buy, at least in GA they do.

So there is the service department.

Technical terms are:

1. per license
2. per seat

For your description, per license means one for every person that uses the software. This basically means that if they use the software or have the software installed on 200 systems at a time, only 200 licenses are needed. Buying "per-seat" means they have it installed and used everywhere at once, all of their bases get covered that way.

However, Best Buy would almost have to license per seat--even though the software is not being used by every tech at the same time, they would need to be able to transport the "license" or copy between each Geeksquad group almost instantly in theory.

"Per License" is basically used strictly on networks. Lets say you own some company that has 200 data-entry employees who use Microsoft Access 2000 (just example) for data entry. Every PC on the network needs the software installed, but all 200 computers will not use the program at one time. You determine, looking at employee schedules and leaving some extra headway, that in worst case scenario only 180 computers will have to use the program at the same exact time. Answer? Buy 180 "per license" copies of Access.

If BB used per license though, GeekSquad would have to use the software strictly from the network at Best Buy or whatever. No problem there. However, the techs would be unable to do any system recoveries at the customer's house. THERE'S THE PROBLEM.

GeekSquad is known as the company that can do it all in-home. The problem is that in some cases, legally they cannot. So BB would have to buy per-seat licenses to give every Geek Squad tech a CD. Super $$$. BB realised they messed up because they want to promise that they can fix PCs onsite when others cannot, but they would spend millions extra just in licensing.

By the way, this is exactly why cheap PC manufacturers want to provide depot warrenty instead of onsite repair. It's all about software.

Ah, so that's they they want you to send it to them..

It's possible they could also license it per technician. This would enable every geek squad employee to use it on any number of computers they need to.

An example of a program that uses this method is dameware (www.dameware.com). I could buy a copy for myself and install it on as many systems as I want.

Most software licensing agreements arent licences to a user but to a computer, giving the consumer who bought the software licence to use said software once it is installed on that single computer.

Some software developers have volume licencing that allows for multiple copies to be purchased at a reduced rate.

some software developers further have corporate licensine, allowing a single copy of software to be installed and used across multiple computers by multiple users.

sounds to me that what best buy and the geek squad needs is the third, a corporate edition.

This does not surprise me. I've actually seen evidence personally of GeekSquad members using pirated Windows product keys and such for systems that had no recovery discs. I've even seen them install XP PRO on someone's PC that came with XP MCE. Granted, these cases are likely isolated, separate from Best Buy's supervision, but IMO Best Buy didn't care to monitor the perfoprmance or issues when they used BancTec, why would Geek Squad be any different?

good for Winternals
GeekSquad SUCKS !!

Totaly Agree

LOL. Residential IT services thrive on pirated software based on the fact that home users willing to pay for IT services at proper rates are scarce and few.

Use of Open Source Software as alternatives is certainly a way to take away software cost from labor, however, in this case, Winternals is a professional application suite that serves GeekSquad well.

Winternals does make some good utils, probably the best now that Norton, Vcom and everybody else seems to SUCK so mightily. Geek Squad is a joke - everybody in the business knows it and they'll be gone in a couple of years. I'll give Best Buy the benefit of the doubt for the moment..I've yet to come across anything that impunes their reputation. Circuit City, OTOH, is a den of cheats and deceivers. You gotta have your A-game ready before dealing with them.

Cheats and deceivers that sell stuff for 40% less. :)

A long time ago I checked Best Buy to see some of the prices they were selling things for. Other places like newegg offered the same stuff for half price. Tiger direct was half price + shipping. Circuit City was roughly 60% the price, but they're retail.

I've never recommended anyone get something at Best Buy...so I'm not suprised. :P

OH right, Circuit City, not CompUSA, my bad.

Which one had the Divx debacle? CC?

OK, that's inflating the problem....just a WEEEEEE bit don't you think?

Half price? PLEASE! its not that much. I use newegg too, but sometimes, Best Buy has good deals, especially on movies.. You make it seem like EVERYTHING they sell is double the street price, not true.

I shop at Best buy regularly. I pay a little extra from time to time, because its local and very convenient. Lately, I buy stuff on line, and end up sending it back, which is WAY too much inconvenience for me, so I pay more for local service...

Unless its something like a CDR or something, I buy electronics at Best Buy. Plus Best Buy will price match, I don't know what city you live in but, we have a local distributor that sells retail, and I can get Best Buy to price match..

Therein lies the problem, that distributor never has anything I want in stock, so off to best buy I go. There are like 15 within a 40 mile radius of my house.... ONE of them will have what I am looking for.

quote: Geek Squad is a joke - everybody in the business knows it and they'll be gone in a couple of years...
I agree with the sentiment: I've seen a coupla them post on tech boards, and their knowledge leaves a lot to be desired-- worse yet, I didn't see the necessary effort nor problem-solvine skills: things like posting queries, and just waiting for answers to rain down from the heavens over several days, no methodical troubleshooting(not trying all suggestions & eliminating steps offered).
However, don't be too sure--the pablum-feasting masses are quite taken with them:
i hear comments at BB like,"Ooh, i'm gonna ask the Geek Squad if i should try this", etc.

Best Buy shot themselves in the foot when they ousted BancTec. Some BancTec techs are bad apples--but they are one of the best service providers overall IMO. Unysis is pretty good too, DecisionOne is good half the time, QualxServ is finally trying to get their act together, IMO it's too late for them...ServiceElectronics sux horribly 90% of the time. Tandy service techs are even worse, the few computer techs that remain in Tandy, anyway.

Not really. At the time I was looking for computer parts(which is virtually all I buy online).

---Videocard---
Newegg: $160
TigerDirect: $160+Shipping
Circuit City: $210
BestBuy: $280-$20 rebate!

---Usb Memory Stick---
Newegg: $48
TigerDirect: $60-$15 rebate
Circuit City: $99
BestBuy: $140!

---Sweet LCD Monitor---
Newegg: $450
TigerDirect: $430+Shipping(+$80!)
Circuit City: $560
BestBuy: Unchecked.

Just my personal experiences, but I can't recommend them for anything electronic. :P

How can you compare internet prices to your local parts store? I can go to any city and compare their prices with ones over the net and get it at a better savings. There are things called "middle men" that retailers have to pay to get their products as well as shipping, getting more expensive by the minute due to current gas prices, that all drive the prices. Yes I can buy from Newegg and get things cheaper all day but if I go to the nearest competitor they are close in cost and BBY has better prices on most of them or will match it if you know how to ask. They are overpriced on some things but not all. Also they are a geneeral electronics and do not carry things that the super tech savvy buyer is looking for, they cater to the general masses most times.

As for the Geek Squad there are no claims where I am of being "Microsoft Certified" just A+ Certified but I do not know if they all have that. Yes I work for BBY and have for 5 years and I do admit the Geek Squad guys do well for most people but yes there are things beyond their scope of knowledge and I have better network skills then some in my store. I am sorry for the false claims elsewhere but if you know you need more specialized help then going to the local big box store to get it may not be the best choice.

Side note: look for the part time employee because most of us are professionals from other businesses trying to suppliment their income :).
I also have years of programming from the days of DOS and build my own PC's but I work in the Home Theater dept. :)

Wow, amazing. For the first time, I know ALL the litigants in a case! Cool.

I tried the Winternals Suite, its good software.

Best buy sublets to GeekSquad, but I don't know of anyone that actually has used their service..

Apparently all of the Geek Squad "tried" it, too.

tell me it isn't so oh the horror or it all I am so disappointed

You're not required to comment on a story.

that would be a great mantra around here.

now that's funny... wonder if the person who broke of those contract talks is worried.

never really cared for GeekSquad either, but sounds like they were caught in the middle on this one.

Not surprising in the least. Best Buy is the scummiest of scum; their corporate mantra has always seemed to be that rules and laws don't apply to them. I hope Winternals takes 'em to the cleaners.

What? Where did you hear this? Are you stealing words from Drumcat again?

Drumcat, I think you should sue for the unlawful use of *mantra*

Best buy is a good company, now CompUSA, Houston, we have a problem!

I imagine a *lot* of retailers, repair shops break *lots* of licensing rules.

When companies go after companies, everyone wins.

Its sad, but its probably so true *sigh*

except the company that loses? :P

Its really awesome software too.

Funny all this time I thought they used FirstDefense-ISR.