For years, Best Buy’s Geek Squad has offered to enter customers’ homes to install, troubleshoot, or teach people about their new electronic devices. With the rising popularity of the connected home, such a service seems all the more useful. Not one to be left on the sidelines, Amazon is getting into the installation and education business when it comes to their own connected home devices, setting up a house-call showdown of sorts between the e-commerce giant and the brick-and-mortar electronics retailer. [More]
installation
Tesla Shipping Model X Owners Sunshades To Fix Windshield Glare
By 6.9.16
Just weeks after Tesla began shipping its long-anticipated Model X SUV, the new owners began expressing concerns over several quality issues including a windshield that distorted oncoming headlights and street lamps and allowed too much heat to enter the vehicle. Today, the electric carmaker is trying to fix one of those issues by shipping sunshades to owners. [More]
House Fire Survivor Waits Over A Year For IKEA Contractor To Finish His Kitchen
By 5.6.16
When a big retailer like IKEA refers you to a specific contractor, that means they’re pre-screened and you shouldn’t have any problems, right? Not necessarily. In California, a man who just wants to move back into his house after a fire and a significant remodel has been waiting for more than a year for IKEA’s contractor to just finish his kitchen already. [More]
Google Drops Free Fiber Option In Kansas City
By 4.11.16
Ever since Google began providing the residents in Kansas City the option of signing on for its Fiber service in 2011, the tech company has offered a hard-to-refuse deal: pay a one-time installation fee, and you get internet access for free – in some cases up to seven years. But it looks like the almost-free ride is over. [More]
Amazon Home Services Is Really About Selling Appliances Through Amazon
By 3.30.16
At first, it seemed like Amazon Home Services, the Everything Store’s site where you can hire anyone from a car mechanic to a guitar instructor to a dog groomer, was just a money-making opportunity to connect customers and local providers. That wasn’t Amazon’s plan all along, though: now that the marketplace exists, it means customers buying large appliances or other heavy and complex items can hire someone to install or assemble it with one click. [More]
Amazon Expands Local Services Marketplace To 15 New Cities
By 7.22.15
Despite a pending lawsuit claiming it stole provider lists from rival service marketplace Angie’s List, Amazon announced today that it would expand its upstart Amazon Home Services to 15 new cities, offering consumers a place to find local service providers for repairs, installations and other jobs around the house. [More]
![Amazon Home Services' coverage area. [Click to enlarge]](../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/screen-shot-2015-03-30-at-10-57-27-am.png?w=300&h=225&crop=1)
Amazon Officially Launches Program Connecting Customers To Local Service Providers
By 3.30.15
Amazon’s quest to touch every aspect of consumers’ lives continued today as the company rebranded and officially launched a program connecting customers with local service providers for repairs, installations or other jobs around the house. [More]
Comcast Service Center Gets Same Shoddy Installation Work That Customers Receive
By 9.5.13
Over the years we’ve heard too-numerous stories from Comcast customers about shoddy work performed by installation techs, though we had always assumed that these techs would dare not do such a slapdash job inside a Comcast office. We were apparently mistaken. [More]
14 Months After Delivery, Sears Still Won’t Actually Install Dishwasher
By 4.18.13 — Updated: 4.29.13
Lots of people happily hand-wash their dishes because they don’t want a dishwasher. That’s not the case for one California man, who has washed his dishes by hand for more than a year even though he wants and can totally afford a dishwasher. In fact, he, um, had a dishwasher the whole time. It’s just that when he bought it from Sears, they sort of half-installed it and wandered off, and he couldn’t get anyone at Sears to help him. [More]
Comcast E-Mail Rep Needs A Lot Of Words To Say 'I Have No Power To Help You'
By 8.6.12
Tired of waiting around on hold when she called Comcast, Susan decided to just send them an e-mail with what she had to say. What she had to say to them was “Hey, why did you charge me $64 too much for installation?” The e-mail representative she talked to had an answer to this question: taking four hundred words to say, “I dunno, take some time off work to go to your local Comcast office and maybe they can give you a refund.” [More]
Research And Determination Made Lowe's Fix My Carpets
By 5.9.12
A few years ago, Justin had workers from Lowe’s come install carpet in his house. After the warranty on the work had expired, the carpet began to stretch out in high-traffic areas. Even though he’s not a professional carpet installer, Justin does have extensive experience with walking on floors, and knows that’s not how it’s supposed to work. He researched possible causes, learned that it was due to an installation error, and tried to get Lowe’s to admit their mistake and fix the problem. Here is the exciting plot twist: they did. [More]
Verizon Won't Install FiOS Until You Email The CEO
By 4.24.10
This is actually a happy story, despite my inability to write cheerful-sounding headlines, so pay attention if you’ve ever been told that your whole apartment complex can get cable/FiOS/whatever, but you can’t because you are special and not allowed to be happy. You’d be surprised at how many letters we get from people who have this problem. One such person, Andrew, Consumerist Reader, decided to email the CEO. [More]
These Antenna Installation Instructions Are Surprisingly Specific
By 3.29.10
I am typing this post with a digital TV antenna stuck in my ear, and all because nobody told me that this wasn’t the right way to install it. Ow! Apparently Antennas Direct of Missouri knows that there are people like me out there, because they’ve included some very specific warnings on their installation instructions (PDF). (Thanks to Billy!) [More]
Verizon Hold Times Inspire Song On M.I.A.'s Next Album
By 1.12.10
According to Rolling Stone, when M.I.A.’s new album comes out later this year, there will be a track on it called “I’m Down Like Your Internet Connection”–and it will feature “Filipino Verizon workers singing the hook.” [More]
Why Is Sears Being So Sneaky On This Dishwasher Rebate?
By 12.4.09
On Black Friday, Sears offered free installation on select Kenmore dishwashers in the form of a rebate coupon. The coupon is pretty simple to understand as far as these things go–buy one of the listed models, and Sears will pay for the installation. According to William, however, the listed model that he wanted remained out of stock only for the duration of the coupon. When he asked Sears to honor it the next day, they agreed to–but then after he bought the dishwasher they told him he had broken a nonexistent rule and therefore had voided the coupon. [More]
Best Buy: All The Appliances In Your House Must Break 4 Times Before We Replace Them
By 10.5.09
James Lileks bought some fancy-ass Electrolux appliances from Best Buy. Unfortunately. they’ve turned out to be a bit of a headache. Mr. Lileks thought perhaps since he was a valuable customer who bought fancy-ass items, Best Buy would help him out and swap the problematic dishwasher for a more reliable cheaper brand (turns out that that the washer’s control panel is susceptible to moisture, of all things.) He was wrong. They’d rather keep fixing it. Over. And Over. And Over.
Geek Squad Will Plug In Your PS3 For Only $130
By 9.21.09
A Kotaku tipster notified the video game blog that Best Buy’s Geek Squad is offering what can only be described as the deal of the century. Something even better than that awe-inspiring CD ripping service.
Comcast: You're Too Far Away For Cable But Your Neighbor Isn't
By 9.14.09
Attention: A satisfied Comcast customer has written to this website. Sadly, reader Kevin is now being denied the delicious shivery pleasure of Comcast’s services — because his new house is 600′ too far away.
