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 Imagine paying for a new PC, then paying another ~$400 for a Geek Squad employee to sell and install an outdated OS.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.
Best Buy primarily exists for people who don’t understand they can find a better deal online, so that doesn’t exactly shock me.
But what if I enjoy paying full MSRP for absolutely everything, but also demand – I say, demand – to be constantly told that nothing is in stock? There’s no substitute for that kind of service.
I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t gone the way of Circuit City at this point.
The article states it’s scammers posing as Best Buy’s Geek Squad or Microsoft employees offering support. It’s not new. The same thing happened with AppleCare several years ago.
They use spoofed ID calls or emails to trick the victim into thinking they’re the real deal. Once they get the victim to enable remote access, they take what they want then charge the victim as if they had helped them.
I get that, but what I’m saying is that these people were conned by falling for the idea of Geek Squad being something worth paying for in the first place. So they’re conning someone who was already conned.
I used bestbuy to price match amazon. Got a new stereo source delivered to the store for the same price and could refuse delivery if it was fucked up there on the spot. Worth the effort enough I did the same thing with a TV and both times made a decent savings vs what bb was charging. The TV I saved a hundred bucks but once again I actually picked the TV from the pallet of them. The source I got price matched 1100 dollars off. They have a use but I miss the days of going there for CDs or movies or playing in the giant car stereo sections.
Because the attackers know that if you shop at best buy or use geek squad, you’re likely an easy target with money.
