Reader Kevin forwarded us this story from Dave, a I.T. consultant friend of his who helps people with their computer problems in exchange for hardware donations to the school he works at. Dave’s “propane guy” said he recently took a desktop computer to Geek Squad after it failed, and “great Geek Squad guys were AWESOME and had been able to retrieve all of his family pictures for him,” before selling him a new laptop. Dave offered to take a look at the desktop and try to retrieve the rest of the important files– the “7 years of QuickBooks 2005 data” that Best Buy wasn’t able to save, but when Dave opened up the computer he says he was surprised to see that someone had cut some important cables.

I get the computer to my office and this is what I find:
1) Geek Squad cut the wires from the power supply to the motherboard plug so the power supply is worthless.
2) and a stick of RAM has been stolen from the second blue slot.
3) Geek Squad cut all of the IDE cables!
4) The Crown Jewel – Geek Squad broke the power connector off of
the Hard Drive controller.

Maybe it was innocently, maybe it was maliciously, maybe to hide the fact that they hosed the drive. I’m going with malicious until I can solder on a connector and get these peoples data back…

I’m so hacked at Geek Squad I can’t even express it right now.

Obviously, this story isn’t coming from the computer’s owner, but we’ll pass along some advice anyway. We don’t see any reason why the owners of this computer shouldn’t consider filing a small claims lawsuit against Best Buy for the damages. Here’s some information about what small claims court is, and how it works. In addition, the owners should file a report with their attorney general and/or department of consumer affairs. We wouldn’t hesitate to contact the local police and let them know that someone may have vandalized the computer.

Geek Squad [Kevitivity]
(Photo: Dave Baker )

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