Posted 05/22/09 at 08:43:28 AM by Paul Lilly

As if Geek Squad, the PC repair portion of mega electronics chain Best Buy, needed any more damage to its geek cred, it went and got punked by a local Oregon Fox News team. But what's most surprising is how easily the undercover news team did it.

Taking a problem-free PC, the investigators pulled the IDE cable out of the hard drive and told local PC repair shops in the Portland-Metro area that the system wouldn't boot. This included a pair of Geek Squad locations, the first of which identified the problem and fixed it free of charge. Kudos then, right?

Wrong. The second Geek Squad location charged $70 off the bat for a diagnosis, which isn't particularly egregious. But after two days of waiting, a tech called back to inform the undercover team that their hard drive was broken. If that weren't bad enough, the tech claimed it would cost up to $580 to fix the problem! That's not all. Geek Squad said it found a virus and suggested that the 'owner' buy a new PC instead of having the 'broken' one repaired.

"We take any misdiagnosis very seriously, and I personally feel horrible that we missed this opportunity to be consistently accurate," Steve Carter, Geek Squad District Manager, wrote in a statement. "I'm working closes with my Geek Squad agents going forward to ensure that the highest level service is maintained consistently for our customers in Portland."

Watch the undercover video here.

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Posted 04/29/08 at 07:24:01 PM by Paul Lilly

Undercover team challenges computer repair shops to diagnose dislodged RAM, Dell and HP putting XP on extended life support, a DNF update, and much more!

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