Should You Call The Geek Squad? - Comments Page 2

Never used Geek Squad of any similar service. I had my BIOS go belly-up and took my 'brick' to C&C. (Chuck and Cathy) I found them in the want ads in the local paper. C&C does other stuff like small appliance repair, (which is a dying art) and he's a down-home type of dude. He wanted to know If I wanted to learn how to do what he was gong to do and I jumped up and down yelling, "YesYesYesYes!"
He showed me what he was doing and told me what, why and how and got me up and running in about 10 minutes. Total cost $20.
If I'm stymied with a computer glitch be it hardware, software, malware or something between the chair and the keyboard he get all my business.
He isn't a member of any franchise, he's just a 'good ol' boy' playing with things for the fun of it. My sweetie was playing with kittens and chatting with Cathy while I got some education.

I have very little tech knowledge and have used GEEK Squad twice after friends tried to work out my computer problems.
GEEK is *very* expensive, both home visits cost $300, but it took them about 2 hours each time to correct the problems on my 5-yr old Dell desktop.
They are very professional and cleaned out my computer so that it's running like new.
However, and that's a big however, I could have bought a new computer for the price.

Just bought an external hard disc at Best Buy, and asked a kid in a Geek Squad shirt about partitioning it to handle image backups from three computers. Had I taken his advice I would have been in deep trouble.

The Staples crew who prowl their stores seem quite knowledgeable but I am not happy about the extra (and useless) "services" they sold my daughter when she bought a new computer there recently.

My local hole in the wall shop does a good job mechanically, but after I bought a computer there I found my Chinese wasn't good enough to explain how I wanted the hard disc partitioned, and I had to do it myself at home.

I find online sources - Microsoft Knowledge Base, Bob Rankin and similar gurus, manufacturer help desks and all my best first source.

I used the Geek Squad when I was having trouble with my wireless connection. The guy was very nice, talked my head off, said he fixed it, got me online and then gave me his cell # and told me to call direct if I had a problem. A few days later, the same problem. I called his cell and he threatened to report me for bothering him. I called Geek Squad and they wanted to charge me again for the same problem. I never used them again

Your article does not do justice to people with PC problems. There was an extensive study done on many repair services only to show that almost all of them are there to make money and make money only. One simple repair (deliberately induced) got estimates from $150 to $2000. There was nothing wrong with the PC--a simple 60 second repair. When confronted with this they all had various excuses. One said the technician was fired, but is still there. The technician was only doing their will.

EDITOR'S NOTE: When people talk about some "extensive study" without quoting the source, I always have reservations about posting their comments. Yours would be much more credible if you could provide a link to the article in question.