UPDATE: Staples Rebuts “Charge Senior Citizen $390 For Basic Computer Repair” Post
Reader Michael watched incredulously as a Staples tech tried to convince a senior citizen that his computer wouldn’t work properly without repairs costing almost $400.The senior, who had been lulled into Staples for a free tune up that suddenly cost $39.99, didn’t understand why he needed to spend money on a “diagnostic screening ($49.99), virus removal services ($150), and more RAM (~$150).” Michael intervened and offered to look at the computer free of charge. He couldn’t believe what he found when he popped open the computer.
He writes:
Thought your readers might find this information useful. While making a return at Staples (800 Lexington St, Waltham, MA), I happened to hear an elderly gentleman disputing a service charge. He had brought his PC in for a free “tune up,” and now was being charged $39.99 for that service, plus the service technician was explaining that he needed to purchase a diagnostic screening ($49.99), virus removal services ($150), and more RAM (~$150) to get his computer working. His PC had four viruses, the technician explained, but they would need to run the diagnostic to determine the extent of the infections and to determine if any hardware needed to be replaced.Having done PC repairs for pizza money in high school, I couldn’t stand to watch a senior citizen get bilked that much to simply have anti-virus installed, run, and then (presumably) removed since it was just a “service.” I stepped in and offered to take a look at his computer for free, though I couldn’t make any promises about fixing it. The technician glared at me, but when the gentleman took me up on the offer he left us alone. I made my returns and followed the man to his house to see what I could do (OK, maybe I’m too trusting but I figure at 6’3″ and 230, there’s not much and 70 year old can pull on me).
He explained that his computer had worked well enough for e-mail and web surfing, but after he took it in for the free diagnostic it wouldn’t start up anymore. Sure enough, we plug his Gateway in and nothing: The monitor doesn’t even flicker, even though the power button turns green. I insert a live CD I’d brought along, and still no luck. I double checked that everything had been just fine before taking it in: He hadn’t dropped it on the way to the store, hadn’t ever opened the case up. He said the technicians had told him he’d need to have virii removed and more RAM added; he suggested he might as well get a new computer if they were going to charge him $300. Seeing how not even the BIOS was showing up, I was starting to worry he was right.
I opened up the PC, expecting the worst: A melted motherboard, fried circuits, or worse, nothing visible at all. I poked and pushed all the parts, making sure everything was tightly pushed in. Everything seemed alright, until I came to the RAM: His DRAM had been partially ejected from its slot, which only could happen if the buttons that held it in place had been pushed. Since he had never opened the PC case up, there was only one explanation: While rummaging inside his computer, a technician had (accidentally or on purpose) hit the button and caused the damage that they were now trying to charge him $390+tax to fix.
I can’t see why a “tune up” would require opening the case, except to check and see how many open DRAM slots were available so they could push Staples products. Whatever the case, taking advantage of the elderly by throwing terms like “computer virus” when a hardware problem you caused stops you from even turning on the computer is downright dishonest, if not quite actionable. I even went through Staples pricing sheets afterwards, and none of the services they tried to upsell even appeared on the list.
Anyways, just a warning to your readers to watch out with Staples services. Probably no better or worse than any other big box assistance, but at list in this instance more than a little odious.
Drive past the big box stores when your computer breaks. Their employees are trained to upsell, not repair computers. Instead, seek out the young, the ones who aren’t old enough to hold advanced degrees or a driver’s license—those who can be paid with extended curfews are ideal. Then, watch in amazement as they sprightly get your computer back to checking AOL so you can forward us that hilarious email Snopes disproved last year.
It should be noted that several Staples techs have chimed in the comments here and on Digg to dispute the prices Michael reports. Here’s a comparison of Michael’s prices, the price Staples charges for in-store tech service, and the price Staples charges for at-home repairs.
It’s possible that the Diagnostic was rung up in-store, the virus removal was done at the on-site price and he got the number slightly off, and the tech was recommending Edge 2GB Kit PC3200 DDR Desktop Memory. So we can say Michael misremembered or misrepresented the prices, the tech was trying to meet quarterly sales goals, or the tech was new and mistakenly punched it the wrong price for the virus removal. The only weird thing under a “newbie/incompetent tech” scenario is that the tuneup price. Staples used to charge $39.99 but it was dropped to $29.99 mid-2007.
(Photo: Getty)
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Seniors quite often pay with cash. This might have been one employee trying to put together an imaginary work order to pocket some real cash.
@ slicenglide
Actually, the basic edition of AVG *is* free. From their website… [free.grisoft.com]
“AVG Anti-Virus Free is only available for single computer use for home and non commercial use.”
Maybe Spybot S&D is what you were thinking of, they make the app available free, but do encourage a you to make a donation if you find it useful.
funny, one of the things staples techs keep writing is how they open up the pc’s and vacuum, if they knew anything, its never vacuum a pc, you use a blower. you can fry a motherboard vacuuming through static electricity.
@adam_b:
Your Mac is broken; they aren’t supposed to behave like that. It’s possible that you have a bad RAM stick or your OS is pooched but what you are experiencing isn’t normal.
I had an iBook die on me out of warranty and my Macbook Pro would have kernel panics with 10.4.10 and WiFi. The first is probably due to the solder on the GPU cracking (it’s a known design flaw with that model) and the second was due to a buggy driver that didn’t like some base stations.
I own a few more models, administer some more models at work, and have a few co-workers that use other models. Overall, there have been very few complaints. The only other issues that I know of were heat issues with the 15″ Core Duo Macbook Pro (a well-known issue) and a burned out CRT on an old eMac (it was 3+ years old).
At the least, it’s easier to do research on them because there are so few models and any issues, no matter how minor (e.g., discoloration on the palm rests), ends up being well reported.
I have never understood why people aren’t afraid of fixing their own cars (or at least, checking their oil on the dipstick) yet are absolutely petrified of fixing their own computer hardware.
Think of it this way: do those who put parts together to make computers even have a clue of how they work? No, they’re low-paid assembly line employees who just stick parts in and connect cables. Putting a computer together is no more complicated than putting together an IKEA table.
I wouldn’t fault the older man for not knowing better, but come on, it’s not that difficult. In a few hours a person can learn all the maintenance necessary to fix their own PC or laptop. They only ways you can seriously damage your computer are fixing it while plugged in, forcing parts into their spaces, or dropping them.
Why people aren’t willing to learn anymore is beyond me. It used to be that to use a computer, you had to know something about the hardware, just like you do with a car; now people want a plug in appliance they can be ignorant of, like their TVs. As I said above, we don’t take that attiutude with cars, so why do it with another big ticket item that is easy to repair yourself?
@amv09: Actually HP is aware of wireless card issues with their broadcom wireless units, and actually is kind enough to repair them. HP is doing you a great favor by repairing your unit for free. If you want protection, send the unit to them insured… and take pictures before you have it sent off, have the pictures notarized… and then you’ll be in the good.
Ok so I understand down with the big box stores however lets look at this from another angle as well…When you have a medical issue do you go to a vet? Or the hospital where you have trained professionals to take care of you? Seems like you ran into a shady store and that comes from the management 9.9 times out of 10 not the company. Until you work for FREE don’t expect someone else to…
Also a post here for Michael who sent in this horrible part of Staples service. You can run a program called CPU-Z to check what processor the computer has, motherboard, and how much RAM there is, the speed it runs at, and how many slots occupied. All that without opening the case.
I have taken care of computers for many people who I would rather not see get ripped off by their local Best Buy, Circuit City, or other ones who charged ridiculous prices to do simple tasks. Plus, when I mention to someone they should buy a new computer, it is not a conflict of interest.
I agree it’s bullcrap. I also work at a Best Buy geek squad and we are trained to make the issue seem as bad as possible. Being computer savvy it’s always funny to hear the term computer fried I lost everything, because in most cases it can be fixed with proper troubleshooting. A quick fix to anything is to reset it to factory defaults and claim it was the only answer. Then charge them for a OS reinstall and say the hard drive fried for good measure.
@nytmare: Wrongly being an ass about the correct spelling of virii is ignorant as well.
@DJRanmaS: Ha. That’s such a broad blanket statement you know its untrue. Sure, you might not lose laptops, but I highly doubt no staples tech looks for porn.
@slicenglide: Our 25 p/h over head is alot cheaper then Staples. All my overhead is 1 or 2 burnt cds and gas.
I work at a local staples and I’ve never once seen anything like this happen. I’m aware that we’re told to upsale, but in general Our PC Tech guy is one of the best I know and he goes out of his way to try and prevent doing more work than necessary. The first thing any respectable tech would do if the system wouldn’t load to bios would be to make sure everything is plugged in inside of it.
I’m not saying staples is great in general, but i’d trust this guy with MY computer, even though i do tech on my, my families, and my friends computers. Please don’t think this story is the case at every staples.
@KJones: Better for us techs ;D But give it a few decades. People will be more willing to fix their own stuff.
@slicenglide: Notarization only proves you are who you are, not that the pictures are in any way factual.
@Jaysyn No, I’m not calling him a liar. Please learn to not read what you want to hear from comments but whats actually being said. Memory CAN work itself out over time. There’s no mention of the age, brand, build quality or anything else related to this store. I’ve seen laptops blue screen because the memory modules have loosened over time or from shock. Ditto to desktops, workstations and servers. The clamps can easily come lose over time let alone if it was worked on previously by someone else and not properly put back together. Im not saying it wasnt a mistake by the technician but we don’t TOUCH the memory; blowing the case out with compressed air isn’t going to shake a memory module loose either.
I’ve been an IT guy for 10yrs now; I’m not exactly new to this. Its true that the tech at that store might have been a lying, stealing idiot but I find it far more likely things were misinterpreted and conclusions were reached without supporting evidence.
@ShadowFalls: The staples techs use a similar application that does a more universal look at the system. Its Webroots PC Analyzer. It doesn’t provide as much indepth information as CPU-z or Everst but its much easier to read for the common lay person.
Interestingly enough, Circuit City’s “Firedog” is using it now as well.
@weave: Sounds a bit similar to what I experienced when my air conditioner wouldn’t blow cold air (in Sacramento… in the summer). I looked up 3 guys on Service Magic (which I had used prior) and ended up settling on one guy, he climbed up on my roof and ran some tests and came back down to show me pictures of what he had found. I can’t remember all the specifics, but he showed me wasps nests, said I was leaking freon, that some coils were bad… etc etc. All in all, over $1000 in repairs. I scheduled an appointment for him to come back and do the repairs. At the time, I was living alone – a single female who I guess he thought he could take advantage of.
In any case, I couldn’t afford his “repair” so I called my realtor (I was trying to get my home ready for sale at the time) and he suggested someone he had used in property management. My boyfriend happened to be over when the new guy showed up and went up on the roof to check out the unit. They come back down and the repair guy goes to his truck to get something and my boyfriend comes in with wide eyes. He tell me that there are NO wasps nests, that the unit is basically fine, but there’s some type of valve that’s been broken right off (we all think the original repair guy broke it) that needs to be welded back on and the the unit just needs to be cleaned out and recharged with freon. He came back the next day and did everything for $200. Unit worked perfectly after that.
As it turns out, the pictures the original repair person showed me of my unit weren’t even MY UNIT! What I described from the pictures didn’t match at all what my boyfriend saw when he was on the roof with the second tech. He knew I likely would never get up there myself and know the difference.
Many of the big box stores are an absolute scam on computer repair. I am a trained PC tech, and even though I work for a bank now, I still do service calls for friends and family.
Many of them will call Best Buy geek squad, and have them jack up their network, and charge them $149 for the service.
Then I will come in and fix their wrongdoings, and tune up the computers basically for beer money.
Its highway robbery. Installing ram on a laptop or a desktop takes no more than five minutes. If you are getting 100 in labor to do that service, its such a scam.
I wouldn’t even charge someone 100 dollars to build a pc from scratch.
Avoid Big Box stores like the plague. You’re way better off either taking it to someone you know that does computers or taking it to a locally run shop. If anyone is in NC in the Gastonia area there’s a great place called The Computer Guy. My DVD burner stopped working (ended up having to be replaced). They only charged me the $70 for the new DVD burner and about $25 for the labor. Plus while I was there, I asked the dude if he could pop some RAM in that I just bought (I could have done it myself but I figured since he had the case open) and he did it at no extra charge. So glad I didn’t go to Best Buy or any other chain place. Most of the time those people don’t know what they’re doing. I was browsing computers at Best Buy last year (I’d never buy from them I was just killing time) and this sales guy came over and started telling me all kinds of stuff that was 90% BS, but I just knew he was using this same spiel on less tech savvy customers and they were falling for it hook line and sinker. I cringe whenever I hear that someone took their comp to a place like that for repairs. They never escape for less than $400 and mostly on services that are either free if done yourself or completely unnecessary crap.
I hear that this is a scam perpretrated by lonely old men. They intentionally damage their PCs and wait in stores for helpful computer geeks and lure them into their homes, never to be seen again. You are luck you escaped with your floppy intact!
I remember encountering this same scenario at an old Gateway store. An elderly man was picking up his computer. They did something like install AOL and replace his mouse, for $200. And these prices were clearly listed on the wall. I know, if you are not technical, it is not unreasonable to pay the price for someone to do the work for you, but pricing should be based in reality. $99 to install AOL. AOL!!
@slicenglide: thanks for the info!
Kudos to Michael for helping out. And kudos to the elderly man for refusing to be ripped off by what amounts to a high pressure sales gimmick.
@failurate: I think your explanation makes the most sense.
I made a huge mistake by helping a client out at work who was having a bit of trouble with her computer. She had purchased a new mp3 player and wanted to install the software, but was a bit confused as to how to go about doing it. I walked her through it and she was quite happy.
Word spread from then on. I work in a campus-like setting as a personal care attendant and there are seven homes with 28 consumers. Many of them have computers and limited mobility. It started out as something I didn’t mind doing, running a virus scan, checking for bad parts/connections, but it soon became more of a burden than anything. I would be cleaning a client’s drive of virii and a week later have to do it again. Other employees were bringing their computers to work in order for me to “Take a look at them” without even asking if I had the time or would mind. I finally cut off all requests as it was causing me to get behind in my regular tasks. These same clients then complained to the management and I was called into the office to explain “why I didn’t feel like sharing my unique skills to benefit the clients?”
I explained to them that I was not employed as a computer tech and I wasn’t comfortable performing the service anymore. If they wished, I would continue to to perform the service, but I would have to re-negotiate my current wages. Management was a bit peeved as they hate having to deal with any consumer complaints at all, but accepted this answer. My boss actually asked me to “look at her printer” in this same meeting!
I don’t mind helping out once in a while, but I do have a problem with selfish, demanding people who think because I helped them out one time, that I am now some sort of free personal tech.
At my new job I plan to remain silent whenever computers are mentioned.
@failurate:
Youve got to me kidding me. Do not take this out on the employee. The Staples employee is commanded to upsell customers. It is his job to do this, not make moral judgements. Blame staples, but keep your sanctimonious opinions away from the sales associate! Hes just doing what he is told.
@ph0nk – Liar, you are the scum of this world and should pay the ultimate price for being that scum.
I can see charging $100 to install AOL, if you do it right. There’s a good bit of cleanup that needs to be done afterwards. Then, you have to log in, and go to keyword: settings. That brings up a screen with thousands of options. There’s a LOT of junk that needs to be turned off or altered. And the new 9.1 version hooks up a stunted version of Internet Explorer, even if you aren’t logged on!
A better way to use AOL is Firefox/adblock plus on over to AOL.com, and use Thunderbird to get your AOL email. A lot fewer headaches, that way.
“…seek out the young, the ones who aren’t old enough to hold advanced degrees or a driver’s license-those who can be paid with extended curfews are ideal. Then, watch in amazement as they sprightly get your computer back to checking AOL so you can forward us that hilarious email Snopes disproved last year.”
Or, you can look for somebody like me: a 53-year-old grandmother who rehabs computers for fun–and who takes care of her YOUNGER friends’ computer problems.
No need to be ageist. Geeks come in all age ranges.
@othium: Would you like a side of cries with your root tear float? What does this have to do with the article at all?
@cde: Better for us techs ;D But give it a few decades. People will be more willing to fix their own stuff.
In a few more decades, computers might be made too complex for anyone outside the industry to understand. Just as Microshaft hides APIs and forces software developers to tow their line, so might hardware manufacturers. Remember the DRM hard drive nonsense (Hitachi? Fujitsu?) from a few weeks ago?
I miss the good ol’ days of the Apple II when motherboards were simple enough that a willing learner could rewire the board or rewrite the operating system with enough knowledge. Today, things are too complex, even for those who know how things work.
I currently work at Staples as one of their EasyTechs. At least where I work the managers wouldn’t even allow me to pull crap like that even if I wanted too. I’ve done countless services for people that were either a lot cheaper than they were supposed to be or completely free. I refuse to charge some one $30 to install RAM. I’ve even agreed to come to customers’ houses to help fix their computers as just a guy who knows stuff about computers and not a Staples employee. Although our prices are better than the GeekSquad I still believe some services are overpriced.
As far as that tune up goes, that tune up should have been free. Our tune ups are free until may if I remember right. The managers at my store do push to upsell things but nothing like this. I upsell services that they may need for their computer like when I do a system recovery I ask them if they want me to back up their data for them. Or after the tune up and I actually think their computer needs more RAM I offer to install it for them(at $30 unfortunately).
Kudo’s for being an outstanding citizen, sir!
Staples is a terrible, terrible company. And we all know corporate is reading this which makes it even more funny. The main goal of each and every sales associate in Business Machines is to upsell, upsell, upsell. There were even stupid little competitions where you’d win something like $25 in Staples cash if you ripped off the most people in a certain period of time. Needless to say I never won, which didn’t bother me a bit.
The Staples that I worked at was store #1727 in NJ. The two managers Ed Liguori and Brian Mahan were among the two biggest sleazebags I’ve ever had the misfortune of working with. Aside from reprimanding employees who didn’t do enough upselling, these buffoons did little more than sit in the office and field personal phone calls all day. No joke! Everyone knew this but no one ever said anything. Stay far away from Staples and especially store #1727.
@Furyoffive: I don’t know what Staples you worked at, but in my district, we focus more on Customer Service than upselling.
@nachmanides: The same can be said about using compressed air… Go fig. :/
@cde: Broad my left foot. Not for nothing, but I know half of the techs in my district and I doubt they’d even try to pull that. I’d like to see you run a department by yourself be soley responsible for everything.
@jonworld: I can one-up you there, my local Staples replaced the only supermarket within 1 mile of my house. I can buy several varieties of fast food without going more than 2 blocks, but not a blasted tomato.
Great job Michael! Really great of you to step up like that.
I am a Easy Tech for Staples Store 1230 in Warwick, RI and yes a good bit of our tech services do suck. They are overpriced and require extra charges for even the simplest things. Now I try my hardest to push the envelope toward the customer ever time. I know of some of techs from other stores charging the $30 to install each bit of software someone wants in or not using the generic $40 charge for doing 2 or 3 little things in together. Yes staples is a company that wants to make money but the in store tech does have some wiggle room where he can truly help the customer and not rip them off at the same time.
Truly the best techs in any place are the ones that come in already fully trained and know what they are doing. I got the job there as i need money while in college and i can do the tech work in my sleep. But i have seen some techs they have brought in that should be fired on the spot because they need the stupid crappy staples tech training to know how to do it or rely on the system analyzer.
To any possible customers, talk to the tech before committing to any tech work. You should be able to tell if he is going to take you for a ride or if he is really willing to help you. Any tech from any major chain or even a small shop that doesn’t seem interested in truly helping you solve your problem isn’t the one you want fixing your pc.
a)good work, Michael.
b)i went into that staples when i was home for Christmas to pick up a freaking basic firewire cable so i could transfer files between my mom’s old Mac and new Mac. the cheapest one was $30 and i asked the sales dude if they had any less expensive ones…and the kid told me “that’s the cheapest there is, missy.” i high-tailed it to micro center and got it for $8 and they were nice to me. (this was about 10 minutes before i realized that in suburbia in MA, there’s about three wendy’s, two chipotles, and nothing else edible.)
c)i consider all big box stores untrustworthy by nature; it’s upsell and consume and lie to do it. i don’t even believe they approach competence so much as how to lie to do it. actually isn’t that how big box electronics stores work by nature?
@DJRanmaS: IIf I ran the department by myself, wouldn’t that be the best way of getting customer porn? No oversight on technical work.
Hey, another thing about staples. You know that ink recycling program they have? 3 ink cartridges for 5 bucks off or whatever? They just chuck the ink in their dumpster afterwards. They don’t recycle it. They don’t place it in the third part recycle box that they have around. Just straight to the WasteManagement Dumpster in the back. I have many a 3 bucks coupon for it.
@forgottenpassword: It’s called not having an option in a lot of cases. I live in a college town, and when you find job, you keep it. I have to pay for my housing and food, student loans pay for most of my tuition. I still have books and other school supplies as well. I get around ten an hour at Circuit City, and I do enough to keep my job. I help customers for free and give discounts (unbeknownst to the management) as much as possible. Especially with older people I will download drivers give them instructions to AVG and Ad Aware, etc. But if I don’t sell services, they will get rid of me and find somebody that will. As always, I can’t even vouch for other Circuit City stores, but I can tell you that I don’t recommend or charge for anything that isn’t necessary.
So, if you or anybody else is willing to pay me ten dollars an hour to not work there, by all means I will quit tomorrow. Until then, realize that for every loser like that willing to bilk an old man out of his money just for his performance review, there are people like me directing people to Target or Newegg or AVG whenever possible.
Paul writes:
“Hello, I am writing this in response to your story, and the readers comments, about the elderly gentleman and Staples Easy Tech. [[consumerist.com]] That was just one Staples, and one single Tech, yet most the comments reprimand ALL of the Techs, and ALL retail chain tech service places[OK, BB Geek Squad does suck] but not all of the Staples Tech Centers are bad, however, I can only I can speak for my store. We would never do that to a customer, even if they were total [expletives]. Sure, we would get as much as we could out of the horrible customers, but that was the extent of that.
This is both a “Confession of a Staples Tech” and correcting errors and hate speech made against Staples in the comments:
1) About the PC Tune-Up charge of $39.99, The regular price since October [when I started] has been $29.99, and has been free for a while, and will be until 6/31 unless they extend it again. And, yes, the Free PC Tune-Ups DO let us know if there is any other services we can offer, such as more RAM on an XP machine with only 128MB, offer a virus removal(we have had 4 or 5 zlob infections over the past month), or in a few cases telling them in nice terms their computer is a piece of crap, and they should look into a new system. Sometimes they look into one, other times they say no, and a couple times they bought one.
2) Yes, some services are over-priced, $60 for 4.7GB of data transfer/backup? That is a horrible price, if someone didn’t need their old system, I would recommend putting the old HDD in the new system, or to buy a good sized flash drive and do the transfer at home, unless they still wanted/needed the first system.
3) As for the prices and services offered, I don’t know why the tune-up was quoted as $40[Must have been a new guy? I don't know.] $50 for the diagnostic is a flat fee to assess is we are able to remove viruses/find the cause of a problem if it is unknown. We need to charge it, because if we charge for the virus removal, and we cannot remove it, we would need to refund that charge, and we would have nothing for the labor done for the attempt. The $150 quote for the virus removal is horribly wrong, why would the tech give the on-site price(well, close to it) for service that would have been done in-store? Also, we try to recommend a system restore if the person has a back up of their data, because it is cheaper, and also faster for both parties.
4)Answers to questions posed by commenter joedragon:
4a) Are you able to run Microsoft update or do they want you make customers pay more for that?
We have to charge a flat fee of the software install fee for all windows updates[one update = $30 and 20 updates = $30]
4b) How do you get parts that staples does not have?
If we need parts Staples does not carry, we tell the customer we cannot, and tell them either, they can order it themselves and then bring it in, or we use a place in Boston called Blue Raven, I do not know if they are just what our area uses, or what the whole company uses though.”
@jetsetter: Ed’s up to his old games, eh?
Time to throw in my 2 cents. I worked at a Staples in Canada for a year and a half. I was a sales associate who also happened to do Tech work when our technicians weren’t in or were too swamped to take care of everything they had to do. Staples does not train you to “upsell”. The thing my managers placed the biggest emphasis on was finding the product that is most appropriate for the customer’s needs. I don’t know if the training is different in the American chains from the Canadian ones, but associates don’t get commission, and the measures for performance have nothing to do with how expensive the laptop you sold is. In regards to technician services, you wouldn’t believe some of the crap I’ve had to deal with, and charged the customer next to nothing for it. I cleaned out a computer that had 20,000+ viruses on it and charged the customer just the $80 for virus removal. Some jobs take hours, some take a few minutes, but you can’t make your Anti-virus service on a per-virus basis. That computer I mentioned took about 8 hours to clean out, while some I’ve done only take 30 minutes or so. When I worked there, I made every effort to charge for cheaper services (or not at all), often opting to charge the $50 formatting charge instead of the $90 format+recovery (even though I performed the recovery as well).
I think you guys are just a bit too paranoid when it comes to these organizations. I’ve never once experienced one of my managers trying to “bilk” customers out of money. They care more about the customer service surveys and issues than they do about the laptop sale. I’ve seen them bend over backwards to satisfy unreasonable customers. So while this store in particular may have been shady, I don’t believe it’s a reflection of the chain as a whole. Most associates couldn’t care less whether you buy the shitty $500 Acer laptop or opt for the fully loaded Macbook Pro. They’re being paid just above minimum wage to help you make a purchase. They won’t benefit from you buying that Macbook. Trust me, I know.
@chubbycheese: Careful with that behavior. Technically speaking, what you described looks like unfair competition / stealing business opportunities from your employer, aka sufficient grounds to terminate employment. Unless Staples doesn’t offer the service you provide, you should be wary of any such requests. If a customer rejects Staples’ services, you might then offer your own discounted services, but your lower price /better service can’t be a part of the decision (you can’t let them know before they decide).
I have a sole prop appliance repair business(washers, dryers, refrigs, etc).
I had a call the other day about a washer that wouldn’t drain and could barely spin.
They sounded like an older couple and, the man seemed able to still do some repairs.
I walked him through what may be wrong and told him to call me if he needed more advice.
He called back and said my suggestion corrected the problem as, there was a towel stuck in the pump.
He asked my address and said they’d send me some $$.
I told him that it wasn’t necessary.
I said there’s more to life and beimng ok with yourself than taking someone’s money.
The insisted on sending me a check and said they saw my address in the phonebook.
I’ve often done things for older people who I know cannot afford my regular charges.
I don’t care as, I can afford to do this more than they can afford to pay someone.
Too many peoplle in my business have the attitude of, “It’s too expensive to repair but,I sell new ones.”
I hate that attitude.
I’ve always run my business like I do now and, I have people who will wait till I can get there rather than call someone else.
It’s so much easier to live with yourself if your like that.
Had a similar deal with my beloved Yamaha stereo. The led went out on the tuner, so I couldn’t tell what station was tuned in. Authorized tech wanted $75 min. to open the case and 2 weeks to tell me what was wrong. At that price, a new tuner was a better deal, so I opened it up and found a thin plastic shell behind the tuner panel holding a single tiny burnt-out LED. New one was $1.29 at Radio shack, installed with just a few inches of electrical tape. Still works 8 years later.
I am a ‘Resident Easy Technician’ at Staples. I’ve been doing this for about two years, since the EasyTech program was initiated. I have never, EVER been coached or encouraged in any way to upsell any customer in any way. Sure, we offer add-ons & accessories, but are trained to NOT hardsell the customer. Of course, our free tuneup offer is designed to drive business and get customers into the store. The analyzer does scan for virii/malware and identifies such. I offer to remove the malware for a fee of $89.99 (as advertised) but also tell them that they can do it themselves. I believe this story (if true) is an isolated case. I take great pride in my work and would never cheat a customer, even if coached by management to do so. There are a great many honest and respectable service techs in ‘big box’ stores all around the world. By the way, I probably qualify as a senior citizen in some circles. I just turned 56.
I live in Waltham! The staff there are pretty incompetent, I didn’t even know they had a service tech repair center (I only find myself there for an occasional deal on blank media). I signed up for a basic Staples reward card there, which entailed just filling out a sheet of paper with my address, etc. And the guy at the front desk was all confused and he had to juggle another customer with calling management to answer a basic question I had about the card. Also, regionally, Waltham is pretty hard-times. My two cents
Back when I worked at Best Buy (before Geek Squad) it was always about sell sell sell. We weren’t there to fix anything. We were there to bilk customers for every red cent we could get out of them. Fixing the computers came secondary.
Its still all about the $ figure on the tote-board even now that its Geek Squad.
take your PC to a local shop if you can’t find someone who’ll do it for a free meal. At least the local shops are in business to fix things.
Michael – you are truly awesome.
My father is 77 and lives with us, and I am always scared about what people might try to pull over on him.
Thanks for looking out for the old guys!