YT Video - Computer Repair Fraud [BestBuy, CompUSA, Fry's, GeekSquad]

[madog]

I'm working at an Apple Reseller store on x-mas eve a little hungover and tired, so naturally I'm going to be browsing youtube videos all day.

I thought this was pretty ridiculous since we're also an authorized warranty/service center and our direct competition is the CompUSA literally across the street from us. Then again it isn't all that surprising considering the people who have come here with CompUSA "repairs" that we've had to re-repair. Honestly, we had some adorable little grey-haired-old-lady come in with a unit that they charged $200+ [she showed us the reciepts] to rig the 56k modem after an electrical storm [the port was fried, so instead of replacing it, they took it out, and soldered a foot long phone cord from the modem underneath the mlb through the hole in the back of the machine where the modem port used to be]. It was pretty disgusting.

Not that CUSA isn't a fine retailer of other fine crap but rather because they were the only Apple authorized service center for a while in this town; and we [along with most of out customers] are required to dislike them.

Anyway, here's the link:

YouTube video

Oh, and basically the video shows a news team who unplug their IDE cable from the internal drive and take it in for repairs. They get charged over $100 from just about all the places. A couple charged full price to actually "fix" [plug the IDE back in] and most just ripped them off and were trying to charge for a new power supply or mlb or something.

 

[mkrishnan]

I didn't get to watch the video because YouTube was being a bit flaky for me...

Computer repair does seem awfully dicey. I've been very fortunate. Although, I do have to say, in terms of their technique in simulating a defect, it sounds like (without having gotten to see the video yet) they were trolling. If someone came to me and said their computer, which had been working, suddenly stopped working, and I opened it up and found an internal cable completely unplugged (come now, the IDE cable is not going to just fall out of its socket), I would personally not feel bad charging them full price to make a repair on something like that. I might sometimes be nice, too, but I would not feel bad about charging in a situation like that where the user clearly is not being honest.

 

[madog]

I didn't get to watch the video because YouTube was being a bit flaky for me...

Computer repair does seem awfully dicey. I've been very fortunate. Although, I do have to say, in terms of their technique in simulating a defect, it sounds like (without having gotten to see the video yet) they were trolling. If someone came to me and said their computer, which had been working, suddenly stopped working, and I opened it up and found an internal cable completely unplugged (come now, the IDE cable is not going to just fall out of its socket), I would personally not feel bad charging them full price to make a repair on something like that. I might sometimes be nice, too, but I would not feel bad about charging in a situation like that where the user clearly is not being honest.

Sometimes it's necessary to lie in order to discover the truth. Probably not the best policy around but, hey. Charging for labor for plugging it in, not too bad, I know exactly what you mean, if that's all you do and you tell the truth then no problem. Otherwise, if lying means you can find out if a store has less-than-savory business ethics then I think it's worth it. If their willing to say an unplugged IDE cord problem requires a new power supply/logic board then those people are either down right stupid and/or scummy people.

 

[mkrishnan]

If their willing to say an unplugged IDE cord problem requires a new power supply/logic board then those people are either down right stupid and/or scummy people.

Yeah, I did finally get it to play, and the stores where they were insistent on power supply failures, etc, were pretty bad.