BIT-101 [2003-2017]

I know I’m probably boring some of you to death and you just want me to stop my whining. Others are following the story though, and I can’t let them down on this latest exciting installement. Besides, this episode even has a chase scene!

So I had mentioned that I had written the CEO of Best Buy, Brad Anderson. Actually, I wrote him twice. He didn’t answer, but Jill Nezworski, Senior Executive Resolution Specialist, did. Here’s what she had to say:

Dear Keith Peters:

Thank you for contacting Mr. Brad Anderson at the Best Buy corporate office. Mr. Anderson's office has received your email and has forwarded it to my desk for review and response. I appreciate the opportunity to respond to your concern.

First, I was sorry to read of the difficulties that you described with the repairs performed on your Toshiba notebook. I understand that it is frustrating when an item requires repair, especially a laptop. I reviewed your service history and understand that you have three previous repairs that would qualify under our No Lemon policy. However, after running tests on the unit again, we do not feel that the unit has a hardware issue; rather software related. As you are aware, software is not covered under our Plan so this would be a billable service.

However, in recognition of your frustration with the delays and customer service, Best Buy will make a one-time exception. If you wish to have the restore completed by the Geek Squad, please send me a copy of the paid invoice and I will reimburse you for this service. My direct fax number is (XXX) XXX-XXXX and please put this case number on any correspondence XXXXXXXX.

Thank you again for contacting Best Buy. We appreciate your business and hope to serve you better in the future.

And here was my response:

Jill, Thank you for responding. However, this is unacceptable. The computer was working fine. Then it failed to power up. It went in for a hardware repair and they replaced the motherboard. I brought the pc home and it did not work correctly. It was reporting a "hardware conflict" when it tried to boot. I brought it straight back to the store.

1. This is not a software issue. You have already acknowledged it was a hardware issue by changing the motherboard. If this is a software issue, it is a something that was caused by the work you did.

2. The way they want to handle this is to reformat the hard drive. This is not "fixing a software issue". This is a last ditch effort when you don't know what else to do. A far more logical solution would be to put another hard drive in the pc and see if that still has a problem. Or, put my hard drive in another working pc, and see if it works in that.

3. They don't even know if reformatting the hard drive will work. They want to do this to rule out any software issues before they send it in for more hardware repairs.

In other words, they don't really have any idea what is wrong and they want to reformat the hard drive as an experiment, AND they want me to pay for this.

Simply saying that you will reimburse me for this after the fact is not a solution.

I have a call in to Mr. Chris Sipprell of Best Buy, who was the recommended person to contact listed on the Better Business Bureau's web site. If this doesn't get resolved soon, I will be filing a complaint with them.

What I want is hardly unreasonable. I want to be able to push the power button on my computer, have it boot up and stay running. It did this just fine before the motherboard died. I expect it to be returned to me in the same state. Is that too much to ask?

After a couple more smaller exchanges, I got this:

Hi Keith: I talked to our Geek Squad lead and they verified with two different systems that this is not hardware related. This is in fact a software issue and the restore can be done by yourself or if you would like, the store can perform it for $59. Again, I will reimburse you for this charge as a goodwill gesture. However, this is our position at this time.

Thanks for your time. Jill

There’s no way I’m going to pay them $59 to stick a cd in a slot, push “enter” and sit back and drink a cup of coffee while it reformats and copies the OS. So I go down to BestBuy and get my pc. The guy prints out a receipt and asks me to sign it. It says:

I, Keith Peters, recognize that repairs have been performed in a manner that is satisfactory to me.

I say there is no way I am signing that. He says, “Well then I can’t let you leave the store.”

You can imagine my reaction. I picked up my laptop, said goodbye and walked out. He chases after me and calls the security guards, who stop me at the door, and refuse to let me leave. So, I edit the form to reflect my actual level of satisfaction with the service, sign it, and leave. I suppose I could have pushed it until it became something physical, or the police were called, but I’m really not that confrontational.

I bring the pc home and pop in the Toshiba restore disk that came with the pc. Boot into the CD Rom drive, it asks me if I want to restore the pc to its original factory settings. I say yes. It wipes everything, reinstalls everything, and reboots.

When it reboots, I get this error message:

ERROR

Resource Conflict – PCI Network Controller on Motherboard

Bus:02, Device:02, Function: 00

Press to resume, to Setup

I press F1 and it boots into Windows, then goes into this screen for a few minutes:

Then it freezes. Mouse, keyboard, everything just dead. Just like before.

I leave it exactly like it is, don’t even close the cover. Bring it straight back to Best Buy, tell the guy exactly what happened. (Same guy who chased me down.) Show him that it is frozen.

Can you guess what he does?

He offers to reformat the hard drive and reinstall the OS, all for the low price of $59!!!

I explain again, that I just REINSTALLED THE DAMN OS. I then press the power button and reboot it in front of him. It goes back to the second screen above. Resource conflict. I calmly explain that that is not a software error. He looks a little befuddled, goes into setup and pokes around. Finally decides the BIOS needs to be reflashed or updated. He’ll jump right on it at 7:30 am tomorrow when he gets in.

So, we are officially on our sixth trip to the repair shop. No doubt they’ll find some reason to disqualify me from the no-lemon policy again. God forbid they replace their defective merchandise.

Anyway, looks like we’ll have yet another episode to the story. Stay tuned!