Sounds believable, particularly when Geek Squad itself is basically a scam.
“Before you leave with your new overpriced laptop, would you like to pay an extra $200 for one of our underpaid kids fresh out of high school to Google problems for you for a year?”
Anyone who falls for that is likely to fall for whatever else happens to them with technology.
I knew a guy who worked there around 2007-2008. They had so many customer complaints about Vista that the manager told the employees to suggest installing XP on new machines. Imagine paying for a new PC, then paying another ~$400 for a Geek Squad employee to sell and install an outdated OS. Insane.
100%, and Vista was a hot garbage RAM hog. It’s still extortionate to charge that much more on a new PC, especially considering they probably had a working XP key on their old machine.
I’ve been in IT for about a decade now. And I Google stuff all the time to fix issues for our company. But I just know what to look for to find the solution. Most people don’t or are too afraid they may make things worse… which could happen… so they need these services.
And yes, Geek Squad is likely not the best solution, but better for these people to go to the store with their paid service than to call some random number on screen when a “virus alert!” comes on blaring. The problem occurs when the number on screen shows a Geek Squad logo next to it.
Sounds believable, particularly when Geek Squad itself is basically a scam.
“Before you leave with your new overpriced laptop, would you like to pay an extra $200 for one of our underpaid kids fresh out of high school to Google problems for you for a year?”
Anyone who falls for that is likely to fall for whatever else happens to them with technology.
I knew a guy who worked there around 2007-2008. They had so many customer complaints about Vista that the manager told the employees to suggest installing XP on new machines. Imagine paying for a new PC, then paying another ~$400 for a Geek Squad employee to sell and install an outdated OS. Insane.
Tbf, XP was solid though
100%, and Vista was a hot garbage RAM hog. It’s still extortionate to charge that much more on a new PC, especially considering they probably had a working XP key on their old machine.
I mean, there’s not that much else you can do if someone doesn’t like Vista. Maybe disable some Vista-specific behavior.
Booting the OS took like 1.5 GB of RAM. Base models shipped with 2 GB of RAM in 2007. There was no saving it. Lol
Charging for a new copy of XP, when the customer likely already owned a copy on their old machine, plus charging $100 to install is criminal.
I’ve been in IT for about a decade now. And I Google stuff all the time to fix issues for our company. But I just know what to look for to find the solution. Most people don’t or are too afraid they may make things worse… which could happen… so they need these services.
And yes, Geek Squad is likely not the best solution, but better for these people to go to the store with their paid service than to call some random number on screen when a “virus alert!” comes on blaring. The problem occurs when the number on screen shows a Geek Squad logo next to it.