During a recent trip to Best Buy to purchase a new laptop, Kristene was pleasantly surprised. She discovered that what our anonymous employee tipster told us in the post “Employee: Best Buy Scrambling To Clean Up Optimization Mess” is true, and customers at at least one Best Buy aren’t being forced to buy optimized computers.

The catch: they have to know to ask.

Last night I bought a new laptop at our local Best Buy and my experience absolutely matches what the anonymous employee described in this article.

I busted my HP laptop’s screen last September (I’m widely known as a total klutz), and I’ve managed to scrape up enough money over the past few months to buy a new one. I had read this article last week, and so armed with information, I went to Best Buy. Although I wasn’t specifically looking for a new HP, I found a great deal on one. We asked the saleswoman if they had any in stock that had not been optimized, and she took a look in the back and there were none.

When she came back to tell us this, she immediately told us outright that since we did not want an optimized machine, we could have any one of the optimization fees waived. We chose one that had just had restore discs made – it was the least touched out of all of them – and went to the Customer Service desk to pay. A manager had to come over to override the fee, but I had absolutely no trouble getting the fee waived.

We wiped the system last night and did a clean install (the restore discs turned out to be totally useless), and now I am writing to you from my new computer. I’m glad I didn’t have to fight with anyone about getting the fee waived, and overall it was a really good buying experience. We had no trouble finding someone to ask about the machines, and everyone was super friendly.

This story happened in Florida. Let us know if you’ve had a similar (or completely different) experience while making a purchase at your local Best Buy.

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