Geek Squad: Sorry We Accidentally Hosed Your Motherboard. Here's A Vastly Inferior Replacement
Geek Squad tried to repair a broken fan in Brian’s Sony laptop, but somehow managed to instead break the laptop’s motherboard, processor, and much of the internal cabling. Though Geek Squad replaced all the damaged parts, Brian soon realized that the laptop’s new processor was slower and cheaper than the original model…
Geek Squad only fessed up to installing an inferior chip after Brian got Sony on the phone to confirm that they didn’t use the replacement model in their laptops.
Brian writes:
A couple of months ago, I brought my laptop to my local Best Buy for repair. After being told it would be no more than two weeks before I had my laptop back, I left the store content. The only problem with the laptop when I turned it in to Geek Squad was a cooling fan that was starting to go bad.
A month and half later, I finally got my laptop back. They had replaced the cooling fan, the motherboard, the processor, and most of the cabling. Apparently, I was told, they had inadvertently damaged the motherboard and processor during the repair of the cooling fan. That’s a kind of silly mistake, but I can forgive them for it. However, they replaced my processor with a model that was inferior to the one the laptop had in it to begin with. The laptop had an Intel T7500 processor, they replaced it with a T7300. It took several days of arguing with them. I finally had to call Sony (they manufactured the laptop) and get them to confirm that the laptop had indeed had a T7500 processor in it.
Eventually Geek Squad agreed to fix the mistake. However, I can’t help but wonder how often this type of “mistake” happens. By replacing my processor (which they damaged) with an inferior T7300 model, they saved about $100 on the repair. Your average consumer would never have caught this “mistake.” I’ve been searching message boards to see if anyone else has had a similar problem and have thus far not found anything exactly like my situation. However, there is an overwhelming amount of negative comments regarding Geek Squad’s service.
(Photo: dooleymtv)
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